Boiling point varies with the pressure of the air. Most people would assume you meant normal atmospheric pressure. — Mongrel

Yes, that is what I meant.

So... Is anyone else here going to answer the question?

I've kinda lost sight of how it relates back to the original topic, but what the hey. Maybe if 100 degrees Celsius is defined as the boiling point of water under normal conditions, then God exists, and we can call it a day.

Well, I laugh because yes, water will boil if you increase the temperature of the water. Water doesn't just stop boiling if you go from 100 to 101.

And so far as I can remember, whether water can boil depends solely on temperature. If you want water to boil, you have to reach the boiling point. You can, of course, "boil" water without affecting temperature, but that's not under normal conditions.

Perhaps one could change the boiling temperature of water at normal sea level pressure (approx. 106 kPa) by adding salt. Since salty water freezes at a different temperature to fresh water, perhaps it also boils at a different temperature.

More importantly, what if it's not water, but 'water' from Hilary Putnam's Twin Earth?

Well, I laugh because yes, water will boil if you increase the temperature of the water. Water doesn't just stop boiling if you go from 100 to 101. — Heister Eggcart

The boiling point. Boiling. Point.

Does anyone have an answer which doesn't exploit my imprecise wording?

And so far as I can remember, whether water can boil depends solely on temperature. If you want water to boil, you have to reach the boiling point. You can, of course, "boil" water without affecting temperature, but that's not under normal conditions. — Heister Eggcart

But the question wasn't about whether water can boil. And I think that it is pretty self-explanatory that if you want water to boil, you have to reach the boiling point. That isn't relevant either. Nor is anything that doesn't come under normal conditions.

Perhaps one could change the boiling temperature of water at normal sea level pressure (approx. 106 kPa) by adding salt. Since salty water freezes at a different temperature to fresh water, perhaps it also boils at a different temperature. — andrewk

I'm not sure how serious your reply is. I'm talking about repeating an experiment under the same conditions. In this case, whether, all else being equal, the boiling point can vary. If I do the test today, is it impossible to get a different result tomorrow by recreating the experiment under the same conditions? Does the number of past results of the same boiling point ever make a different future result impossible?

I don't think that your reply addresses this issue.

More importantly, what if it's not water, but 'water' from Hilary Putnam's Twin Earth? — andrewk

Don't know enough about that. How about we assume for the sake of argument that it's just water?

Right, but that's a daft way to define it, and amounts to the fallacy of equivocation. You then can't have water boiling at 30 degrees Celsuis, even though you actually can. It's as daft as arguing that it's impossible to turn right, by ruling it out by definition. — Sapientia

What's daft is you saying that you actually can have water boiling at 30 degrees, at sea level pressure.

But it can be a different temperature, because it isn't necessarily the case that water will boil at 100 degrees Celsius. All your argument shows is that if water necessarily boils at 100 degrees Celsius, and we boil water, then it will boil at 100 degrees Celsius. But water doesn't necessarily boil at 100 degrees Celsius. — Sapientia

What I've said is that this is what defines "100 degrees Celsius", the boiling point of water at average sea level pressure. If you really believe that there is another definition of 100 degrees Celsius, then why don't you produce it?

For example, one could have heated a volume of water for 3 minutes, until it reached 100 degrees Celsius, at which point it boiled. But the second time around, the same volume of water, heated under the same conditions as before, might take 30 seconds to reach 30 degrees Celsius, and boil at that point instead. — Sapientia

Have you tried that yet, to get that water to boil at 30 degrees? I bet it won't work.

Again, don't be silly. Those are false analogies. I myself gave an example of that kind earlier, and contrasted it with what we are discussing: a right angle triangle is 90 degrees by definition. It can't be 110 degrees. But you are muddling up two fundamentally different things. The results of scientific experiments are not like analytic a priori truths. — Sapientia

The point, which I told you, way back, is that the temperature scale is created around certain things, like the boiling and freezing point of water. such that these temperatures, 100 degrees, and 0 degrees Celsius, are defined by these things. Therefore it is impossible that water could boil at a different number of degrees Celsius, because this would render that temperature scale invalid. It would be contradiction. Why do you find that so hard to believe? Can you suggest something else that the scale is built around?

