I would say that once we understand the meaning and also etymology of "method," we find that the idea doesn't make much sense — Leontiskos

When I was talking about method, I meant something consistent with this definition: Method - a systematic procedure, technique, or mode of inquiry employed by or proper to a particular discipline or art.

I meant to say earlier, I quite like this idea. — Srap Tasmaner

I like it too, it's catchy. I'll think about it more but I'm not confident it will be a fruitful path to follow.

When you turn to the social sciences, there are additional impediments to a scientific approach. The sciences of the past (history and archaeology) face unavoidable limitations on what can be observed. If instead you're studying the present, there can be difficulties with observation ― political science has to rely on polling, which presents enormous challenges, and other sources like voting data, which can be difficult to link with other sources of data, and still other sources like economic surveys. No one in the social sciences ever has nearly as much data as they would like, and what they would like is informed by theorizing that is perforce based on the limited data they can get. It's hard. You can design some pretty clever experiments in fields like psychology and linguistics, but economics and sociology are generally forced to make do with "natural experiments" (and in this they are more like astronomy and cosmology). — Srap Tasmaner

This is well expressed, and I agree with what you've written. I think another reason for the problem is that the observational sciences always deal with complex, interactive, even chaotic systems. In physics you can pare away all the extraneous stuff and deal with very fundamental elements.

Our colloquial understanding of "science" does seem to prefer the natural sciences to the social sciences. — Leontiskos

I think you're right about how many, perhaps most, people see this. I think it's because the epistemology of physics is different, has to be different, than psychology as it was historically practiced. Psychology has depended more on statistical truths, introspection, and observation rather than measurement. That's changed to a significant extent. The fact that people don't recognize cognitive science as part of psychology are falling for the fallacy your quote above expresses. This doesn't mean that old style psychology isn't still valuable, worth studying, and real science.

There are people, some here on the forum, who believe that geology is not a real science for some of the same reasons they don't think psychology is.

So I don’t think we are saying much differently here about reality. I agree that the world as presented in my mind is constructed by my mind using the “world out there” and my mind “in here” as its raw materials to make the construction presented in me. — Fire Ologist

Yes, I think we are in agreement.

So to be more precise, the vast, vast majority of reality can only be known indirectly (half out there and half in here), but I can know that I exist directly and absolutely (out there IS in here at once). I am a part of reality (like the out there), and I can know this (in here is now out there). Descartes actually said something. “I am” is absolute knowledge, to me. Further, I now directly can conclude “certain absolute knowledge also is real, because I know ‘I exist’ certainly and absolutely.” So ‘I am’ and ‘certain knowledge is’ are two absolute truths about reality, known by my own direct access to the objects now known, namely, my existence, and my knowledge of this as knowledge. — Fire Ologist

Sure, although I've always thought Descartes' formulation is so limited as to be almost useless. It doesn't really tell me anything interesting. I understand you disagree with that.

So if we are to claim any knowledge at all, regardless of the degree of certainty we believe it may have, we must have set something absolute before us to distinguish this knowledge from the thing it certainly or uncertainly knows. — Fire Ologist

I don't understand this, but I'll probably disagree with it once I figure it out.

But knowing thyself is a small lonely science, (maybe until you admit this “self”, which is real in the world, is a mixture, requiring interaction with the “out there” as it forms “in here” during its self-reflection/thinking/perception. — Fire Ologist

I strongly disagree with this. I don't think you can know out there without knowing in here. I've been contemplating the idea that philosophy only deals with in here while science deals with out there. Let's not go into that here.

There is no wall between different aspects of reality, but there is a wall between different aspects of how we think about that reality. Physics and my family are both parts of reality, but I don't generally use the same words to describe them.
— T Clark

This all describes one reality (as far as I can tell). You agreed with Tom who said there are multiple realities, based on multiple perspectives and frameworks.
But here you say “There is no wall between different aspects of reality.” That points to only one reality.
Above you said “The world is half out there and half in here.” That is one whole reality as well.
Here you say “ Physics and my family are both parts of reality…” — Fire Ologist

You're right. I was careless with my language and I misunderstood you criticism of what I said. I took @Tom Storm's "What we encounter instead are multiple realities, each intelligible through particular conceptual frameworks or perspectives," as meaning the same thing as my "there is a wall between different aspects of how we think about that reality." Perhaps that's not what he meant. Tom?

