Philosophy is for critiquing, without that it loses all sense, and becomes some kind of religion — Janus

Philosophy is not competition, it's co-operative learning. So it's not uncritical, but the criticism is just one part of the inquiry process. Philosophy is not for "critiquing", and it does not depend on it, or its lack, for it to be "sense", I don't think.

This all serves to set up the thesis that science neglects experience and the human perspective when, to the contrary, science has always been grounded in experience and observation. — Andrew M

Science has always been grounded in observation, I admit. But "the human perspective"? Science explicitly rejects the human perspective, and aims to observe impartially, in an unbiased manner. No human perspective there.

The authors address that exact point, with reference to Hempel's dilemma — Wayfarer

Yes, I read the article. The problem, as I see it, is the move from the insufficiency of current explanations to the positing some form of fundamental dualism, as if without, say, consciousness or God, the world as we know it could not exist.

Incidentally nobody has taken a shot at an alternative term for 'lived experience'. — Wayfarer

"Experience" works just fine. "Lived experience" doesn't say/tell us anything additional to what simply "experience" would tell us.

Science has always been grounded in observation, I admit. But "the human perspective"? Science explicitly rejects the human perspective, and aims to observe impartially, in an unbiased manner. No human perspective there. — Pattern-chaser

There's a belief that humans can be impartial/unbiased, at least in conjunction with each other. That's not rejecting human perspective. It's seen as a feature of the human perspective.

I'm not saying I agree that we can be impartial/unbiased, but the view that we can and should be isn't actually rejecting the human perspective.

But observation does, that is irrefutable. — Wayfarer

I'm positive that StreetlightX explained to you at least once before (I can't recall the thread, but I know I read it not too long ago) that observation/measurement in the sciences does not imply human observation or human actions. It simply refers to interaction with other things.

Good luck getting that through to a skull thickened by years of woo mongering about this rather elementary point.

We're clearly not apes. — Wayfarer

It may not be the point at issue but let's be correct. We are, unequivocally, apes and there's nothing wrong with that

"A hominoid, commonly called an ape, is a member of the superfamily Hominoidea: extant members are the gibbons (lesser apes, family Hylobatidae) and the hominids. A hominid is a member of the family Hominidae, the great apes: orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees, and humans."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hominidae

The problem is, the truth conditions and semantics of our physical ontology, i.e. our enumeration of 'what things exist', is defined in terms of publicly observable criteria that are definable in terms of third-person subject predicates, where the "third person" is generally the response of a measuring instrument; for example a physicist might say "The presence of an electron here is confirmed by the presence of this white streak in the bubble chamber". As a consequence, our physical ontology has no direct experiential interpretation, that is to say physics is epistemically irreducible to first-person experience - contrary to the hope of phenomenalism.

Unfortunately, to many this suggests that physics must also be metaphysically irreducible to experience - which is nonsensical given that first-person experience is the tribunal upon which all claims of existence are judged.

I'm positive that StreetlightX explained to you at least once before (I can't recall the thread, but I know I read it not too long ago) that observation/measurement in the sciences does not imply human observation or human actions. It simply refers to interaction with other things. — Terrapin Station

Do you mean that tools as extentions of our experiencing make the observation? This would still be empirical, or? And it would be human action? Or are we talking about observation collapsing the superposition?

Science has always been grounded in observation, I admit. But "the human perspective"? Science explicitly rejects the human perspective, and aims to observe impartially, in an unbiased manner. No human perspective there. — Pattern-chaser

We can't reject the human perspective. Our observations for example are time and location bound. IOW they are made from primate bodies who experience time not as another dimension (all at once) but as unfolding. The observations are thought about/interpreted by brains that imagine and model based our sensory and motor systems and metaphors based on the perspective inherent in this. There may well be other ways that we experience that affects fundamental aspects of our observations.