I've kinda lost sight of how it relates back to the original topic, but what the hey. Maybe if 100 degrees Celsius is defined as the boiling point of water under normal conditions, then God exists, and we can call it a day. — Sapientia

Really, you've seen the light and are ready to believe in God?

How it relates to what we were talking about, is that you said science is more likely to be objective than ethics. I said that ethics might be just as objective as science because murder is defined as being wrong, just like 100 degrees is defined as the boiling point of water. Then you took exception to both of these proposed definitions.

So we haven't really made any progress in determining what constitutes objectivity. Brainglitch seemed to say that some type of agreement constitutes objectivity, which seems reasonable. But you and I, Sapientia, can't seem to agree on anything. So I guess for us there is no such thing as objectivity.

The thing being measured is a quality of the physical world. The act of measuring is to represent that quality as a quantity. The size of an object is a sensible quality of that object, it appears to be either big or small. To measure it is to represent the size in an intelligible form, as a quantity.
…

any act of judgement is an act of applying a value system, whether that value system is numerical or ethical. There is no "fact-value dichotomy", because whether or not a fact is produced is dependent upon the method by which the value system is applied. If I make a faulty measurement, then the measurement which I give is not fact. If I incorrectly judge a killing as a murder, then it is not a fact that the act was murder. But if I carry out those judgements correctly, then the measurement can be said to be a fact, and that the killing is a murder can be said to be a fact. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is where I was going to start another thread, but as the conversation has continued, I will respond here.

I don't agree with the above analysis, because the whole point about the measurement of physical attributes, is that there can be no room for opinion. Regardless of all of the obfuscation around the boiling point of water, it is 100 degrees c at sea level and normal pressure. Weights, measures, intervals of time, and other fundamental units of measurement, are defined nowadays in terms of the attributes of particular materials and are invariant, i.e. same for all observers.

Certainly, there could be room for re-naming the terms, or for dividing up the scale differently. So to that extent, measurables also constitute an 'inter-subjective agreement' or convention, but given that convention, then the results of measurement will be the same for all observers.

As soon as you start dealing with questions such as 'murder', you're in a different territory. It might be ethical theory or jurisprudence, but you can't arrive at a 'degree of certainty' beyond such bald statements as murder being wrong. And in actual fact, there's no scientific reason why 'murder is wrong'; that is part of the point at issue. I'm sure there have been cultures in which murder is sanctioned. Whether it is or not, is not a scientific matter at all.

But the fact that scientific judgement constitutes a normative standard for matters of fact, doesn't address the problem of what moral norms there can or ought to be at all. That is one of the major problems of modern ethical philosophy. Many naturalists would like to ground morality in evolutionary biology, but that can only amount to some version or another of 'utilitarianism'.

I think what is necessary, is to agree that there is a real good. I seem to recall @metaphysician undercover disputing why any such conception is necessary at all. The answer is, as a foundation for ethical judgement.

Certainly, there could be room for re-naming the terms, or for dividing up the scale differently. So to that extent, measurables also constitute an 'inter-subjective agreement' or convention, but given that convention, then the results of measurement will be the same for all observers. — Wayfarer

I've given considerable thought in the past few days, along with suggestions from this thread, to the question of what makes science more objective then ethics. What I've realized is that we place identified things in relationships of comparison in our efforts to understand them. In science we compare objects to other objects, and this is what produces objectivity. The only subjective aspect in science is that act of comparison. In ethics, the objects are acts, which in themselves are objective, but they are not compared to other acts, they are related directly to a system of values, which is inherently subjective. So to state it simply, in science we have objects related to other objects, while in ethics we have objects (acts) related to subjects, therefore subjectivity necessarily enters into ethics.