I'm wondering if the issues I'm discussing are still within the scope of this discussion. If they're not, I'll buzz off and bring it up somewhere else.

I'm also interested in such views' rise in popularity as a historical phenomena. When the positivists began attacking metaphysics, I hardly think post-modern pluralism was the goal they had in mind. — Count Timothy von Icarus

My understanding of metaphysics grows directly out of my reading and contemplation of the works of Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu and related works. My understanding of epistemology grows out of 30 years as an engineer where my primary job was to know things, know how I know things, and know how certain I am about the things I know. To call these "post-modern" is a stretch. Or is it? Is pragmatism related to post-modernism? "Do what works" could be seen as a pretty pluralistic position.

the dangers herein only began to become apparent to many when the political right also adopted the post-modern stance, leading to all sorts of concerns about a "post-truth" world. — Count Timothy von Icarus

My take on a pragmatic approach is that the fundamental issue is not truth, but rather what action should I take next. That doesn't mean truth isn't important, but I see it as one tool among others that help address the primary goal. Within that more limited scope, I think all the normal questions we ask and issues we address about truth are still relevant. In that context, I think rigorous standards for truth are important. Again, I think this discussion probably belongs in a different thread.

I'm not sure what this example is supposed to demonstrate. — Count Timothy von Icarus

It's intended to demonstrate that methods are not true or false, they are effective or not.

How does this play out for the assertion of a distinct "Aryan physics" as set against a degenerate "Jewish physics?" Or a "socialist genetics" as set against "capitalist genetics?" — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'll restate my acknowledgement that my "all metaphysics is epistemology" remark was quick, off-the-cuff speculation. I wonder, but I don't know, whether it is worth following up on.

As for mixing politics with truth, i.e. you question about Aryan vs. Jewish physics, it's pragmatism again - what works. Even if conflicting political approaches to metaphysics and epistemology maintain high standards for establishment of truth, it is often decisions about what questions to ask that demonstrate where political differences lie. That's an issue I've been thinking about starting a thread about for a while.

I agree with that. Except maybe the reality associated with our own existence. But that’s a small, lonely piece of being. — Fire Ologist

I guess we're on the same page except I don't see "the reality associated with our own existence" as small or lonely. I think it's half of everything. The world is half out there and half in here. This is one of the primary insights I've gotten from my participation in philosophy. I recognize that many or most people don't see it that way.

, nor can we claim any definitive knowledge of what reality ultimately is.
— T Clark

This itself is knowledge.

I think we have knowledge. I think some of it is absolute, but that as an honest scientist, we should be skeptical of its absoluteness. But as a person, interacting with other people, we claim absolute knowledge between each other all of the time. Otherwise in all disagreements we should all be saying “you might be right” and in all agreements we should all be saying “we might both be wrong” but people are not so agreeable as that at all. — Fire Ologist

Yes, agreed, we have knowledge. Is some of it absolute? To me "absolute" means without uncertainly at least in this context. I don't know anything without uncertainty and I suspect you don't either.

Multiple encounters and perspectives and frameworks keep it interesting, as does reality itself keep us interested. But why leap to the conclusion that some kind of wall separates one reality from another, when the distinction could be seen as two different ways into the same forrest? — Fire Ologist

There is no wall between different aspects of reality, but there is a wall between different aspects of how we think about that reality. Physics and my family are both parts of reality, but I don't generally use the same words to describe them.

Could you explain what "ownership" means? — Patterner

Here's how I think about it. Keep in mind that I don't claim any scientific truth to this. I don't know what goes on in a baby's mind.

