So you admit that such people do exist. Why then were you pressing me for proof of them? — Pfhorrest
It would not be very epistemologically sound, or discursively fair, to approach someone espousing something you think is false and reply to that only with an analysis of the conditions that have caused them to come to believe that, as if presuming that they are a crazy person who can't think rationally, just because they've reached a different conclusion than you. If what they believe is actually true, then you'd be dodging the issue they're trying to talk about entirely.
When people do irrationally believe falsehoods (or meaningless nonsense), it is good to figure out what's causing them to do that, but first we need to assess whether what they believe is false, and whether they believe it on rational grounds. To do that, we need to determine what the rational grounds for believing things are... and that brings us back to epistemology again.
(And if they are believing falsehoods on rational grounds, then doing philosophy with them, i.e. having a rational argument, is the most epistemologically sound and discursively fair way of changing their mind anyway. Only once that fails, and we conclude that they are not thinking reasonably, should be begin concerning ourselves with the irrational causes of their nominal belief). — Pfhorrest
Unless you think fideism or nihilism will get us anywhere (which it seems you don't), then whatever other method could possibly get us anywhere will be some subset of my method, because it's just the negation of those two things. — Pfhorrest
We're on the surface of an infinitely deep ocean, with the infinite sky above us. Therefore we cannot stand on the bottom, because there is no bottom. And we cannot grab for the sky, because the sky isn't some solid ceiling above us; nor can we just stick our arms up and hope our imaginary friend Superjesus will save us from drowning or anything like that. If we try to do either of those things, stand on the bottom or hang on to something above us, we will surely drown. Therefore we have to do something other than those things: neither try to stand on the bottom nor hang on to anything above us.
In other words, we have to swim. I'm not specifying how to swim, nor saying that the specifics of how to swim are unimportant. I'm just pointing out that there is no bottom to stand on and hanging from the sky isn't an option either, so we've got to do something else directly involving the water we're immediately surrounded by instead. — Pfhorrest
No, I started off with arguments for why we must start in the middle. I’m not repeating those arguments in full in every thread, but exploring the implications of that conclusion on each sub-field of philosophy, thread by thread. — Pfhorrest
All of this is begging the question. It assumes that there is some method of doing this — Isaac
You'd have to first resolve Van Inwagen's argument from epistemic peers (broadly, if you don't already know it - if one of your epistemic peers disagrees with you about a matter, then that proves it is possible for someone with your knowledge and skills to be wrong despite thorough application to the issue - if that's the case then how will you ever know it's not you who are wrong?) — Isaac
That you think it's just the negation of those two things is one of the matter under contention. — Isaac
This essentially repeats the same foundationalist error you're trying to eliminate. Your previous arguments are not somehow 'foundational' to these — Isaac
sticking to you unaltered beliefs despite nearly all of your epistemic peers disagreeing with you... — Isaac
Foundationalism starts with basic beliefs that are taken to be self-evident or indubitable. I don’t do that. I start with reductio arguments against certain broad classes of view — fideism and nihilism — showing how assuming that those are true leads to problems, and then just taking whatever else is left over, which is a really broad class of things. Exploring the implications of that on other things just means seeing what possibilities on those other subjects fall outside those bounds, into the already ruled-out realms of fideism or nihilism, and what remains still in the acceptable domain between them. — Pfhorrest
I agree that only non-categorical statements can be verified by observation — Janus
They saw verification as provisional. — Janus
Likewise, when predictions fail to be observed this does not logically disprove an hypothesis; there may always be other unknown factors in play. — Janus
When predicted results are observed, all that is verified is that we might be onto something — Janus
when predicted results are not observed all that is verified is that we might not be onto something. — Janus
We all start with basic assumptions taken to be self-evident — Janus
Your argument against fideism and nihilism; your assumption that they must lead to problems, is just such an assumption — Janus
If, as I suspect, your problem with those is that they either believe without evidence (fideism) — Janus
or deny all evidence (nihilism) — Janus
Could you give a short presentation of what your criticism of Phfforest's position is. His position, not so much how he has presented it. I can't quite get what is going on in your dialogue though I get the feeling I would be interested. What is wrong with his version of critical liberal epistemology? — Coben
I’ve already given an argument for why we could only ever assume one way or another about that, and why we pragmatically ought to assume there is, instead of just assuming there’s not. — Pfhorrest
You can only ever know what possibilities are for sure wrong, never which are for sure not wrong. — Pfhorrest
It’s literally just defined as such. Anything at all that is neither fideistic nor nihilistic is okay on my account. I think you think I’m advocating something much narrower or more specific than I am. — Pfhorrest
Foundationalism starts with basic beliefs that are taken to be self-evident or indubitable. I don’t do that. I start with reductio arguments against certain broad classes of view — fideism and nihilism — showing how assuming that those are true leads to problems — Pfhorrest
But there is no rational reason to think that the truth of the consequent of an implication gives even weak support to the antecedent. It’s not just less than certainly, it’s nothing at all. — Pfhorrest
They saw verification as provisional. — Janus
But there is no rational reason to think that the truth of the consequent of an implication gives even weak support to the antecedent. It’s not just less than certainly, it’s nothing at all. — Pfhorrest
Beliefs are not propositions. Beliefs are states of mind equivalent to a tendency to act as if... — Isaac
it's like telling people that they ought to breathe. — Isaac
both of these scales contain subjective judgements — Isaac
I find it to be foundationalist. It appears to cement each 'foundation' and then move on — Isaac
I think it's a normal (both as in common and as in correct) process for understanding to become more "fossilized" over time, at least in one sense, as that's an inevitable consequence of education and experience.