I think what is necessary, is to agree that there is a real good. I seem to recall metaphysician undercover disputing why any such conception is necessary at all. The answer is, as a foundation for ethical judgement. — Wayfarer

Actually, I think that's where I started in this thread. But what I think I said, is just like what you say above, it is necessary to agree that there is a real good ( I think it was actually "absolute good" which was referred to). But what I said is that it is not necessary to agree on the actual conception of this real good, exactly what the real good is, only to agree that there is such a thing.

I'm talking about repeating an experiment under the same conditions. In this case, whether, all else being equal, the boiling point can vary — Sapientia

It is not possible to repeat an experiment under the same conditions. There will always be some conditions that differ. The best that can be done is to conduct a similar experiment in which certain specified conditions are managed to be as close as possible to those of the earlier experiment.

To talk meaningfully about repeating an experiment, one needs to specify exactly what those conditions are and what tolerances of deviation must be met for each one.

In ethics, the objects are acts, which in themselves are objective, but they are not compared to other acts, they are related directly to a system of values, which is inherently subjective.

I am inclined to agree.

what I said is that it is not necessary to agree on the actual conception of this real good, exactly what the real good is, only to agree that there is such a thing.

Well, the point about religions of all kinds is that they are a kind of formal proscription of what ought to be considered good. We might take issue with their judgements, or even, as many people have, abandon them altogether, but if you do, then what other basis can one adopt? I'm not arguing for a 'return to a religious past' - my view is more that religious traditions embody important moral truths. But the reason they're not objective, is because in such cases, we ourselves are both the object and the subject!

I noticed this quotation by Carl Hempel: 'To Hempel, metaphysics involved claims to know things which were not knowable; that is, metaphysical hypotheses were incapable of confirmation or disconfirmation by evidence.'

The point about a spiritual discipline (even some schools of philosophy would constitute that) is that it produces evidence, but of a kind that is internal to one's character, behaviour and attitude. A spiritual discipline produces a change of attitude, known in Greek philosophy as metanoia; the aim being 'to see the world aright'

Whereas, in the modern 'post-religious' West, such matters are internal, private and subjective. I think that stems from Protestantism, whereby one's religious commitment was between the individual and God; post Death of God, only the individual remains, and his/her ethical philosophy is a private matter, but with no foundation beyond or outside the self or the social consensus.

What's daft is you saying that you actually can have water boiling at 30 degrees, at sea level pressure. — Metaphysician Undercover

If water suddenly started boiling at 30 degrees at sea level most life on Earth would be dead real quick.

Although for the first day the seafood would be fabulous.

Well, the point about religions of all kinds is that they are a kind of formal proscription of what ought to be considered good. We might take issue with their judgements, or even, as many people have, abandon them altogether, but if you do, then what other basis can one adopt? I'm not arguing for a 'return to a religious past' - my view is more that religious traditions embody important moral truths. But the reason they're not objective, is because in such cases, we ourselves are both the object and the subject! — Wayfarer

I see religion as a process whereby agreement is created. This is accomplished through communion and the respect for authority. Of course people will point to divisiveness between distinct religions, and between religious and non-religious as evidence that religion does not create such agreement. But this gives us a question similar to yours, without religion, what can create such an agreement.

So I see the loss of a united religion as far more significant than what you describe. When disagreement concerning moral (subjective) issues is allowed to permeate through society, it will fester, and undermine all forms of agreement. As we've seen in this thread, objectivity is based in agreement.

From Plato's Republic, the good is what makes intelligible objects intelligible, like the sun makes visible objects visible. So if we lose "the good", we lose intelligibility.

From Plato's Republic, the good is what makes intelligible objects intelligible, like the sun makes visible objects visible. So if we lose "the good", we lose intelligibility. — Metaphysician Undercover

Just as the sleep-inducing properties of opium stem from its "virtus dormitiva".

