Advice or anything valuable or not valuable for me?

What was the last decision you made? Why did you make that decision and how did you make that decision? What led up to you making that decision?
How much control do we have over ourselves? Did you control how and when you were born? The environment you were raised in? How about the the particular way your body is formed and how it functions? Are you your body? This stuff goes more into materialism, the way every atom of the universe as some relation to each other and our being is just a reflection of this happening and that there is not anything outside of it.
If you believe in an All knowing and all powerful god. He knows your future. It does not matter in compatibilism if you feel that you have agency, all of that agency and desire is brought out by your relation to the external world and you internal world. Your internal body and the external world are two sides of the same coin. If god is all knowing, you can not say that he just knows all possibilities, no, he has to know which choices you are going to make or else he does not know. It also does not matter if he limited his power to not see the future, because he still made the future and that does not just go away by forgetting about it to test people.
A fixed past I think guarantees a fixed future. With the aspect of cause and effect and every particle relating to one another will lead to a certain outcome because we are talking about everything in the universe at once.
We can not process this. We even battle about our differing perspectives and perceptions of the world we live in. There is no ability for us humans to objectively know everything, it is impossible for us to be objective because we are in it, not just a product of the universe we are the universe. Every choice you ever made is backed upon the billions of years of cause and effect since whatever we think started time.
This thinking is silly in many aspects to apply to human ethics because human ethics are place by our illusion of free will and our miniscule perception of reality. It is easier and more effective at least for right now to believe we have free will. It does not mean we have free will, it means we have no capacity to go beyond the illusion.
However, determinism might also mean there is no real meaning to any of this. Everything just is, and that is it.
It could also lean into the idea of universal conscious, could at a universe sense, at the Monism perceptive and scale that is a form of free will? I do not know. It does raise a point about how we identify "ourselves". Self, if self is just a bunch of chemicals directed by cause and effect in a materialist world then there is no "self" in how we normally acquaint it with. Who we think we are is just a manifestation of the entire universe. There is no individual self. We are all one thing. If you wanna go the religious route that could be Pantheism in which we are all god. Does that lead to having a universal type of free will? Or is that too still an illusion because free will requires agency and breaking it all down the universe seems to have no agency in the way humans view things.
The universe as I said before: Just is... and that is it.
There are also theories of a "block universe" where time is its own dimension in which all time exists simultaneously, and we only perceive time linearly because we can only perceive things as a process of order to disorder, or because we are in space fabric our minds can only process one coordinate at a time. But our birth is still there, our death exists right now as well.
In the end I think we need humility to say "we really do not have control over anything in the way we think" and perhaps we just do not know or have the capacity to know what we wish to know.
Hope you thought this was interesting, let me know what you think.

Suppose that you see Linda go to the bank every single day. Presumably this supports the hypothesis H = Linda is a banker. But this also supports the hypothesis H = Linda is a Banker and Linda is a librarian. By logical consequence, this also supports the hypothesis H = Linda is a librarian.

Note that by the same logic, this also supports the hypothesis H = Linda is a banker and not a librarian. Thus, this supports the hypothesis H = Linda is not a librarian since it is directly implied by the former.

But this is a contradiction. You cannot increase your credence both in a position and the consequent. How does one resolve this?

Presumably, the response would be that seeing Linda go to the bank doesn’t tell you anything about her being a librarian. That would be true but under Bayesian ways of thinking, why not? If we’re focusing on the proposition that Linda is a banker and a librarian, clearly her being a banker makes this more likely that it is true.

One could also respond by saying that her going to a bank doesn’t necessitate that she is a librarian. But neither does her going to a bank every day necessitate that she’s a banker. Perhaps she’s just a customer. (Bayesians don’t attach guaranteed probabilities to a proposition anyways)

This example was brought about by David Deutsch on Sean Carroll’s podcast here and I’m wondering as to what the answers to this are. He uses this example and other reasons to completely dismiss the notion of probabilities attached to hypotheses and proposes the idea of focusing on how explanatorily powerful hypotheses are instead

EDIT: Posting the argument form of this since people keep getting confused.

P = Linda is a Banker Q = Linda is a Librarian R = Linda is a banker and a librarian

Steps 1-3 assume the Bayesian way of thinking

1. ⁠⁠I observe Linda going to the bank. I expect Linda to go to a bank if she is a banker. I increase my credence in P
2. ⁠⁠I expect Linda to go to a bank if R is true. Therefore, I increase my credence in R.
3. ⁠⁠R implies Q. Thus, an increase in my credence of R implies an increase of my credence in Q. Therefore, I increase my credence in Q
4. ⁠⁠As a matter of reality, observing that Linda goes to the bank should not give me evidence at all towards her being a librarian. Yet steps 1-3 show, if you’re a Bayesian, that your credence in Q increases

Conclusion: Bayesianism is not a good belief updating system

EDIT 2: (Explanation of premise 3.)