Do you mean that tools as extentions of our experiencing make the observation? — Coben

No. The idea is that any interaction functions as an observation or measurement. That's contra the conventional, colloquial connotations of those terms, but that's how those terms are used in a physics context.

Science has always been grounded in observation, I admit. But "the human perspective"? Science explicitly rejects the human perspective, and aims to observe impartially, in an unbiased manner. No human perspective there. — Pattern-chaser

There's a belief that humans can be impartial/unbiased, at least in conjunction with each other. That's not rejecting human perspective. It's seen as a feature of the human perspective.

I'm not saying I agree that we can be impartial/unbiased, but the view that we can and should be isn't actually rejecting the human perspective. — Terrapin Station

We can't reject the human perspective. — Coben

No, we can't, or maybe shouldn't, reject the human perspective, but science does, and it does so actively and intentionally. It is not possible to reduce humans to unbiased/impartial observers without also getting rid of the human perspective: the way humans look at things; the point of view of a human. Adopting a human perspective is to adopt a biased and partial way of looking at things. How could it not be? And why is that wrong, if it is wrong? :chin:

So do you disagree that there's a common belief that humans can be impartial/unbiased, at least in conjunction with each other?

No, we can't, or maybe shouldn't, reject the human perspective, but science does, — Pattern-chaser

I can't see how, for the reasons I mentioned. Science is based on our observations. Our observations have to do with us beings that, for example, experience time as unfolding, rather than all at once. Our observations are coming through limited beings - both in space and time - and are biased because of this. Scientists can try to eliminate many factors, but they can never know what biases are created simply by being limited, time bound creatures. It is an empirical epistemology, dependent on our experiences. And this is not to say they can't manage to find out all sorts of stuff or that science is merely subjective. But we cannot eliminate all that it being we who do the science will have certain biases.

Alot of two-bit philosophy of science would be cleared up were people to call 'observation' in science by its proper name, measurement. That a convenience of grammar is elevated to a proposition of metaphysics is an indictment on the stupidity of a great deal of humanity.

So do you disagree that there's a common belief that humans can be impartial/unbiased, at least in conjunction with each other? — Terrapin Station

No, I don't. We can (sometimes) act thusly. But when we do, we necessarily set aside our 'human perspective', which is the biased and partial way we (generally and usually) look at the world.

No, we can't, or maybe shouldn't, reject the human perspective, but science does, — Pattern-chaser

I can't see how, for the reasons I mentioned. Science is based on our observations. Our observations have to do with us beings that, for example, experience time as unfolding, rather than all at once. Our observations are coming through limited beings - both in space and time - and are biased because of this. Scientists can try to eliminate many factors, but they can never know what biases are created simply by being limited, time bound creatures. — Coben

Human bias and partiality is not limited to the limitations of our senses. Bias also stems from our opinions and beliefs. And what else is the 'human perspective' if it isn't (at least in part) our opinions and beliefs? [It's what you said too, but as well not instead.]

No, I don't. We can (sometimes) act thusly. But when we do, we necessarily set aside our 'human perspective', which is the biased and partial way we (generally and usually) look at the world. — Pattern-chaser

I'm not asking if you agree with the belief. I'm asking if you agree that there is such a belief, whether you agree with the belief or not.

I'm asking if you agree that there is such a belief? — Terrapin Station

So do you disagree that there's a common belief that humans can be impartial/unbiased, at least in conjunction with each other? — Terrapin Station


No, I don't. — Pattern-chaser

Here are a couple examples of a belief that we can eliminate bias:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2917255/

https://baselinesupport.campuslabs.com/hc/en-us/articles/204305695-Avoiding-bias-in-qualitative-data-analysis

Do you agree that those are examples of the belief?

And if we acknowledge that we have just built a model of what we experience, then we can't use that model to say what we are made of and what we can or cannot do, because it is not a model of ourselves, it is a model of what we experience. — leo

Experience, which is "the practical contact with and observation of facts or events (OED)", is implicit in any scientific model. And that "practical contact" can itself be modeled scientifically.