As we've seen in this thread, objectivity is based in agreement. — Metaphysician Undercover

If you've seen that in this thread, this thread has problems.

What's daft is you saying that you actually can have water boiling at 30 degrees, at sea level pressure. — Metaphysician Undercover

That's not daft. You can, so long as you don't define yourself into contradiction.

What I've said is that this is what defines "100 degrees Celsius", the boiling point of water at average sea level pressure. — Metaphysician Undercover

But it isn't. That is just what temperature it happens to boil at. And because of that, we associate the one with the other. But there are other things with a temperature of 100 degrees Celsius, and if water boiled at 30 degrees Celsius, then, under your system, one would have to then redefine that as 100 degrees Celsius, even though it is really 30 degrees Celsius, and all of those other temperatures would no longer be 100 degrees Celsius, as 100 degrees Celsius would now mean 30 degrees Celsius, and they aren't 30 degrees Celsius. That is why your position is false or misleading at best. This is where equivocation gets you.

If you really believe that there is another definition of 100 degrees Celsius, then why don't you produce it? — Metaphysician Undercover

It's not a definition. It's a point on a scale. So you're mistaken from the get go.

Have you tried that yet, to get that water to boil at 30 degrees? I bet it won't work. — Metaphysician Undercover

Again, I don't need to. You just don't get it, do you? What more can I do if you fail to even understand the concept of possibility? Once you have learned what that means, get back to me, and perhaps we can try again.

The point, which I told you, way back, is that the temperature scale is created around certain things, like the boiling and freezing point of water. such that these temperatures, 100 degrees, and 0 degrees Celsius, are defined by these things. Therefore it is impossible that water could boil at a different number of degrees Celsius, because this would render that temperature scale invalid. It would be contradiction. Why do you find that so hard to believe? Can you suggest something else that the scale is built around? — Metaphysician Undercover

I have explained why your interpretation should be rejected. It leads to false or misleading conclusions. I have nothing more to add.

How it relates to what we were talking about, is that you said science is more likely to be objective than ethics. — Metaphysician Undercover

If that is what I said, then you should be able to quote me saying just that, rather than something else. Go ahead and try.

But you can't, can you?

I'm going to put an end to this now. You are so incompetent that you can't even get what I said right, despite repeated corrections.

It is not possible to repeat an experiment under the same conditions. There will always be some conditions that differ. The best that can be done is to conduct a similar experiment in which certain specified conditions are managed to be as close as possible to those of the earlier experiment. — andrewk

Yes, I agree. I almost said "similar" rather than "the same", but I thought that you'd know what I meant, and so overlook it, rather than pedantically correct it.

To talk meaningfully about repeating an experiment, one needs to specify exactly what those conditions are and what tolerances of deviation must be met for each one. — andrewk

No, I don't think we need to go into details. The point isn't to pick apart what I said to seek out trivial exceptions which miss the point. My point is about the shortcomings of induction, and it can be traced back hundreds of years to David Hume (1711-76), and, before him, to Francis Bacon (1561-1626).

No matter how controlled the experiment, or how many times it has produced "the same" result, induction can only ever justify a probabilistic conclusion; not a certain one. Which is why it is only probable, as opposed to certain, that the boiling point of water will be 100 degrees Celsius, the same as it has been innumerable times in the past. If it is only probable, then it isn't impossible for the boiling point of water to be a different temperature the next time, under conditions as close as possible to any previous experiment. And that includes a temperature which is drastically different.

If water suddenly started boiling at 30 degrees at sea level most life on Earth would be dead real quick. — John

Ah, so someone else has (implicitly) acknowledged that it is at least possible (which is my position), and not a contradiction in terms (which is Metaphysician Undercover's position).

Although for the first day the seafood would be fabulous. — Wayfarer

And that makes two, provided you weren't completely joking.

