A Recent Axiomatic Observation ...

[TagliatelliMonster]

Maybe you should stop feeling accused when no one is accusing you.

I said specifically that it concerned unnamed people.
I was just responding to your obvious false claim that you didn't accuse anyone.
You obviously did. It concerns unnamed people participating in this thread.

The really weird thing is you're feeling accused of something you don't believe even exists. Don't you find that odd?

The really weird thing is your insistence on arguing strawmen.
YOU are the one who made it about me, while I was talking about unnamed people and even explicitly said so.

You jumping on this to make it about me though, does make me think that in your mind I am included in that group of unnamed people. Why else would you go there?

None of this matters though.
You said you didn't make such accusation. Yet there is your post, black on white where you explicitly did.

You can't even acknowledge your own words.

 

[F1fan]

So all cases of human behaviour is covered by your examples? Do you got any evidence for that?

I made no such claim. Why do you keep doing these strawman challenges for me? Just focus on what I actually say.

You asked if I thought that the hard sciences is the best way to understand the world and I said yes. You offered no rebuttal or better option. So I take it you agree with me?

And how do you know best as per evidence? I.e. external sensory experience and/or scientific instruments?

Our sensory ability is reliable and consistent. What science does is use our ability as a basis to describe what is true and real about our universe, and we are very successful in this approach. Any flaws, like poor vision or hearing, can be fixed to normal abilities. We also have instruments like microscopes and telescopes that allow us abilities beyond our natural capacity. Flaws like irrational assumptions, like gods existing, are adjusted for as well in the scientific method. So we humans can make sound conclusions despite being flawed, and we do this through a sincere, collective effort. Discipline of thought is crucial. If a human sees a sunset and concludes a god exists, then that is a flawed conclusion because the observation is made with learned assumptions that are not true or objective. If our intent is to truly understand what is true about how things are then we are seelf-aware of our social learning, like Gods, and set them aside and examine the universe as it is with the facts.

 

[Quintessence]

I missed this thread when it first came out because I was dog sick on Tuesday, but I wanted to pop in to give some kudos to it for shining a light on a very important concept:

The reason I think this is an important observation is because I suspect this kind of conceptual 'blind spot' exists within a lot of the reality/truth paradigms that we humans hold onto. Not the least of which would include a lot of theological paradigms. (Not to mention our economic and political paradigms.) Which is important to consider. Are the various truth paradigms that we hold to really as true as we think they are? Or are they just one of these self-blinding biases that we get ourselves trapped in, because we can't see past them?

There are many times I've used language like "foundational/axiomatic assumptions" and "paradigm shifting" because I developed an awareness of this issue. You can call it "blind spots" too, or "mental cages." @Koldo provided sound advice for helping recognize these within oneself (and to some extent others) - listen to different views and have an open mind.

For me, recognition of blind spots came in a different form. Studying human psychology, philosophy, and religion - a college education - is what did it for me. It is one of the reasons I encourage the students I work with to value a liberal arts education and not just fixate on one field of study. The more well-rounded and holistic you can be with your education, the more ideas you exposed to, the more you understand the human condition, the more you understand your place in the grander universe.

Also a shout-out to @Augustus for the CFI video. Anyone who hasn't watched it, watch maybe the first ten minutes and quit there if you want. I used to listen to CFI podcasts regularly, and have often appreciated they make an effort to avoid their skepticism from becoming the bad sort of reactionary skepticism that's turned off the critical thinking brain. Good group, good speakers they host.

 

[cladking]

There are many times I've used language like "foundational/axiomatic assumptions" and "paradigm shifting" because I developed an awareness of this issue. You can call it "blind spots" too, or "mental cages." @Koldo provided sound advice for helping recognize these within oneself (and to some extent others) - listen to different views and have an open mind.

I had to respond to this.

People would do well to listen to PureX and not the believers in science. All belief is misplaced..

All he is saying here is that we see only what we believe. We experience only our beliefs. We become our beliefs. Then when scientific perspective changes science can progress one funeral at a time.

It requires real effort to step outside our cages and boxes but it's impossible to do when you believe the entire universe is snug inside our own little box. Most people including almost every believers will never see anything outside their box. They believe nothing exists outside their beliefs. They are blind not only to anomalies but even to what is right before their eyes.

I believe this is because of the way we think. We must learn language to think.

@PureX is using different words but it's the same thing.

It's easy to recognize your own failing and anyone else's. If you are certain of something, if anyone is certain then you are blinded to reality. You can't keep an open mind when you already have all the answers (homo omnisciencis).

 

[Quintessence]

I had to respond to this.

People would do well to listen to PureX and not the believers in science.

Why not listen to both?

