Objectivity and scientism

[mikkel_the_dane]

...

So good life might not mean a long life, it could just as well mean a short but very fulfilling one. which again could be based on desires/dislikes, which is why I asked about it using the pizza example. Because, let's assume that we could measure a human life in 100 events or what to call them, based on desires and dislikes. Desires covering everything which increases your happiness and dislikes everything that lowers it.

Would the "Good life" then be achieved if a person had 90 fulfilled desires and only 10 dislikes, or how many do they need in regards for it to be considered to living the good life or how do you define it in what you are writing? Because it not very clear, if it is based on desires/dislikes as in my example, then clearly a mass murder might actually live the good life based on his standards.
...

Yes, a mass murder could live a good life based on his/her standards.

Now in general.
Good is, how you experience it.
Good is subjective, but there is a trick.
There are at least 2 kinds of good in the first person sense..Higher-order volition - Wikipedia
Now that is a part of it. The trick is in part figure out what you want and can do with your life overall and figure out what works for you.
Then there are cognitive therapy, mediation and other practices.

So a good life is in part a construct. You subjectively construct your own good life by managing your thinking and emotions/feelings/descries.
Now of course, that can have a limit because of external causes and/or how your brain work individually.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

@shunyadragon
@blü 2
@Polymath257

Now we are all 4 debating words and how the relate to the rest?!! And we are debating what the combination of words and the rest is?!! I will call the combination X.

So words, first, in a general and not strict logic sense, words are necessary, but not sufficient in understanding X. Any objections? If not, next step.
As noted words color understanding of X. In another sense how you understand the meaning of words, result in the cognitive set of what you take for granted about X. Again any objections? If not, next step.

Now I will try to make a list of parts of X and then combine them. I will not define X, I will construct X, based on the parts, which I find work. That is the joke about these debates. If you take notice, not just of everybody else, but also your self, you will notice, that we always end here: What is useful, practical, makes sense, matters? Now what do all these words have in common and what is missing. It is always, that it is to somebody that it is useful and so on.
So the conclusion about X. X always includes somebody. Again and henceforth, object or I will try to combine further.

The point about being for somebody is not mine. Rather any version of X ends of consisting of 3 parts:
Something - relationship - something else. And the joke is that it closes on "itself". X as the word "X" is so:
"X" - relationship - X.

So now I jump to objective and subjective. Both describe relationship and what is more relevant is what the relationship is about? It is about in the end, what we can control/do/works in practice and what limits there are.
In practice science is a relationship between 2 or more humans (the democratic part) about works in practice for a limited set of relationship in regards to X. That is the limit of science, because it requires a relationship of objective. In short you can't do what you do with science, if the relationship is subjective.

So as a minimum X is the set of relationships between something - relationship - something else and "X" is included in X.
Now something about things and existence. There are no things and existence. There are relationship between you and what you can do in relationship to you or non-you.
How come there are no things or existence? Because there is not in things or existence themselves that make them so. When we talk about things and existence, we in the end talk about experiences and what we can do versus not do.

So now I jump. Science as the collective understanding would be different if we move away from the cultural "coloring" as for things, existence and independent of the mind and things in themselves.
If you check, then you will notice that we are always debating how to understand in practice the relationships within X and we are always a part of that and we always in the end, end with what works in practice for somebody.

Well, I am weird. I use the words like things, existence and so on in everyday life, because I am a member of a culture that do so. But in practice for some of the fundamental words in relationship of X, I am not of the same culture as most people around me.

So here is an example from a scholarly source:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/existence/

So just as some people don't believe in God, I don't believe in existence. Existence is an idea from philosophy, which in practice is not needed, when debating X.

Regards
Mikkel

 

[shunyadragon]

@shunyadragon
@blü 2
@Polymath257

Now we are all 4 debating words and how the relate to the rest?!! And we are debating what the combination of words and the rest is?!! I will call the combination X.

So words, first, in a general and not strict logic sense, words are necessary, but not sufficient in understanding X. Any objections? If not, next step.
As noted words color understanding of X. In another sense how you understand the meaning of words, result in the cognitive set of what you take for granted about X. Again any objections? If not, next step.