Babies when they are a few months old seem to be fascinated by their feet. Sitting in a stroller they keep reaching out and holding them. At that age, their hands seem to be the primary way in which they interact with the world, so they recognize them as part of themselves. In my imagination, one day, the baby touches his feet and realizes that the feelings he has are coming from the feet. That leads them to the amazing realization that those feet are actually part of him.

That's how I see ownership - recognition that something is part of your inside world, you, and not the outside world.

I'm also wondering about "meant". That sounds like it was the plan, which I don't assume you meant? — Patterner

I guess my wording is imprecise. The subject on the table is whether consciousness actually does something or if it's just along for the ride - an epiphenomenon. When I said "consciousness is meant to give the affected organism ownership of it's mind" I only meant that is the value, or at least one value, of consciousness to the organism. That doesn't address whether consciousness actually provides the motive drive for action. I suspect it doesn't, but I can't give you any specific evidence for that.

If there are no true ontological positions, in virtue of what are some methodological positions true (or false)? — Count Timothy von Icarus

First of all, I specifically asked @Tom Storm not to tell anybody about this.

Also, I tossed this out as an impulse. I’m not at all certain I even believe it is a useful way of thinking about things.

From what I’ve seen of your posts, I don’t think you really think this is a very interesting idea. I think you think of metaphysics more strictly than I do.

To answer your question, I can boil water in a kettle or I can put it in a cup and heat it in a microwave. Is one of those methods true and the other false?

My own tentative view is that we do not access reality directly, nor can we claim any definitive knowledge of what reality ultimately is. What we encounter instead are multiple realities, each intelligible through particular conceptual frameworks or perspectives. The pursuit of a single, foundational, unifying reality strikes me as superfluous in that it overlooks the plural and interpretive nature of our engagement with the world. — Tom Storm

You have summarized the fundamentals of my personal metaphysics.

I'm not sure anyone on this site actually defends materialism as a full-blown worldview, though they may draw from some of its strands and influences. — Tom Storm

My argument is not so much against a commitment to materialism, but rather to any all-encompassing metaphysical system. It does seem to me that most people on the forum see one particular metaphysical system as right and all the rest as wrong. Do you disagree with that.

What seems more prevalent today is a commitment to methodological naturalism - the stance that scientific inquiry should proceed without invoking supernatural explanations - rather than metaphysical naturalism, which asserts that only natural, physical entities and processes exist. The former reflects a pragmatic stance, informed by an awareness of the limits of what can be known, the latter is a stronger ontological claim, one that is itself subject to philosophical scrutiny. — Tom Storm

This makes sense to me. It set me thinking... Don't tell anyone else I said this, but I wonder if there are really no true ontological positions, only methodological ones. It's not what is real, it's where and how do we look.

One metaphysical position does not, can not, address all of reality. We need to use different ones in different situations.
— T Clark

I don’t know if I agree with that. — Fire Ologist

If I had to list the five beliefs that best represent my understanding of philosophy, of reality as understood by humans, this would be one of them. If you don't buy it, there's not much more to say. You certainly aren't alone.

I am making the grossly imprecise observation that if materialism was correct, — Fire Ologist

Here's what Collingwood wrote about absolute presuppositions which are, roughly, metaphysical positions:

Absolute presuppositions are not propositions. This is because they are never answers to questions; whereas a proposition is that which is stated, and whatever is stated is stated in answer to a question. The point I am trying to make clear goes beyond what I have just been saying, viz. that the logical efficacy of an absolute presupposition is independent of its being true: it is that the distinction between truth and falsehood does not apply to absolute presuppositions at all, that distinction being peculiar to propositions. — R.G. Collingwood

I recognize he's not the clearest of writers but it comes down to this - metaphysical positions are not true or false, therefore materialism is not true. You've already indicated you don't find this idea convincing.

I’m not a materialist. My brother is real. His atoms will never explain, or be useful to demonstrate, his sense of humor. — Fire Ologist

I'm sometimes a materialist, sometimes not. Depends on what I'm doing. One size metaphysics does not fit all.