R implies Q. Think of this in a possible worlds sense.

Let’s assume there are 30 possible worlds where we think Q is true. Let’s further assume there are 70 possible worlds where we think Q is false. (30% credence)

If we increase our credence in R, this means we now think there are more possible worlds out of 100 for R to be true than before. But R implies Q. In every possible world that R is true, Q must be true. Thus, we should now also think that there are more possible worlds for Q to be true. This means we should increase our credence in Q. If we don’t, then we are being inconsistent.

I may be completely confusing terminology here so please correct me if this makes no sense. but I came across these claims relating to climate models:

'there is no factor controlled experiments, so causal attribution isn't possible' and 'they are simply not useful because they can't experimentally control for factors. they are not useful in the slightest regarding what they are portrayed to be useful for.'

How would we go about assessing these claims?

I have a number of issues with the default treatment of quantum mechanics via the Copenhagen interpretation. While there are better arguments that Copenhagen is inferior to Many Worlds (such as parsimony, and the fact that collapses of the wave function don’t add any explanatory power), one of my largest bug-bears is the way the scientific community has chosen to respond to the requisite assertion about non-determinism

I’m calling it a “supernatural” or “magical” claim and I know it’s a bit provocative, but I think it’s a defensible position and it speaks to how wrongheaded the consideration has been.

##Defining Quantum indeterminism

For the sake of this discussion, we can consider a quantum event like a photon passing through a beam splitter prism. In the Mach-Zehnder interferometer, this produces one of two outcomes where a photon takes one of two paths — known as the which-way-information (WWI).

Many Worlds offers an explanation as to where this information comes from. The photon always takes both paths and decoherence produces seemingly (apparently) random outcomes in what is really a deterministic process.

Copenhagen asserts that the outcome is “random” in a way that asserts it is impossible to provide an explanation for why the photon went one way as opposed to the other.

##Defining the ‘supernatural’

The OED defines supernatural as an adjective attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature. This seems straightforward enough.

When someone claims there is no explanation for which path the photon has taken, it seems to me to be straightforwardly the case that they have claimed the choice of path the photon takes is beyond scientific understanding (this despite there being a perfectly valid explanatory theory in Many Worlds). A claim that something is “random” is explicitly a claim that there is no scientific explanation.

In common parlance, when we hear claims of the supernatural, they usually come dressed up for Halloween — like attributions to spirits or witches. But dressing it up in a lab coat doesn’t make it any less spooky. And taking in this way is what invites all kinds of crackpots and bullshit artists to dress up their magical claims in a “quantum mechanics” costume and get away with it.

Hi everyone, I don't know if this is the right subreddit, but I'd like to ask a question about a formal definition of Merge, since English is not my first language: Merge(P1,…, Pm, WS)=WS’=[{ P1,…, Pm}, …]. Given that WS=Workspace, Merge is targeting the elements P1,…, Pm within the WS giving as an output WS', that contains the set { P1,…, Pm}. So, my question is: what is the meaning of Pm? Why it's not Pn instead? And why the letter P and not X is used here?

Thanks for help, I really need to understand a paper. Excuse me if it's a dumb question!

This question will involve concepts in quantum mechanics.

So unless you believe in many worlds theory, certain outcomes out of a series of outcomes occur. But there seems to be a hidden assumption that one of the other outcomes in that series could have occurred at any particular instant.

This assumption seems to be because of the lack of a hidden variable (usually deterministic theory) that explains why a certain outcome occurred in quantum mechanics.

For example, in the double slit experiment, each photon arrives at a particular point on the screen. A radioactive atom decays at a particular time t. These are said to occur for no further sufficient cause. But even if there is no cause for that decay time or the exact point at which the photon arrives at the screen, how do we know that any of the other outcomes could have occurred?

And if we can’t know this, in what sense do we know that they were possible? It seems to me that the notion of what’s considered possible is more dependent on what we consider to be similar to actualized outcomes in our mind rather than some sort of knowledge that we have about reality.

At the same time, I’m not sure how we could “prove” other possible outcomes since we can only ever see one actualized outcome. So is the very notion of possibility an unfalsifiable presumption?