Now I will try to make a list of parts of X and then combine them. I will not define X, I will construct X, based on the parts, which I find work. That is the joke about these debates. If you take notice, not just of everybody else, but also your self, you will notice, that we always end here: What is useful, practical, makes sense, matters? Now what do all these words have in common and what is missing. It is always, that it is to somebody that it is useful and so on.
So the conclusion about X. X always includes somebody. Again and henceforth, object or I will try to combine further.

The point about being for somebody is not mine. Rather any version of X ends of consisting of 3 parts:
Something - relationship - something else. And the joke is that it closes on "itself". X as the word "X" is so:
"X" - relationship - X.

So now I jump to objective and subjective. Both describe relationship and what is more relevant is what the relationship is about? It is about in the end, what we can control/do/works in practice and what limits there are.
In practice science is a relationship between 2 or more humans (the democratic part) about works in practice for a limited set of relationship in regards to X. That is the limit of science, because it requires a relationship of objective. In short you can't do what you do with science, if the relationship is subjective.

So as a minimum X is the set of relationships between something - relationship - something else and "X" is included in X.
Now something about things and existence. There are no things and existence. There are relationship between you and what you can do in relationship to you or non-you.
How come there are no things or existence? Because there is not in things or existence themselves that make them so. When we talk about things and existence, we in the end talk about experiences and what we can do versus not do.

So now I jump. Science as the collective understanding would be different if we move away from the cultural "coloring" as for things, existence and independent of the mind and things in themselves.
If you check, then you will notice that we are always debating how to understand in practice the relationships within X and we are always a part of that and we always in the end, end with what works in practice for somebody.

Well, I am weird. I use the words like things, existence and so on in everyday life, because I am a member of a culture that do so. But in practice for some of the fundamental words in relationship of X, I am not of the same culture as most people around me.

So here is an example from a scholarly source:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/existence/

The above Xs and Ys are not meaningful

So just as some people don't believe in God, I don't believe in existence. Existence is an idea from philosophy, which in practice is not needed, when debating X.

Regards
Mikkel

. . . but this clarifies thing as to your philosophical and theological perspective, which resembles a variation of a Vedic/Buddhist view of our physical existence.

 

[Polymath257]

@shunyadragon
@blü 2
@Polymath257

Now we are all 4 debating words and how the relate to the rest?!! And we are debating what the combination of words and the rest is?!! I will call the combination X.

So words, first, in a general and not strict logic sense, words are necessary, but not sufficient in understanding X. Any objections? If not, next step.

No, words are necessary for *communicating* our understanding. They are helpful for our understanding, but not necessary. Furthermore, the words are part of a language, but the specific language isn't required.

As noted words color understanding of X. In another sense how you understand the meaning of words, result in the cognitive set of what you take for granted about X. Again any objections? If not, next step.

Yes, strong objections. Because of the range of cultures that are engaged in the scientific endeavor, the cognitive set will be different for each person. That makes whatever can be agreed to significant and independent of those cognitive sets.

Now I will try to make a list of parts of X and then combine them. I will not define X, I will construct X, based on the parts, which I find work. That is the joke about these debates. If you take notice, not just of everybody else, but also your self, you will notice, that we always end here: What is useful, practical, makes sense, matters? Now what do all these words have in common and what is missing. It is always, that it is to somebody that it is useful and so on.
So the conclusion about X. X always includes somebody. Again and henceforth, object or I will try to combine further.

Yes, science is a human endeavor. And it matters to those who want to know how things actually work.

The point about being for somebody is not mine. Rather any version of X ends of consisting of 3 parts:
Something - relationship - something else. And the joke is that it closes on "itself". X as the word "X" is so:
"X" - relationship - X.

I'm not seeing your point here. Yes, we correlate observed behavior and formulate hypotheses about why that behavior occurs. We then test those hypotheses via further observation. If that's what you mean by something-relationship-something, i.e, the proposed hypothesis, then I agree. Otherwise, this seems like gobbledigook to me.

So now I jump to objective and subjective. Both describe relationship and what is more relevant is what the relationship is about? It is about in the end, what we can control/do/works in practice and what limits there are.

And what exists outside of ourselves opposed to only existing inside. The goal is understanding.