But if “everything is collocations of atoms, ensembles of balls of stuff,' or that 'things are what they are made of,’” what does my brother really add to a scientific discussion of things? What point of view isn’t reduced to its matter? What does point of view matter, apart from its material cause? — Fire Ologist

I'll go back to my quote from Collingwood:

Metaphysics is the attempt to find out what absolute presuppositions have been made by this or that person or group of persons, on this or that occasion or group of occasions, in the course of this or that piece of thinking... — R.G. Collingwood

One metaphysical position does not, can not, address all of reality. We need to use different ones in different situations. With electrons we talk about mass and velocity. With our brothers we talk about history and personality.

To systematically exclude sound and smell is to abandon a motive of "common sensibles." If one were motivated by common sensibles there would be no reason to systematically exclude two of the senses. — Leontiskos

Seems to me they were excluded for a practical reason - sounds and smells don't generate easily measurable properties. Beyond that, I guess it probably also represents a metaphysical principle. I think all science, and human thought in general, has a bias toward sight over other senses, i.e. it is considered more fundamental.

I thought you would pick it up, but I’m referring to the famous Fifth Solvay Conference, 1927, which introduced quantum physics to the world, and undermined the pristine certainty of classical physics as a truly universal science. — Wayfarer

I responded:

That would only be true if physics represents a more fundamental reality than phenomena at larger scales. — T Clark

I want to change that - That might only be true if physics represents a more fundamental reality than phenomena at larger scales.

To start, I'll echo what many other's here have said - really good OP. Clear, well-written, and interesting.

One problem with almost all discussions of consciousness here on the forum is the failure to define just what is meant by the word "consciousness." Different people mean different things, which almost always leads to confusion. Since you haven't really done so, I'll offer this one from "Feeling and Knowing: Making Minds Conscious" by Antonio Damasio.

...there is an essential meaning of the word “consciousness,” one that contemporary neuroscientists, biologists, psychologists, or philosophers can recognize, even though they approach the phenomenon with varied methods and explain it in different ways. For all of them, more often than not, “consciousness” is a synonym of mental experience. And what is a mental experience? It is a state of mind imbued with two striking and related features: the mental contents it displays are felt, and those mental contents adopt one singular perspective. Further analysis reveals that the singular perspective is that of the particular organism within which the mind inheres. Readers who detect a kinship between the notions of “organism perspective,” “self,” and “subject” will not be wrong. Nor will they be wrong when they realize that “self,” “subject,” and “organism perspective” correspond to something quite tangible: the reality of “ownership.” — Antonio Damasio

I think this highlights one of the most important aspects of consciousness. It's not a little guy sitting up in our brains pulling the levers. It's a complex interaction among mental processes and it doesn't just do one thing. It participates in the entire system of mental processes. There isn't a one to one correspondence between a specific conscious experience and a specific behavior. In Damasio's view, consciousness is meant to give the affected organism ownership of it's mind. That makes sense to me.

I thought you would pick it up, but I’m referring to the famous Fifth Solvay Conference, 1927, which introduced quantum physics to the world, and undermined the pristine certainty of classical physics as a truly universal science. — Wayfarer

I thought it might be that, but I wasn’t sure.

As for your post, it’s not clear to me that the discontinuity between the classical and quantum worlds is as profound as you, and I assume most others, think it is. That would only be true if physics represents a more fundamental reality than phenomena at larger scales. I don’t see things that way.

Or so it seemed, at least until 1927. — Wayfarer

Don’t be opaque.

But is mathematics observable by our senses? — Leontiskos

No, but properties are and properties, measurements, are required for mathematics.

I responded to this in my previous post, on which I neglected to include a link.

Galileo and Descartes made the crucial conceptual division by proposing that physical science should provide a mathematically precise quantitative description of an external reality extended in space and time, a description limited to spatiotemporal primary qualities such as shape, size, and motion, and to laws governing the relations among them. — Thomas Nagel, Mind and Cosmos, Pp35-36

This is my understanding also, probably because we got them from the same source. I think this is a good answer to @Leontiskos question about whether an emphasis on properties and one on mathematics contradict each other.