While I think the product of such education and experience should always be understood to be a work in progress, always open to question and revision, it should still in time become more and more hardened such that questions to which it does not already have answers become more and more difficult to find, and so large revisions to it become more and more difficult to make.
Learning is all about narrowing down the available options about what might be true and what might be good, reducing the range of what is thought to be possible and permissible. When we are completely ignorant early in life, so far as we have any reason to think, life is full of almost limitless possibilities and almost anything is okay. But as we learn more and more, we discover that more and more things either can't be or shouldn't be, and the intersection of things that both can and should be gets smaller and smaller. — Pfhorrest
properly their consequeses should no less be considered reasons to reject/alter the prior conclusions — Isaac
Right. So how do resolve Van Inwagen's position about possibilities which are 'for sure wrong'? — Isaac
Are you suggesting that 'absurd' is some kind of objective measurement? — Isaac
confirmatory evidence just obviously does matter — Srap Tasmaner
Have you considered following the Quantitative Way? (LessWrong, SlateStarCodex, Overcoming Bias, et al.) — Srap Tasmaner
But this does not imply that all beliefs not yet shown false are equal. Beliefs not yet shown false can still be more or less probable than others, as calculated by methods such as Bayes' theorem. Falsification itself can be considered just an extreme case of showing a belief to have zero probability: if you are frequently observing phenomena that your belief says should be improbable, then that suggests your belief is epistemically improbable (i.e. likely false), and if you ever observe something that your belief says should be impossible, then your belief is epistemically impossible (i.e. certainly false). — Pfhorrest
we are induced to think that belief in the invariances that we unfailingly observe is justified by lack of any observed counterexamples — Janus
the falsification of the belief that the features are artificial just is the confirmation that they are geological — Janus
On the basis of past experience and the knowledge accumulated therefrom, of course; in other words from inductive investigation and analysis. This is the way (or one of the main ways) that science works, and no amount of armchair philosophizing will change that. — Janus
Also, again, it doesn't settle anything between people who both think that way but come to different conclusions that way. — Pfhorrest
Since he seems to be using "geological" just to mean "not artificial", then sure. But that conclusion was not reached by the confirmationist process: it was not "if these were geological we would see X, we see X, therefore they are geological", which would be wholly fallacious. It was "if these were non-geological (artificial), we would see Y, we don't see Y but instead X, therefore there are not non-geological, or in other words they are geological (not-artificial)". It's the difference between those two processes that's the point here. — Pfhorrest
The vast bulk of science based on thinking that way is (for all intents and purposes, although not absolutely of course) settled though, so I can't see the point of your objection. — Janus
In the inductive terms of science "if these were geological we would see X, we see X, therefore they are geological" is not fallacious at all — Janus
the point is that scientists routinely do think that way, and the justification is that it works, has worked, to produce the comprehensive and (mostly) coherent body of knowledge we call 'science'. I don't know how many times I (and others) will have to try to make this clear before you finally get it. — Janus
If they were geological we would see X.
If they were artificial we would also see X.
We see X.
Therefore... nothing. We’ve learned nothing.
To learn anything it needs to be:
If they were geological we would see X.
If they were artificial we would see not-X.
We see X.
Therefore they are not artificial.