In practice science is a relationship between 2 or more humans (the democratic part) about works in practice for a limited set of relationship in regards to X. That is the limit of science, because it requires a relationship of objective. In short you can't do what you do with science, if the relationship is subjective.

Sure, science is the human endeavor to understand how things work. In your last sentence 'the relationship' is ambiguous: does it mean the relationship between the people involved (in which case your statement is, I believe, false), or is it the relationship between the things being investigated (in which case, it is true)?

So as a minimum X is the set of relationships between something - relationship - something else and "X" is included in X.

Nope. At least currently, the study of science has only been subject to scientific investigation to a very small extent. So, 'X' is not included into X.

Now something about things and existence. There are no things and existence. There are relationship between you and what you can do in relationship to you or non-you.

This seems so obviously wrong I am having trouble figuring out what you mean. I am sitting on a chair. That chair continues to exist even when I leave. It is still there when I come back. Furthermore, when I am not here, others can interact with the chair and report to me about it. That means the chair has existence independent of my interaction with it.

The relationship between me and the chair isn't the subject of the investigation: the chair is. And, it is made of wood, and cloth, etc. That is the objective aspect of the chair. That it feels comfortable (my subjective feeling about the chair) is a different thing (although important if I want to sit in it).

How come there are no things or existence? Because there is not in things or existence themselves that make them so. When we talk about things and existence, we in the end talk about experiences and what we can do versus not do.

Well, we talk about how we can interact with that independently existing thing. But we realize that the thing exists even when we aren't interacting with it.

So now I jump. Science as the collective understanding would be different if we move away from the cultural "coloring" as for things, existence and independent of the mind and things in themselves.

Yes, it would cease to exist if we stopped considering things that actually exist and are objective. That's a pretty big change.

If you check, then you will notice that we are always debating how to understand in practice the relationships within X and we are always a part of that and we always in the end, end with what works in practice for somebody.

I think that is also wrong. We are also interested, for example, in how those things that are independent of us interact with each other. The only 'working for someone' involved is that some person is wanting to understand what is going on.

Well, I am weird. I use the words like things, existence and so on in everyday life, because I am a member of a culture that do so. But in practice for some of the fundamental words in relationship of X, I am not of the same culture as most people around me.

So here is an example from a scholarly source:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/existence/

So just as some people don't believe in God, I don't believe in existence. Existence is an idea from philosophy, which in practice is not needed, when debating X.

Regards
Mikkel

I disagree. The existence of a chair, or the sun, or an atom *are* crucially needed when discussing those things and testing our ideas about those things.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

No, words are necessary for *communicating* our understanding. They are helpful for our understanding, but not necessary. Furthermore, the words are part of a language, but the specific language isn't required.

Try explaining that without using signs at all

...

As for the rest, I like this one better:

... but this clarifies thing as to your philosophical and theological perspective, which resembles a variation of a Vedic/Buddhist view of our physical existence.

You consider a thing a thing in a certain understanding, I do it differently.

Then end result is that things, truth, existence and what not doesn't matter, what matters is that it matters to somebody. That is where it always ends.
A thing doesn't matter in itself. It matters to somebody. We have been here before. In another thread you dismissed a point about knowledge to the effect of that you didn't care about it and didn't find it relevant.

You are not unique in that. It always with variation ends here: "Objective reality matters." Me: To whom and is that objective? What is the evidence for the fact, that objective reality matters?

Further a thing in itself is absurd, because if it is in itself, you can only speak of it, if you are in a relationship with it.
If you want to do a combination of philosophy and science, you, sorry, to say have to learn what you take for granted in your thinking and which is from philosophy, but doesn't work.
The idea of an objective reality in itself doesn't work. That kind of objectivity is self-defeating.

There are other aspect of western philosophy, which still "pollute" thinking and doesn't quite works as intended.

Okay, very short and basic:
We end here:

Philosophy, (from Greek, by way of Latin, philosophia, “love of wisdom”) the rational, abstract, and methodical consideration of reality as a whole or of fundamental dimensions of human existence and experience.

philosophy | Definition, Systems, Fields, Schools, & Biographies
You are in effect of the part before the "or". I am after the "or".