Imagine discussing your brother, sitting next you in a chair, with a materialist philosopher and a biologist - you could spend an eternity counting his cells and atoms and all of their functions and motions and the organs and how they interact with each other and track electrical impulses and measure the shape of the face as it “smiles” and endorphins and serotonin level changes, and on and on, and never start the actual conversation about your brother. That is what materialism, like the hard problem, will always have to avoid discussing. (And ironically, you could just ask your brother to explain if he was not too insulted by all of the experiments.) — Fire Ologist

The issues we are discussing are metaphysical. In "An Essay on Metaphysics" R.G. Colling wrote

Metaphysics is the attempt to find out what absolute presuppositions have been made by this or that person or group of persons, on this or that occasion or group of occasions, in the course of this or that piece of thinking... — R.G. Collingwood

What I take from that is we use different points of view depending on what we are talking about. We use different ones when we are talking about electrons than when we are talking about our brothers.

Apparently there are two modern emphases you are bringing out. One is an emphasis on common sensibles, and the other is an emphasis on mathematics and mathematicization. What's curious is that they seem opposed. — Leontiskos

I'll go out on a limb here based on my limited reading of the history of science in the 1600s. Looking at reality as made of of things with physical properties was a new idea in that period. Physical properties are only observable by our senses. Mathematics depends on measurable properties. Otherwise it wouldn't have anything to operate on.

Another great OP. I think you are probably the most erudite poster on the forum.

My question then would be: what makes materialism so appealing and intuitive? Why is the idea that 'everything is collocations of atoms, ensembles of balls of stuff,' or that 'things are what they are made of,' intuitive? — Count Timothy von Icarus

I was an engineer and I've always had a strong interest in science. I started out from materialism but have developed a more nuanced philosophy from there. I think the simple answer to your question is that materialism is not intuitive at all except to a specific limited group of people in particular locations and time periods. Perhaps it is the least intuitive metaphysical position.

Materialism is intuitive because our "internal model" or understanding of the world as a three-dimensional space filled with extended bodies in motion is reinforced by several senses, not just one. Size, shape, texture, local motion, etc. come to us through sight, hearing, touch, the vestibular sense, etc. Intensity of odor even seems to reveal at least something of spacial location. Taste is experienced at different locations on the tongue. — Count Timothy von Icarus

This sounds like the kind of discussion that started taking place in the late 1500s and early 1600s - Kepler, Copernicus, Descartes, and, as you note, Galileo. As I understand it, they were new and radical ideas then - again, not intuitive at all. I am aware that it was also discussed, as you note, by philosophers in ancient Greece.

Another problem here is that there is no prima facie reason to think smallism is true. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Another simple answer - it's not true, it's metaphysics.

The point here is that, once we understand why materialism is so intuitive, it is unclear if we should trust this intuition. In particular, much of what we know about how the senses work, and how they developed, might undermine how much faith we put in these intuitions. — Count Timothy von Icarus

The uncertainty of all knowledge is a well-plowed field in philosophy. I guess I would be considered a pragmatist. As I see it, uncertainty is an issue that has to be addressed in any philosophical system that claims to be of value.

Yet do we have any reason to think the world is truly, objectively, more like a string of symbols than a diagram? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Perhaps you might consider this naive or shallow, but I ask whether we have any reason to think the world is truly anything in particular. Again, it's metaphysics - a way of thinking, a perspective - not immutable truth.

Aside from appeals to terms like "informational strong emergence," which seems to be more an appeal to magic or another love/strife or Nous type "x factor" than anything else... — Count Timothy von Icarus

I strongly disagree with dismissive statement about emergence. Let's not take that up here.

...there seems to be absolutely no way to get most of human experience back into the mathematized cosmos (even as mere epiphenomena). How does something compute so hard it begins to feel, for instance? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Isn't this just the hard problem, which you and others have discussed in this thread? I don't find it a very compelling argument. Again, I'd rather not take that up here.