In a general sense, there's the world, and there are separable systems within the world, from particles to human beings to galaxies, that we can seek to describe, explain and interact with. It takes a human (or similarly sentient being) to experience and model that world but there's nothing preventing the modeling of the modeler themselves.

As it happens, some of the interesting work and discussion in QM foundations at the moment is on Wigner's Friend scenarios which investigate the consequences of measuring the measurer.

As I see it, the puzzles of experience are front and center in science rather than neglected.

ALl due respect, you're not appreciating the point being made. As we have discussed philosophy of physics many times, think about this in relation to the Bohr-Einstein debates. Einstein was a convinced realist who believed exactly that physics should provide a grasp of sub-atomic phenomena 'as they are in themselves'. It was Heisenberg (so, the Copenhagen interpretation) who said that 'What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning.” Einstein debated Henri Bergson in public forums about exactly the question of 'experiential time'. And the scientific view, by purportedly arriving at a quantitative understanding of the primary qualities of phenomena, does indeed aspire to what Thomas Nagel has described as 'the view from nowhere', which, I contend, amounts to the absolutisation of knowledge. This is why the discovery of uncertainty (which you solve with respect to the belief in 'many worlds') is such a big deal! — Wayfarer

Yes, these are all philosophical disputes about how to interpret the science. But one can take a realist position while rejecting characterizations such as "phenomena as they are in themselves" or "the view from nowhere".

I will sign off with the quotation of the concluding paragraph of the article:

To finally ‘see’ the Blind Spot is to wake up from a delusion of absolute knowledge. It’s also to embrace the hope that we can create a new scientific culture, in which we see ourselves both as an expression of nature and as a source of nature’s self-understanding. We need nothing less than a science nourished by this sensibility for humanity to flourish in the new millennium. — Wayfarer

So this seems like a radical call to ... do what we're already doing now!

Or am I missing something?

This all serves to set up the thesis that science neglects experience and the human perspective when, to the contrary, science has always been grounded in experience and observation.
— Andrew M

Science has always been grounded in observation, I admit. But "the human perspective"? Science explicitly rejects the human perspective, and aims to observe impartially, in an unbiased manner. No human perspective there. — Pattern-chaser

No, science implicitly depends on the human perspective. A referee in a football match, for example, can be impartial and unbiased but nonetheless has a human perspective.

I'm positive that StreetlightX explained to you at least once before (I can't recall the thread, but I know I read it not too long ago) that observation/measurement in the sciences does not imply human observation or human actions. It simply refers to interaction with other things. — Terrapin Station

Things interacting with each other is not observation, by any stretch of the imagination. If it is accepted in philosophy of science, that things interacting with each other qualifies as observation, then I think science, which derives its reliability through strict rules of "observation", if it follows this philosophy, has a serious problem.

Alot of two-bit philosophy of science would be cleared up were people to call 'observation' in science by its proper name, measurement. — StreetlightX

This might solve the problem if philosophers would recognize that human beings use tools to make measurements, and tools do not make measurements on their own. If philosophers of science continue to assume that instruments make measurements, like some claim that instruments make observations, rather than the fact that human beings make measurements using instruments, then the so-called "two-bit philosophy of science" will continue unabated.

Things interacting with each other is not observation, by any stretch of the imagination. — Metaphysician Undercover

You're thinking of the conventional colloquial definition of the term. Think of it as a sound applied to interaction.

Observation is a noting of information. Interaction is a reciprocal action. It may be the case that all observations are interactions, but not all interactions are observations.