I was reading some Popper, and find you the idea, that at a first glance seems counterintuitive, that there is no such a ting like pure observation, in doing science and formulations theories we don't do the path data->model(or theory), but, according to popper, the pathway a priori-> data -> a posteriori theory, that seems very consistent whit bayesian inference. According to me this type of path is the true one, for 2 main reasons:

1. you can produce finite amount of observation, so you can find some more useful, and this utility is related to your model of the world (in toto).
2. when you produce observation you assume some models for the functioning of measure systems (take for example you want to test the IQ, so you assume that the IQ test function in a certain way and so the observation must be consistent whit this model). What you think about this idea, there are modern philosophers that argue it wrong? There are some examples of theories that don't function like this?

What I mean by this is that suppose we have a bunch of outcomes that occur amongst a range of outcomes. These outcomes never seem to be outside this range, but each outcome seems to be unpredictable from what our current knowledge is. For example, suppose we have an initial condition A, and all subsequent outcomes are either one of B, C, or D, and they all occur with equal probability (I.e. 1/3)

Now, imagine as if we have no decisive evidence either way as to whether there is a deeper explanation or theory that tells us why at each step of this process the outcome B, C, or D occurs.

Now, “apriori”, is there an explanatory advantage that a potential theory would have over the notion that there is no theory and that all the outcomes just occur with no deeper cause? At first, it did seem so in my head. If there was a theory that told us why a particular outcome occurred, or using quantum mechanics as an example, a theory that showed why a certain atom decays at a particular time, it seems to make that particular outcome have a probability of 1 and the others 0.

However, one can always ask the further question: why is there a theory that results in C instead of a theory that results in B? We are now again left with something to be unexplained.

So, it seems as if there is no advantage of determinism over indeterminism apriori. Of course, if we had evidence for a deterministic theory, then it seems obvious that it has an advantage: since the evidence would suggest that it is true. But I’m mainly interested in whether or not there is some sort of in principle advantage determinism has over the lack of it.

I’ve worked through some portions of the SEP article and intend to work through all of it, but I’d also like to read some more focused material.

It’s alright if I have to start at very introductory stuff.

My interests are basically all of it. If I was forced to give an area, I’d say foundations.

I just want some philosophy of mathematics texts (serious ones, not pop science), that I can work through as I earn my maths degree.

I also have the Princeton Companion.

Any recommendations would be appreciated!

Hello everyone!

I'm currently doing a small essay for the subject "Philosophy of Science" and as we are free to choose the topic, I was thinking about the relation between the No Alternatives Argument and the Bayesian theory. I'm reading a book that intends to use the Bayesian Theory to validate the NAA.

Even though I can understand the authors idea, I think that it changes the way we conclude the hypothetical theory we are building.

Using the NAA, we conclude affirming that we accept the given conclusion because until that moment, no refutation or alternative conclusion was presented. Looking at it with the Bayesian theory, we would say that we conclude that the conclusion is the more likely to be true or that it has a higher credibility because no refutation has been presented until now.

So in the first case, we accept it and in the second we accept its probability, right?

​

I hope my questions are not confusing. I would like to ask if you think its a good idea to relate this to theories (the NAA and the BT) and if there's any core points I should mention, in favor or against it, in your opinion :)

​

Thank you all and good studies!

Essentially, what would be the main arguments of a falsificationist against the Kuhnian critiques of Popperian science?

I dont understand how they can be fully compared, as falsificationism seems to be more of a prescribed method of science (primarily the individual scientist), whereas Kuhn's ideas seem to focus on a descriptive general trend of the scientific community. It's like arguing about two different things?

TL;DR:

1. Science describes and explains empirical phenomena;

2. Explanations to quench human curiosity about the world are the main goal of science;

3. There is no science where no explanation is attempted;

4. A Scientific Theory is a generator of explanations;

5. To explain is to describe relationships;

6. Facts are describable, relationships are only explainable;

7. Relationships are abstract, not substantial;

8. A whole has substantial and relational parts;

9. Attempts at describing relationships (i.e., explanations -- including in science) are always tentative, never certain or absolute, BECAUSE of the immaterial nature of relationships.

While, to scientific communities with a higher degree of consensus, these topics might be of little relevance, to the social sciences they are conclusive in important respects and the text discusses that and other developments.