I sure the heck do. I cut this out of my earlier post for brevity, but my primary major was in hard science. What's important is to have a holistic education, not to squelch out an entire discipline of voices. That's not a good idea to my mind. And besides, actual practicing scientists are pretty darned aware of the limitations of the discipline on the whole, in my experience. It's pop science, and scientism, that presents a distorted view of it.

 

[cladking]

Why not listen to both?

I sure the heck do. I cut this out of my earlier post for brevity, but my primary major was in hard science. What's important is to have a holistic education, not to squelch out an entire discipline of voices. That's not a good idea to my mind. And besides, actual practicing scientists are pretty darned aware of the limitations of the discipline on the whole, in my experience. It's pop science, and scientism, that presents a distorted view of it.

You're preaching to the choir.

I keep telling people that exactly as everything in reality is always affecting everything in reality on an ongoing basis that every single experiment applies at all times to every single observation.

People don't want to do this because it affects their perceptions and most can't do it because their knowledge is organized with mnemonics and models that have little or no overlap with one another. We perceive in terms of the vector sum total of our beliefs but we usually consider with one or a few models at a time. Even perception tends to be skewed to some beliefs rather than others.

The first corollary to "every experiment applies to everything" is that all evidence applies to every hypothesis.

I am well aware that there are lots of good scientists with very very little mysticism about them. But then there are countless others and supporters who believe science runs on intelligence and the best educated can just look at the evidence and know the answer, create policy, and invent theory.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I made no such claim. Why do you keep doing these strawman challenges for me? Just focus on what I actually say.

You asked if I thought that the hard sciences is the best way to understand the world and I said yes. You offered no rebuttal or better option. So I take it you agree with me?
...

All human behavior is that you sit on a cliff and wonder if you should jump or not. That is your category of hard science. You simply list where science can avoid harm or death.
There is more to morality than that.
No, I don't agree with you and neither does science.
Science has limits: A few things that science does not do - Understanding Science

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I made no such claim. Why do you keep doing these strawman challenges for me? Just focus on what I actually say.

You asked if I thought that the hard sciences is the best way to understand the world and I said yes. You offered no rebuttal or better option. So I take it you agree with me?


Our sensory ability is reliable and consistent. What science does is use our ability as a basis to describe what is true and real about our universe, and we are very successful in this approach. Any flaws, like poor vision or hearing, can be fixed to normal abilities. We also have instruments like microscopes and telescopes that allow us abilities beyond our natural capacity. Flaws like irrational assumptions, like gods existing, are adjusted for as well in the scientific method. So we humans can make sound conclusions despite being flawed, and we do this through a sincere, collective effort. Discipline of thought is crucial. If a human sees a sunset and concludes a god exists, then that is a flawed conclusion because the observation is made with learned assumptions that are not true or objective. If our intent is to truly understand what is true about how things are then we are seelf-aware of our social learning, like Gods, and set them aside and examine the universe as it is with the facts.

Here is some science for you. Google the following:
in what centers of the brain do morality happen
in what centers of the brain do vision happen
Now if you start reading enough and combine the processes. you get the following the result.
People can see the same, but get different moral results.
That is even true of atheists.

I am not a theist and not an atheist. There is more to the world than your worldview. Remove the theists from the world and it wouldn't follow that we agree.

 

[cladking]

The first corollary to "every experiment applies to everything" is that all evidence applies to every hypothesis.

I should add that "evidence" and "experiment" are not the only things that apply to hypothesis. There is also knowledge, especially visceral knowledge, that affects hypothesis. Without visceral knowledge some things like reverse engineering are more difficult. I suppose this also includes intuition.

There are many different ways to think and every one of them is best for something but as a rule invention and discovery are a result of stepping outside your cage and having a good look around. And when you're about ready to step back in take a good look at your cage, too.

 

[Ella S.]

You left out the models of no claim of metaphysics and ontology.
You do positive metaphysics. I don't have to, because I have learned to be in the world without claiming that.

You positively claimed that there's no evidence for the existence of an objective, physical reality.

If you had actually learned to not do positive metaphysics, we wouldn't be having this disagreement.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

You positively claimed that there's no evidence for the existence of an objective, physical reality.

If you had actually learned to not do positive metaphysics, we wouldn't be having this disagreement.

I really don't care, because reductio ad absurdum I am so wrong for the objective, physical reality, that I am not in it and yet you can read it as a part of the objective, physical reality.

 

[PureX]

I had to respond to this.

People would do well to listen to PureX and not the believers in science. All belief is misplaced..

All he is saying here is that we see only what we believe. We experience only our beliefs. We become our beliefs. Then when scientific perspective changes science can progress one funeral at a time.

It requires real effort to step outside our cages and boxes but it's impossible to do when you believe the entire universe is snug inside our own little box. Most people including almost every believers will never see anything outside their box. They believe nothing exists outside their beliefs. They are blind not only to anomalies but even to what is right before their eyes.