"A hominoid, commonly called an ape, is a member of the superfamily Hominoidea: extant members are the gibbons (lesser apes, family Hylobatidae) and the hominids. A hominid is a member of the family Hominidae, the great apes: orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees, and humans." — Baden

I understand perfectly well that h. sapiens is classified as a primate, and the line descended from a common ancestor of other ape species. However I also believe that when we became a language-using, story-telling, and rational being, then we crossed a threshold that separates us from other species. This separation is precisely what is often occluded in the appeal to Darwinian theory. I am not alone in that belief, it was also the view of the co-discoverer of the principle of natural selection, Alfred Russel Wallace, as described in his chapter Darwinism Applied to Man. This is also the subject of a current title, The Human Instinct: How We Evolved to Have Reason, Consciousness, and Free Will , Kenneth Miller.

Furthermore, neo-darwinism as an intellectual outlook or quasi-philosophy is strongly associated with just the kind of scientific materialism that is the subject of the criticism of this essay. It is also the target of the 2012 book by Thomas Nagel that I mentioned previously in this thread, Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False.

So the appeal to humans as simply being apes is biological reductionism, which purports to solve many existential and philosophical conundrums by simply dismissing them. It's one of the intellectually stunting effects of current scientific culture on intellectual life. (See the third way.)

am I missing something? — Andrew M

I think you are. ;-)

It takes a human (or similarly sentient being) to experience and model that world but there's nothing preventing the modeling of the modeler themselves. — Andrew M

But there is - which is the reflexive problem of 'the eye not being able to see itself'. We can't stand outside ourselves, or outside reason or thought, and see ourselves. We're always the subject of experience, and the subject is never an object of perception. This is the topic of the paper I mentioned by Michel Bitbol, It is never known but it is the knower - the title more or less serves as an abstract!

science implicitly depends on the human perspective. — Andrew M

You can say that now, but I bet if we had been having this conversation a couple of decades ago, it would have been fiercely contested. And really this whole debate is about making the implicit, explicit.

these are all philosophical disputes about how to interpret the science. But one can take a realist position while rejecting characterizations such as "phenomena as they are in themselves" or "the view from nowhere" — Andrew M

Ah, but can you. I suppose you can just shut up and calculate, but the philosophical issue is still fundamental. That's why many of the books about the subject have subtitles referring to 'reality' or 'the soul of science'.

So this seems like a radical call to ... do what we're already doing now! — Andrew M

Agree! Many scientists are indeed already embracing this perspective. But that doesn't obviate the requirement to spell it out.

instruments make measurements — Metaphysician Undercover

Humans use instruments to take measurements, and create apparatus to make observations. Neither instruments nor apparatus are self-assembling and self-operating, they are constructed devices by definition.

If a satellite travelled for centuries through space recording data on microprocessors, none of that data would amount to information until it was interpreted by a human. That is the difference between 'data' and 'information'.

So the appeal to humans as simply being apes is biological reductionism... — Wayfarer

I don't remember anyone saying we were "simply apes". And I have no idea what that would mean or why it would be reductive. Is there a claim anywhere we can't speak, think, or do things other apes can't? It just suggests to me you're hung up on a hook of your own making on this.

Philosophy is not competition, it's co-operative learning. So it's not uncritical, but the criticism is just one part of the inquiry process. Philosophy is not for "critiquing", and it does not depend on it, or its lack, for it to be "sense", I don't think. — Pattern-chaser

I'm not saying philosophy is competition. I agree it should be cooperative learning. Cooperative learning necessarily involves critique, because without constructive criticism we would never learn anything in any field of endeavour or discipline. I stick to what I said; which is that philosophy is for critiquing; critiquing what we think we know, what our pre-conceived assumptions are and so on. To me this seems elementary.

Neither instruments nor apparatus are self-assembling and self-operating, they are constructed devices by definition. — Wayfarer

Right, if a robot picks up a gun a shoots someone, it's not the robot who committed the murder, but the person who programmed it to do that. Likewise, if a robot picks up a tape measure, and starts extending it beside "reproductive appendages", it is not the robot which is making the measurement. Anyone who thinks that the measurement is somehow more objective because of the involvement of the robot, is extremely naïve.