For further debate, I offer the following thoughts:

I take it "Theory" should not be used as a simple explanation or grouping of hypotheses. I propose 'Theory' refers to a set of ideas (including here assumptions and accumulated knowledge coming from simple observation) and concepts (in the mind of the cognoscitive subject) that, upon "receiving" the adequate information (collected through a method) on certain phenomena, "treats" them (analyzing with a method) and "produces", based on its concepts, revealing data, which, when analyzed and combined, "generate" coherent explanations about the phenomena (or, less frequently in the case of the social sciences, predict them by assuming empirical conditions that enable their predictions). That is, a theory functions as a generator of explanations (which obviously depends on the activation of a cognoscitive subject to mentalize it, enabling them to investigate and generate explanations).

To put it another way, theories are composed of presuppositions about reality, strategic and accumulated inductive and deductive knowledge of it (including any laws perchance posited) and a cast of abstract concepts associated with a terminology. The role of theories in science, therefore, is that of enabling and guiding the scientist regarding (1) the perception and processing of data, (2) the production of new information and, by combining all the previous items (theoretical assumptions, data, new information), (3) the generation of explanations.

Although it is one of its essential characteristics that it may come to produce explanations as described in this definition, it is only a potential, its typical purpose, and the theory need not be effectively used to generate explanatory theses; it is also useful for operating descriptions of the objects of the science in which it originates – the descriptive theses. Therefore, a theory is a scientific cosmology, a view of the world, a way of perceiving and interpreting it that, necessarily, can be used to generate explanations about it, besides, of course, to describe it. That is, theories are used to answer a wide range of scientific questions and always bring a world-view and model of the underlying reality – these are part of the "set of ideas, assumptions, and concepts" referenced in the above definition.

As for "knowledge", I propose it be understood as (1) faithful and unsuspected accounts of sensory data, (2) deductions based on them, and (3) beliefs (including inductive ones) in the form of justified or reasonable propositions, corroborated by experience and credible (verisimilar) when assessed through certain cultural elements related to criteria of rational rigor. In the case of beliefs converted into knowledge, contemporaneously they are usually produced through theories and made preponderant and official by the leadership of the scientific community and the power relations it inspires on its continent collectivities (often a charismatic power, based on conviction, the ability to convince). In so being, one cannot confuse knowledge with justified and true belief, since this category contains a very limited number of objective or deductive statements about the world, with little instrumentality and does not come even close to encompassing all that is colloquially reputed as knowledge.

Visiting for a moment a metaphysically higher level of abstraction, it is necessary to deal briefly with the concept of truth, albeit in a simplified and partial way. Truth is the idea that (A) corresponds perfectly to reality at a given moment or period of time or (B) is confirmed imaginatively from a strict, logical or tautological, deductive consequence, which is demonstrated to follow from the premises, in the field of ideas. The first case is of particular concern to science. Human beings do not have direct access to reality and cannot even know with certainty if reality exists externally to them. The human senses, which allow empirical experience, irrespective of any natural or artificial improvements considered possible, can only be trusted or not trusted, but do not necessarily provide an adequate way of probing reality. In order to be possible, science or any other attempt to know the world, the senses (and also the memory, which indicates the confirmation of past experiences as objective) are endowed with relative confidence as ways of investigating an external reality that is supposed to exist. These are the two main basic assumptions of any intellectual activity aimed at exploring and knowing the world, which is defined as empirical for this reason (as memorized and experienced, of the experience of the senses).

Explanations operated on the basis of theories are the main product of science, alongside the practical applications that the detailed descriptions of reality provided by these theories allow engendering. Also for that reason, the distinction between explanation and description is central to an adequate understanding of scientific activity.

This distinction is less in the approach and more in the target or focus (not to say object): what is described are facts devoid of any illustration or interpretation and that which is explained are relationships. That is why, in any science, to describe is to stick to the facts and explaining invariably means to go beyond the facts and to probe about how they are related – it is the same difference between -graphies and -logies, an inferential exercise, but not purely logical nor even rationally justified. Distinguishing proposition from information is also useful to deepen this understanding: an explanation may be true or false, because it is a proposition, a statement about the world; a description, on the other hand, being information, is simply an objective perception (as much as possi-ble) of the world, translated idiomatically. Any description is a verbal enunciation, written or spoken, of a set of perceptions about objects and/or events. When descriptions are accompanied by impressions, subjective transfactual elements (whether abductive, evaluative, etc.), they become personal accounts and lose their maximally objective character.

The act of explaining is defined as a function of the act of describing as follows: explaining is de-scribing relationships – every explanation is an attempt to successfully operate such a description, without ever knowing whether it is indeed true to reality. Explanation is a modality or transcendental function of description, in the form of a conjectural attempt of describing undetectable relationships that, in and of themselves, have no substance liable of description. It must be said that, as a cause, any element exists only in function of its relation to an effect – to describe this causal relation would be the same as to explain the process.