I believe this is because of the way we think. We must learn language to think.

@PureX is using different words but it's the same thing.

It's easy to recognize your own failing and anyone else's. If you are certain of something, if anyone is certain then you are blinded to reality. You can't keep an open mind when you already have all the answers (homo omnisciencis).

The older I've gotten the more I've come to realize that my holding a "belief" is just a conceit. All I'm really "believing in" is that I'm right. It's my ego claiming knowledge that I can't honestly and fully claim. And if I allow myself this conceit, it will blind me to any new information that opposes my belief. Because that's what the ego does. My beliefs will define that new information as something else. Something to be dismissed as wrong or unimportant.

And I also find less and less need to "believe in" things. I can just accept them at face value until they are shown to be something other than they appear, and then I can just accept that at face value. I never had to "believe in" any of it. I only have to accept it for what it is until I can see it differently. And concerning the unknown and the unknowable, I can simply choose faith, and keep moving. I'll find out if I moved in the right direction soon enough.

 

[PureX]

I should add that "evidence" and "experiment" are not the only things that apply to hypothesis. There is also knowledge, especially visceral knowledge, that affects hypothesis. Without visceral knowledge some things like reverse engineering are more difficult. I suppose this also includes intuition.

There are many different ways to think and every one of them is best for something but as a rule invention and discovery are a result of stepping outside your cage and having a good look around. And when you're about ready to step back in take a good look at your cage, too.

I was an active artist in Chicago for many years. And at some point my artist friends and I began to notice that the scientists from Fermilab were showing up at the various art openings and talks around town. And being a curious lot, we began to seek them out and chat with them. And we found them to be excellent art enthusiasts; very intelligent and interesting to talk with. And very curious and appreciative of art and of the art endeavor. And they were not at all stuck in some sort of 'big science' mode of thinking.

As someone that had not had a lot of contact with the science community before then, I was somewhat surprised by this. But after meeting these folks and thinking on it a bit, I could completely understand why they were not as I had foolishly presumed they might be. I mean, of course they would be curious, intelligent, and interested in any endeavor that sought to explore and even disrupt human observation and perception, as art so often does. In many ways they were working to do the same thing. Just in a different 'medium'.

 

[Koldo]

Why are you appointing me the "definer" of scientism? And anyway, I don't disagree with @Augustus characterizations, at all. They are quite similar to those I stated above. (Posts #35 and #40.)

I am not appointing you as the definer of scientism. I am just saying that it is quite common to define scientism the way you did, grouping up the misplaced trust in the sciences (as not only able to inform every area of knowledge but also the only one trustworthy), which is by itself the scientism, with other things like physicalism, realism, naturalism or even atheism.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I am not appointing you as the definer of scientism. I am just saying that it is quite common to define scientism the way you did, grouping up the misplaced trust in the sciences (as not only able to inform every area of knowledge but also the only one trustworthy), which is by itself the scientism, with other things like physicalism, realism, naturalism or even atheism.

How do you define scientism? And how do you understand the concept of greedy reductionism in regards to the concepts of everything/the universe/the world/reality in regards to the concept of objective?

 

[Koldo]

How do you define scientism?

For simplicity's sake: holding that the sciences can answer every single question, and that the answers provided by the sciences are always better than any other.

And how do you understand the concept of greedy reductionism in regards to the concepts of everything/the universe/the world/reality in regards to the concept of objective?

I don't understand your question. Can you elaborate?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

For simplicity's sake: holding that the sciences can answer every single question, and that the answers provided by the sciences are always better than any other.

Okay, evidence only using the scientific method for the claim of always better.

I don't understand your question. Can you elaborate?

I can do the world as natural/physical/material/real and all those other variants, but not as only objective. To over reduce the world as only objective, is to deny that some processes are dependent on brains down to individual differences and that is subjective.

 

[PureX]

I am not appointing you as the definer of scientism. I am just saying that it is quite common to define scientism the way you did, grouping up the misplaced trust in the sciences (as not only able to inform every area of knowledge but also the only one trustworthy), which is by itself the scientism, with other things like physicalism, realism, naturalism or even atheism.

Yes, well, they do seem to be part-n-parcel.

 

[Koldo]

Okay, evidence only using the scientific method for the claim of always better.



I can do the world as natural/physical/material/real and all those other variants, but not as only objective. To over reduce the world as only objective, is to deny that some processes are dependent on brains down to individual differences and that is subjective.

But who says subjectivity doesn't exist?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

But who says subjectivity doesn't exist?

Well, they don't in some cases. They in effect claim that objectivity is better than subjectivity. But that better is subjective. Or they do, in that only that independent of the mind is real, but that claim is only real in the mind, i.e. subjective.