That is just what temperature it happens to boil at. — Sapientia

OK Sapientia, believe what you want, water just happens to boil at 100 degrees, by some sort of chance coincidence. Do you mean by this, that the scale of temperature, Celsius, existed, and people were using it to measure temperature, then at some point they boiled water and found that water boiled at 100 degrees?

If you've seen that in this thread, this thread has problems. — Terrapin Station

Yeah, I think you're new to this thread, it does have some real problems. What's your opinion, may I ask? How do we determine whether one belief is more objective than the other?

If that is what I said, then you should be able to quote me saying just that, rather than something else. Go ahead and try. — Sapientia

You already asked me to do this, so I already reproduced that quote.

But I am saying that the case for considering temperature to be objective is stronger than the case for considering morality to be objective, because the former has been demonstrated scientifically, and the latter has not, and therefore they are not analogous in that way. — Sapientia

Of course I didn't exactly quote you, I paraphrased:

How it relates to what we were talking about, is that you said science is more likely to be objective than ethics. — Metaphysician Undercover

Perhaps one could change the boiling temperature of water at normal sea level pressure (approx. 106 kPa) by adding salt. Since salty water freezes at a different temperature to fresh water, perhaps it also boils at a different temperature. — andrewk

Ever use a candy thermometer, or boil water with sugar? There's soft ball, hard ball, soft crack, hard crack, etc.. Maple syrup is in its finished state of 67 brix (67%sugar), when boiling at 104.2 degrees Celsius, sea level pressure. But that's not water, that's maple syrup.

More importantly, what if it's not water, but 'water' from Hilary Putnam's Twin Earth? — andrewk

How about Kurt Vonnegut's ice-nine?

Yeah, I think you're new to this thread, it does have some real problems. What's your opinion, may I ask? How do we determine whether one belief is more objective than the other? — Metaphysician Undercover

I commented a number times earlier in the thread, but I didn't comment much and there are so many pages . . . it kind of got buried.

Anyway, "objective beliefs" is a category error in my view. Beliefs are subjective.

To not make this too long (because I'd go into that truth is subjective on my view, too, and so on), I'll try to get to the "heart" of what you're asking, and that's how we determine what to believe when it comes to objective matters. We use, and should use, in my opinion, a combo of empirical evidence, which includes phenomena data, reasoning especially with respect to coherency--in other words, so that our beliefs are consistent and make sense with respect to our other beliefs as well as with respect to empirical evidence, and pragmatism Those factors simply come down to reasons we have to believe one possibility versus a contradictory possibility.

OK Sapientia, believe what you want, water just happens to boil at 100 degrees, by some sort of chance coincidence. Do you mean by this, that the scale of temperature, Celsius, existed, and people were using it to measure temperature, then at some point they boiled water and found that water boiled at 100 degrees? — Metaphysician Undercover

No. This demonstrates a failure on your part in understanding what it is that I do and don't dispute.

And no, it isn't "some sort of chance coincidence". That is not my position. That is a straw man. My position is that there is a scientific explanation for why water boils at 100 degrees Celsius, and that it is extremely likely to do so. There is still an element of chance, but it would be highly misleading to characterise it in that way.

What I mean is that we have learnt that water boils at a particular temperature, and, thus far, this temperature has been found to be the same temperature at which it was originally designated on the Celsius scale: 100 degrees Celsius. But it isn't set in stone. It isn't necessarily the case that water will boil at the same point on the scale at which it was originally designated, and which it has been found to boil at in countless past cases.

If you accept that much, but think that if a different result is produced, then this new point on the scale should then be defined as 100 degrees Celsius, or that it has to be so, then I have provided an argument for why that would be a mistake too.

You seem to care more about what you might have read in a dictionary or an encyclopaedia, and taking that as the be-all-and-end-all, than a well-reasoned argument against doing so.

You already asked me to do this, so I already reproduced that quote. — Metaphysician Undercover

That quote doesn't say the same thing. It isn't doing what I asked.