At this point, in order to contradict that definition, one should try to demonstrate why any so-called “explanation” does not consist of describing a relationship – but the point, precisely, is that one cannot succeed at this intent while conserving intuitiveness and avoiding simple description. In a statement, if one fails to at least point to a relationship, then they won’t be explaining. Some statements intuitively admitted as explanations are limited to describing some facts and silence about the implicit relationship between them, but the relationship may be pointed out for it is underlying nevertheless. Answers to why-questions are often in the form “I did that because I wanted to” or “that happened because of this”. There are always implicit relationships between the cited objects or events (desire and action in the first case and an even more clear form of causality in the second case) and at times it is needless to discursively describe them because their description is commonsensical.

In stating that explaining equates to describing relationships, it may seem unnecessary to state a definition for "relationship", but a narrow meaning is implied in this assertion. Relationships are either (1) the transmission or provocation of effects between objects and/or events or (2) existential dependencies between objects and/or events, which is to say that relationships always involve cause and effect, are what unite cause and effect, the mode and description of their succession. If A has an existential dependence of B, that means B is a cause for A, whether or not it is sufficient, and that, therefore, they are related. If B transmits an effect to A, it also means they are related, even if B does not directly cause A. That is: when B causes A or provokes an effect in A, they are related. In the context of these definitions, relationships do not include, for example, comparisons. Every interaction (visible) presupposes a relationship (invisible), but not every relationship presupposes an interaction. Relationships are always direct, never mediated, because they themselves are the mediator between objects and/or events. To speak of objects and/or events that cooperate, cumulatively, or compete, re-vokingly, does not imply that they are interrelated, but that they are related in parallel to their respective effects, which may overlap or cancel out each other. In other words, relationships are the non-substantial parts of a whole composed of substantial objects and/or events.

As stated earlier, relationships are invisible, they are not observable facts or events, they are the latent, veiled, supposed, imagined, speculated link between these events or observable facts. Unobservable and immaterial, relationships are not things, cannot be perceived, cannot be deduced without the insertion of sufficient premises in the reasoning through which a theory generates explanations and makes predictions. It is also due to this nature that the "description" of the relationships between the facts would be better understood as "interpretation" of the facts or even "speculation" about the relationship between the facts (both in the human sciences and in the natural sciences). If it were not necessary to go beyond facts to understand relationships, there would be no need for theory or science, only instruments to perceive the world (including those with which one is already equipped from birth), cumulative knowledge and logic to deduce from the facts observed without any assumption. It is because it is not so that science (being the activity of scientists and through them) changes, evolves, errs and believes.

According to this exposition, it is easy to see that a confusion of specific explanations or hypotheses treated as if they were theories often occurs. As a general rule, theories must be anachronistic and not refer exclusively to events of the past, should not be historical in nature. That means, for example, that the claim that there is a "theory" that Portuguese explorers of the sixteenth century brought with them certain diseases to America during colonization cannot be considered consistent with the sense of theory discussed here. This would be just a hypothesis or even a verified belief/conclusion, never a theory – although it serves to explain, for example, the high mortality among Native Americans afflicted by exotic diseases at that time. This would be only a viable explanation for various phenomena, it is not in this sense that it was previously posited that theories generate explanations.

In order to produce explanations, a number of previous analytical procedures often take place, so it is important to differentiate explanation and analysis. Analysis facilitates the explanation by decomposing the objects of study into essential parts or characteristics. Occasionally, if only rarely, the analysis itself is an elucidation of a phenomenon that dispenses its explanation in terms of causal relation.

Slightly different, descriptive and explanatory theses, particularly in the social sciences, obtained through theories, both exceed the observed facts. Descriptive theses are formulated as responses to questions of the type "what is?", not directed at social relationships or phenomena (events), and generally consist of a small variation of the definitions of concepts and their various forms of operationalization (they imply responses such as "it is an ideology”, "it is a collectivity”, "it is a cultural era”, “it is an axiological value”, etc.) . The explanatory theses, in turn, correspond to questions of the genre "how does it work?" and "why does it occur?", in addition to the simpler "what is…", and relate to social relationships or phenomena directly.

Another, more emphatic, way of putting the main idea suggested here is to state that (1) a discipline that deals exclusively with description is not scientific, for science implies explanation; (2) if something is actually and directly perceived, then it is not a relationship, it is an object or an event ; (3) explanations are given exclusively over relationships between objects and/or events, figuring as their would-be descriptions .