Taking your discussion as a whole, the first thing that came to mind was the definition of what is real and what is not - another issue the forum has discussed many (many) times. It seems clear to me that what is considered real is not a matter of fact. We can define reality as anything we want depending on our preferred metaphysical stance. The position I find most congenial is one that recognizes that "reality" isn't really anything at all unless it's connected to our everyday human lives at macroscopic scale. I think my perspective looks a bit like yours and doesn't necessarily contradict it, but comes at it from a different direction.

It seems to me - no, I can't provide specific evidence or references - the first, or at least the most fundamental - reality is food, tools, homes, and people. Everything else we encounter can be seen as developing out of and connected with those basic elements. How can something be considered real if it doesn't affect our human lives? I think that's materialism of a sort and I think it represents a humanizing force in our thinking rather than an alienating one.

Do you agree with this speculation? — Linkey

Here’s the telling phrase in your post - “As far as I know…” if you’re going to speculate like this, it’s your job to have done the research, to have the knowledge, required so that “as far as you know” is further along than it seems to be in this case.You haven’t provided any evidence or shown us you have any particular experience or expertise in this area.

More a poem than an essay. Which is ok. Poems can be good philosophy.

I assume "she" is your soul, although that's not clear.

I recognize your approach is impressionistic, but I admit I don't know what you're trying to tell, or maybe show, us.

I think the preface to the Phenomenology of Spirit is probably the most famous part of the book. Also the least accessible, which is really saying something. Apparently it was written in a hurried draft as Napoleon was bearing down on the city. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Avoiding reading prefaces represents a character flaw, one of my many. I acknowledge that.

Thanks.

It's crazy to me that people never read prefaces. — Jamal

I understand the utility of a preface. It can help the reader to begin with an introduction and basic points of what the work will be about. But this is the precise reason I want to skip them. I'm afraid that the preface will give me one interesting idea, and I'll end up with a completely different one. — javi2541997

I’d like to say that my reasons for skipping prefaces are as thoughtful and reasonable as Javi’s. Fact is, I’m just too effing lazy.

OK, you’ve talked me into it.

It’s not that I don’t want to read them. I’ve already read a few. It’s just that it makes it hard to keep track of what’s on the front page.

If I remember correctly, there is a way for us to turn off these essays so that we don’t see them on our front page. Can you remind me how that works please. — T Clark

@Moliere

Do you have a response for me on this? It’s not that I don’t think the essay submittals have value, it’s just that they really overwhelm everything else on the front page. If it’s not something that can be dealt with just say so please.

Often prefaces start with i then ii, then iii and so on and you have to read 20 pages before you get to the first page — Hanover

I wasn’t aware that anyone had ever actually read the preface to any book.

If I remember correctly, there is a way for us to turn off these essays so that we don’t see them on our front page. Can you remind me how that works please.

So what conclusions can we draw from this? Nothing obvious jumps out at me.

Another solution would be to dispense with the word, "true" as a descriptor of knowledge. Knowledge would be justified beliefs, and beliefs are justified by both observation AND logic. Beliefs would only be justified by one or the other, or neither. Knowledge requires confirmation from both. — Harry Hindu

I agree with the first sentence. With the rest of it, you lost me a bit.

A shame. — Banno

Our lovely, sweet, passive-aggressive Banno.

Yep. Not an uncommon move. Is it justified? Is there a difference in kind here? — Banno

I do think there’s a difference in kind, but to tell the truth, I don’t really care about what it means to know how to do something. At least not in the context of philosophy.

This is my cross examination, not your chance just to share. — Hanover

The truth? You can't handle the adequately justified belief!!!

I object Your Honor. The counselor is badgering the witness.

I object. That's incompetent, irrelevant, and immaterial.

I rest my case.

More to the point, I wasn't sharing, I was defining my terms, providing context. Now you can agree or disagree with that.

So we have two things:

A = justified true belief
B = justified belief

You propose we assign the word "knowledge" to B ( instead of to A).

What word do you now propose we assign for A? — Hanover

I normally use the term "adequately justified belief" to describe knowledge as it is used in daily life. "Justified true belief" doesn't mean anything, at least nothing useful.