Of course I didn't exactly quote you, I paraphrased: — Metaphysician Undercover

Your "paraphrase" has a different meaning which misrepresents what I said, which makes it a straw man, which is a logical fallacy.

So stop doing that.

I don't know why you would persist in doing that, knowing that I have objected more than once, and knowing that I have spelled out to you exactly what I mean.

Do you want to be unreasonable? Is that it?

(Y)

Ah, so someone else has (implicitly) acknowledged that it is at least possible (which is my position), and not a contradiction in terms (which is Metaphysician Undercover's position). — Sapientia

It's certainly not logically impossible per se but if the laws of nature form a unified and interrelated whole then it is impossible without the complete breakdown of what we have come to understand as reality, and indeed the destruction of what we have come to understand as nature; it would mean the annihilation of ourselves and most of the rest of life as we know it.

Why should we believe that is a real possibility as opposed to a merely 'in principle' one? For all we know it may indeed be ontologically impossible, and if so its being logically possible would be merely a vacuous artifact of the nature of abstract thought.

It's certainly not logically impossible per se but if the laws of nature form a unified and interrelated whole then it is impossible without the complete breakdown of what we have come to understand as reality, and indeed the destruction of what we have come to understand as nature; it would mean the annihilation of ourselves and most of the rest of life as we know it.

Why should we believe that is a real possibility as opposed to a merely 'in principle' one? For all we know it may indeed be ontologically impossible, and if so its being logically possible would be merely a vacuous artifact of the nature of abstract thought. — John

It's all about what you can reasonably rule out as impossible. And I'm just saying that we can't do that with regards to what we've been discussing in this case and many others like it. We can only reasonably go as far as setting it aside as a very remote possibility. I never claimed that it wouldn't completely turn upside down our current understanding. It definitely would. It would throw a great big spanner in the works. It is just that our current understanding is fallible, and our knowledge is limited.

Our current understanding (taken as a whole and not in regard to details) may or may not be fallible. You need to make a distinction between knowing and knowing that you know. What we think of as our knowledge may indeed be really be knowledge because it may indeed reflect absolute reality, or it may not. So our knowing about our knowing is indeed uncertain, but our knowing itself may or may not be fallible.

But it isn't set in stone. It isn't necessarily the case that water will boil at the same point on the scale at which it was originally designated, and which it has been found to boil at in countless past cases. — Sapientia

So what do you think could cause this to change, i.e. that water could suddenly start boiling at a different temperature? And, if you think that it could suddenly change, how is our knowledge that water boils at 100, objective knowledge? Or do you think that all knowledge is subjective?

It's certainly not logically impossible... — John

I think it is logically impossible, because if the substance started boiling at a temperature other than 100, it would either not be water, or not be degrees celsius.

It is just that our current understanding is fallible, and our knowledge is limited. — Sapientia

Do you think that it's possible that the thing which we know as "water" is not really water as we know it? If so, then what makes our scientific knowledge "objective"? Or, is all knowledge subjective?

I'll try to get to the "heart" of what you're asking, and that's how we determine what to believe when it comes to objective matters. — Terrapin Station

What do you think constitutes an "objective matter". What would distinguish an objective matter from a subjective matter?

I think it is logically impossible, because if the substance started boiling at a temperature other than 100, it would either not be water, or not be degrees celsius. — Metaphysician Undercover

Or the laws of nature could have suddenly changed in which case nothing would be what it had been any more. That this might happen is not from a purely logical point of view, impossible, because it involves no purely logical contradiction. But, in any case, it is a trivial point because, although we cannot be certain, we have very good reasons to believe that such a thing is not, in fact actually, as opposed to merely logically, possible.

What do you think constitutes an "objective matter". What would distinguish an objective matter from a subjective matter? — Metaphysician Undercover

Subjective = mental phenomena, that is, brains functioning in mental ways.

Objective = the complement of mental phenomena, or in other words--"everything else," everything that isn't a brain functioning in a mental way.