For reasons regarding their own definition, relationships are not properly describable. Nonetheless, the effective attempt to describe them is what explanation really is (not in a tentative but in a perfect state, although it may be true or false, unbeknownst to the subjects). This remounts to any kind of relationships – that between people and that between objects and elements of nature alike.

Regarding relationships in nature, physicists usually theorize “forces” to direct or indirectly refer to them, but only the effects of those “forces” or relationships are ever detected or measured, not the relationships themselves (not even through sophisticated instruments). Describing relationships always requires assumptions, therefore there is always a strong theoretical component to it – that is the reason why, for example, physicists have theorized the “forces” of nature differently over time, even though those have always had apparently the same effects. By considering that those relationships in the natural world should be understood as “forces” and by naming them, for instance, “gravity”, Physics is undergoing a process similar to reification because gravity or any other force is not a thing but the effect of a relationship (or the relationship itself). Such careless naming easily makes one believe to be treating something substantial instead of relational, which is a mistake.
The definition of explanation and the whole epistemological basis that accompanies it is universal and independent of the adoption of any theory of any science. When one explains in the strict and intuitive, tacit or conventional sense of the term, one is describing relationships and I suggest that this is inescapable.

These concepts (and axioms), fully understood, greatly alter the debate about the objectivity of science and even the old strife regarding naturalistic tendencies in the social sciences.

Of course, there is an abundance of conviction in apparently obvious explanations of trivial everyday phenomena about which there is no reasonable doubt. There is a tendency to believe that such explanations are not conjectural and that they are blatant and direct products of observation. They never are, however. If someone sees subject A touching a box and moving with it from point P1 to point P2, as if lifting and carrying it, then the cause and effect relationship between the subject, his movement and the movement of the box from P1 to P2 seems clear. But such a relationship is still invisible, transfactual, directly unobservable, intangible, abstract. Even at this apparently concrete and macroscopic level of experience, the movements of subject A and the box that moves from P1 to P2 remain to be related, one to the other, by the observer in an abductive way, even if in a very intuitive fashion. It is true, however, that this would mean the exercise of an elevated mode of metaphysical abstraction over unsuspected everyday events. An extreme and counterintuitive case of the same epistemic principle on the basis of which scientific knowledge and any of its explanations must be rigorously appreciated. This is worth mentioning here only because the absence of this reiteration would probably be pointed out by opponents as an argument against the ultimate consequences of the principle hereby advocated, but it is not. The possibilities of deception can be subjectively considered remote, but they remain possibilities. In cases like the one in this example, just a little imagination is enough, for example, to realize that the possibility of all kinds of optical illusions would need to be eliminated (what if A is a disguised artist of illusionism or the box is with him in a theatre stage?). It is more important to recognize that beliefs with a high degree of conviction or even absolute conviction derived from direct sensory observation but obtained by non-conclusive means (transfactual; conjectures, etc.) say nothing about most scientific theses since it is hardly ever considered that science usually deals with empirical platitudes evidenced by the naked eye.

Imagine I say that "I know that gravity exists due to the gravitational force between objects affecting each other" (or whatever the scientific explanation is) and then someone says "I know that gravity is caused by the invisible tentacles of the invisible flying spaghetti monster pulling objects towards each other proportional to their mass". Now how can you justify your claim that the person 1 knows how gravity works and person 2 does not? Since the claim is unfalsifiable, you cannot falsify it. So how can anyone ever claim that they "know" something? Is there something that makes an unfalsifiable claim "false"?

I have read in several places that Wittgenstein's works presents serious epistemological problems. A few examples :
- I heard he showed that formal axiomatic systems were much less useful than previously thought and wrote about their limitations
- I heard he anticipated several of Kuhn's insights
My current knowledge of Wittgenstein is very limited but I want to learn more. How did he criticize formal axiomatic systems ? Which Kuhnian insights did he anticipate ? Did he uncover other limits to human knowledge and if so what are they ? Thank you !

Not really sure how to unpack this further. I also don't actually have any quotes or anything from scientists or otherwise stating that EP is controversial. It's just something I've read about online from people. Why are people skeptical of EPm

If, according to Gödel, there will always be things that are true that cannot be proven mathematically, how can we be certain that whatever truth underlies the union of gravity and quantum mechanics isn’t one of those things? Is there anything science is doing to address, further test, or control for Gödel’s Incompleteness theorem? [I’m striking this question because it falls out of the scope of my main post]

Is he regarded as a scientific philosopher (or a discredited philosopher)? Do any other philosophers refer to him?