Therefore if the only alternative to artificial is geological (which you’ve just denied) then we can conclude they are geological;
Else, we only know they’re not artificial somehow or another, not necessarily geological. — Pfhorrest
Nobody here is denying science. I am (and many others, in actual publications, not here on this forum, are) denying that science works the way you say it works. I don’t know how many time I will have to try to make this clear before you finally get it. — Pfhorrest
Firstly I did not say that we would see the same X in case they were geological and in case they were artificial, so your first part here is irrelevant. — Janus
I haven't said that there are other alternatives in this case — Janus
I have said that scientists generally think inductively, and that this way of thinking and the hypotheses it generates have worked to develop the body of knowledge we call science — Janus
Anyway it has become obvious to me that you are heavily invested in your own ideas, regardless of the fact that I and others have shown them to be either trivially true (in the deductive context) or mistakenly applied (in the inductive context) so if you don't produce any new arguments I am going to leave you to it. — Janus
Seeing something your theory predicted can't distinguish between that theory and any other theory that would also predict the same thing, and so tells us nothing. — Pfhorrest
You said 'Geological means not merely "not artificial". — Pfhorrest
And I've said that induction is perfectly fine as a way of generating hypotheses, but it doesn't help us pick between competing hypotheses. The latter is where science differs from guessing and intuition. — Pfhorrest
agree with that, and that's perfectly fine in principle, but how rare are such cases; where two scientific theories predict exactly the same things? Can you think of a single example — Janus
And I've said it is the comprehensive and cohesive knowledge that is based on inductive thinking, assumptions, investigations and analyses that enables a choice between competing hypotheses — Janus
I appreciate the effort.I'll do my best. — Isaac
Would this mean then that animals have beliefs?1. Beliefs are not propositions. Beliefs are states of mind equivalent to a tendency to act as if... — Isaac
Does this mean that one cannot come to believe things that are counterintuitive: relativity, for example, or that the earth actually revolves around the sun. If we take the latter case that we can find empirical evidence that this is the case, very few people actually do that. Or that color exist outside us.a) not possible to have a belief which is contrary to the evidence of your senses (beliefs are formed by a neurological process of response to stimuli), and — Isaac
I agree with this. I do think that people can be mistaken about their beliefs. though I think that their other beliefs are propositional, just dissonent with what they want to belief or they have contradictory beliefs (just as one can have contradictory tendencies to act as if.people's stated propositions are not necessarily reflective of their beliefs and it is a category error to develop an understanding of one based on experience of the other (just because people say their 'belief' is based on foundations, doesn't mean it is; just because people say they doubt everything, doesn't mean they do) — Isaac
What was his normative claim?-- this leads to the more general criticism that there is no target of the normative claim, it's like telling people that they ought to breathe. — Isaac
If you belief in the Christian model of faith, you might well do that. At least one is encouraged to by some versions of that faith. Though one might be better off putting on that end of the spectrum 'beliefs that are not supported at and do not seem to fit current models in science, say, or perhaps in general' It could be without the latter part of that. IOW one could try to believe only those things that you can demonstrate or have been demonstrated by experts to be justified OR you could accept things without justification (at least conscious justification one has access to) and ignore counterarguments. i would say most people do this about something.Given my definition in (1), above, I contend that no-one would hold their beliefs were impossible to change even in the light of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, — Isaac
good guess Einstein! — Pfhorrest
One reason to bother with theory is to know what kinds of observations there are, which should count as the same kind of thing -- so not really adding constraints, or not much -- and which are genuinely different, and especially which would be surprising. — Srap Tasmaner
To decide between them, you have to pick a prediction that they disagree on; and then you've ruled out whichever one loses, but not supported the remaining one in any way against any other theories that also make that same winning prediction. — Pfhorrest
It's the investigations and analyses that do the heavy lifting there. Inductive thinking and assumptions give you your competing hypotheses. Analysis of those gives you the expected observations. Investigation, i.e. empirical observation, compared against those expectations tells us which hypotheses we can keep and which we have to throw away. But it's the "throwing away" part that makes progress: we can no better tell between any of the "keepers" based on investigations that let us keep them, all we can tell is whether they're okay to keep or whether they must be thrown away. — Pfhorrest
Here's a challenging question for your position: what exactly do you think it was about NM that was falsified by GR? — Janus
I think people cannot believe something contrary to evidence that they accept as such. — Janus
there is no evidence that God doesn't exist — Janus
faith is belief in the absence of evidence, not belief against evidence — Janus
The problem with your view is that on the basis of its logic there can be no evidence for anything, only evidence against. What you fail to see is that if there cannot be evidence for anything, then there cannot be evidence against anything either; they are two sides of the one inductive coin. — Janus
at the cost of sticking our necks out and make assumptions without adequate justification, which could therefore be wrong — Pfhorrest
Or is it the same because we are always relying on some theory without adequate justification? — Srap Tasmaner
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