Context: Applied mathematician, computational theorist, modeller. PhD student research in modelling scalable climate change solution.

In the academic field I dabble in, I've come across concepts that seem almost obvious and clearly more advanced than what is currently being used.

For example, there are ways of capturing carbon dioxide that do not require dissolving air into a heated liquid—currently one of the leading solutions to carbon capture. Note: efficacy of all carbon capture systems are bounded by Gibbs mixing energy, which is mysteriously never mentioned by the supposed experts in the fossil fuel industry who claim they're on it.

A system becomes less scalable with the increase in the number of components, difficulty of maintenance/operation, etc. The amount of materials and production of the systems alone seems to never be taken into account. If these systems were going to be used in a time that it would matter, we would most likely need to start mass production now.

There is an exceptionally simple machine that is capable of capturing carbon. It isn't that it's more efficient; it's that it can be multipurpose and passive if needed. The production is outrageously easy—in fact, we have infrastructure already up and running that could be retrofitted to handle the output. However, it can be weaponized. I've seen this mentioned once and only once in an obscure paper from decades ago.

There are other fields that have certain advancements that remain unspoken: genetics, mathematics, computer science. I'm impressed by the morality of those who are well aware of these advancements, who could become exceedingly wealthy if they decided to bring them to life.

My point: Although the vast majority of humanity is well-meaning, it only takes a handful of individuals to cause harm on a mass scale. I know researchers take this into consideration. Normalization of immorality/amorality (severe violations of consent, greed, hatred, lack of compassion, etc.), particularly those in positions of power, has caused more suffering than anyone gives it credit for.

Even seemingly small things such as "trust no one," "look out for yourself," "who gives a shit," "if I don't do it, someone else will," "I hate people," etc., might seem harmless but, I would argue, they contribute to a culture that forces researchers to hold back life-saving advancements.

What can we do? Do you disagree?

edit: the best response from below which encapsulates what I mean is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-overlapping_magisteria posted by u/ronin1066

People often hold hotly argumentative 'debates' on this argument as if one supersedes or is more correct than the other. I think they're more of an Unstoppable Force vs. Immovable Object and too incompatible to compare.

Science:

• Is a method, (not a subject,) encouraging repeated experiments to reach consistent conclusions.

• Changes and encourages changes in doctrine. Gravity has had 3 major revisions (ancient, Newtonian, Relativity) and is actively looking for another. Other scientific fields seek this level of research to replace older doctrine.

• Predicts the future when combined with math. You will know how much fuel you need for a rocket to reach a certain distance or altitude with math, for example.

Religion:

• Written (or spoken) doctrine based on its depiction of events. Doctrine is written (or spoken) and unchanging. (This is in general, as there are revisions and versions of doctrine which I am not an expert on. There are minor changes over centuries or millennia, but in general it is consistent on major depicted events.)

• Faith based on doctrine and is unchanging. (In general) discourages alteration/modification/updates.

• Religion is generally untestable for science. Mysterious observations are explained by deity/deities, especially those which science cannot explain. These are generally applied at the end of known knowledge where the question is asked "why does something occur?" Such as, why are we here, why does the universe exist, or is there life (or other existence) after death.

Replying to this post with any argument of one over the other fails to recognize above points. Bill Nye vs Ken Ham was, in my opinion, philosophically immature. The debate results reflect my statements above where neither Bill Nye nor Ken Ham accepted each other's statements. Religious people may say "doctrine says..." and that is true. Others will say "Science is used by religious people" and that is also true. But they are applied in different ways. Science will recognize and explain patterns, religion will provide prayer (hope) and rules for society (based on doctrine.)

apologies if this is off topic note: i'm not a theologian or scientist, i'm a college dropout stating my opinion on the matter.

When science was based on a firm mathematical ground it made a huge leap forward. This formality not only removed inconsistencies but also allowed it to make new predictions. Is analytic philosophy enjoying the same success? is it or will it become superior to continental philosophy which is more interpretative and less rigorous? why or why not?

Also, what's the difference between science and pseudoscience?

I just had this thought when I read some research, (which I unfortunately can't find anymore, but would be really happy if someone had a link), about the state of the solar system in a 1000 or so years, I can't remember the exact numbers.

Anyways, the point was basically that we have the capacity to calculate the positions of the planets in relation to each other pretty accurately, because the way orbits work is so predictable, but if you moved just one planet a few centimeters it drastically changed the position of every planet in the system after a long period of time.

Now, my point is that tiny changes, changes you'd normally call inconsequential can have a massive impact when trying to research a large system, and so when you round up pi to a 1000 decimals, the system you're observing WILL always eventually become chaotic.

Or when you try to to measure an exact distance between two objects, or an exact mass, or any property of an object, but you can't because "exact" very rarely actually exists, according to our number system.

Obviously I'm not here to give you an answer, if I had one this wouldn't be a problem, just wanted to know if I'm dumb or onto something.

I have read in various places that Thomas Kuhn's philosophy of science present serious epistemological problems and constitutes a limit on human knowledge. I think I understand vaguely why but I want to make sure my understanding is correct, so here it is :
Thomas Kuhn paints a picture of science not as the mere accumulation of empirical results, but as scientists working within paradigms. These paradigms encompass the tools used to study the subject of interest, what counts as evidence, assumptions, the questions we are interested in, etc... When working within a paradigm, what Kuhn coins "Normal science", scientists might rely primarily on their rational thought, empirical evidence, etc...
But what determines whether a paradigm is abandoned or not when errors accumulate is not a rational process. Sociological factors, like a new generation of scientists entering the field with different biases for example, have influence over the process of paradigm shift. This process is value laden and theory laden and is not scientific or rational.
So if I understand correctly this represents a hard limit for science because it is impossible to get rid of subjective perceptions, values, biases and sociological factors from science. Science will always have a degree of bias which makes it less reliable, there is no such thing as perfectly neutral science.
Is my interpretation correct ? Is there another way in which Kuhn's work represents a limit on human knowledge ?
Thank you

How do you guys define time? I never really understood the concept of time. Isn't time just another name for causality?

How do you differentiate time and causality?

What are the properties it has in describing phenomenons? What are the views of the origins of these properties?

Hey y’all!

I’m looking for some critical feedback on a syllogism I came up with pertaining to philosophy of science. Let me know what you think :)

Definitions:

• Ethic: Moral philosophy or theory.
• Anthropocentric: Human-centric, humanistic, or egocentric (contrasted with ecocentric).
• Anthropic: Of, by, for, and/or observed by humans. (Plagiarized from my limited understanding of the work of Brandon Carter & Nick Bostrom.)

Note: The first premise is the most contestable in my opinion, and I am not even convinced of its truth myself. That said, I don’t think it’s necessary for the argument to work (but it does strengthen it if the other three premises are indeed true).

The Syllogism:

1. Mind, consciousness, psyche and the soul are [useful] social constructions […edited to: for the ‘subjective quality’ of being].
2. There’s no veritable ethic.
3. All ethics are anthropocentric.
4. All ethics are anthropic.
5. Therefore, there’s no veritable anthropocentric anthropic ethic.

[Edited explanation:] The implication of this conclusion, in my opinion, is that biocentrism is the only truly ethical anthropic moral philosophy. Aristotle’s denial of nature’s integrality to human sustenance via energetic and material flows, I would argue, has sanctioned the anthropocentric environmental degradation observed in the world today. I would additionally argue that this environmental degradation has been a staple of human civilization since long before the advent of written history. Thus, we will require a biocentric (or at least zoocentric) moral philosophy in order to achieve a sustainable future.

Thank you so much for reading, and I hope you found this thought provoking.

I'm no physicist but it's hard to ignore the idea that the observer affects the manner in which an electron behaves. That's the crux of it, despite being convoluted with high level math equations. Perhaps I'm wildly misinterpreting it.

I know there are a lot of pseudo scientists who champion quantum woo. But are there any legit philosophers and/or scientists who use quantum mechanics as a justification for their belief in the simulation hypothesis?

What I mean to say is, can there be a claim made in such a way that it cannot be falsified using ANY method? This goes beyond the scientific method actually but I thought it would be best so ask this here. So is there an unfalsifiable claim that cannot become falsifiable?

I've been working on a theory called "Universal Binary" that revisits the foundational binary logic of True/False, proposing instead a Null/Not-Null framework. This approach aims to capture the nuances of potentiality and actuality, offering a richer palette for understanding concepts, decision-making, and the nature of existence itself. It's rooted in both philosophical inquiry and computational logic, seeking to bridge gaps between classical systems and the probabilistic nature of the quantum world. I'm curious to hear your thoughts on how this framework aligns or conflicts with traditional philosophical perspectives and whether it could offer new insights into age-old debates about truth, knowledge, and reality.