You are of a different culture than me and you believe everybody must understand reality like you to talk about it. That is not the case.
How we as humans treat reality is in part a cultural, social construct.
We have been here before. There is no singular, universal truth. There is in effect on positive privileged postilion in metaphysics and your understanding of epistemology is not the only one around.
And no, reality is not just e.g. a chair in itself.

...Well, we talk about how we can interact with that independently existing thing. But we realize that the thing exists even when we aren't interacting with it. ...

No, we don't. It is meaningless to claim it is an independently existing thing, How? ...we can interact with... ...we realize that the thing exists even when we aren't interacting with it ... You are there all the time with your "we" but I am not part of your "we" because I don't believe in reality like you do.
Now explain all that for the last quote without first person I/we and without language/signs.

That is, how absurd your idea about reality is. Explain in the next post without first person implicit or explicit and without language/sighs what reality is.

 

[Polymath257]

Try explaining that without using signs at all

Like I said, these signs are required for communication.

As for the rest, I like this one better:


You consider a thing a thing in a certain understanding, I do it differently.

Then end result is that things, truth, existence and what not doesn't matter, what matters is that it matters to somebody. That is where it always ends.

For you.

For others, it is important to understand how things work independent of ourselves.

A thing doesn't matter in itself. It matters to somebody. We have been here before. In another thread you dismissed a point about knowledge to the effect of that you didn't care about it and didn't find it relevant.

Yes, whether something 'matters' is a value judgement and is subjective, not objective. So, if you are not interested in understanding how things work, you don't go into science.

You are not unique in that. It always with variation ends here: "Objective reality matters." Me: To whom and is that objective? What is the evidence for the fact, that objective reality matters?

It matters to those who want to understand. if you don't want that, then it won't matter to you.

Further a thing in itself is absurd, because if it is in itself, you can only speak of it, if you are in a relationship with it.

Yes, detectability is required to do science.

If you want to do a combination of philosophy and science, you, sorry, to say have to learn what you take for granted in your thinking and which is from philosophy, but doesn't work.
The idea of an objective reality in itself doesn't work. That kind of objectivity is self-defeating.

I disagree. It is the denial of reality that is ultimately self-defeating.

There are other aspect of western philosophy, which still "pollute" thinking and doesn't quite works as intended.

Okay, very short and basic:
We end here:

philosophy | Definition, Systems, Fields, Schools, & Biographies
You are in effect of the part before the "or". I am after the "or".

You are of a different culture than me and you believe everybody must understand reality like you to talk about it. That is not the case.
How we as humans treat reality is in part a cultural, social construct.

To some extent I agree. But science isn't dependent on a specific cultural foundation. it is only dependent on the desire to understand. If you don't have that, then it will not be your subject to study.

We have been here before. There is no singular, universal truth. There is in effect on positive privileged postilion in metaphysics and your understanding of epistemology is not the only one around.
And no, reality is not just e.g. a chair in itself.

No, we don't. It is meaningless to claim it is an independently existing thing, How? ...we can interact with... ...we realize that the thing exists even when we aren't interacting with it ... You are there all the time with your "we" but I am not part of your "we" because I don't believe in reality like you do.
Now explain all that for the last quote without first person I/we and without language/signs.

That is, how absurd your idea about reality is. Explain in the next post without first person implicit or explicit and without language/sighs what reality is.

But the chair (and atoms, and stars) do exist whether or not we observe them. Yes, we can only know about them through observation, but that is a very different thing.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

...
For others, it is important to understand how things work independent of ourselves.

Try to understand without yourself and get back to me.

But the chair (and atoms, and stars) do exist whether or not we observe them. Yes, we can only know about them through observation, but that is a very different thing.

And you do it again. If you only know about them through observation, I would like to know about them without observation.

You make these basic contradictions. You know about something through observation and you know without observation.

I disagree. It is the denial of reality that is ultimately self-defeating.

And there you are again. We are talking about independent reality and yet you show up and subjectively disagree. But for you to do that, you must be there. That is the joke. You are talking about independent reality and you keep on talking about it, so for once could you admit the following:
For you to do all this you must be there and the rest of reality must also be there. Reality is not, what is independent of you, because that requires you to say that it is independent of you.

 

[shunyadragon]

You consider a thing a thing in a certain understanding, I do it differently.

Science and I do not consider a thing a thing in and of itself. Science is about relationships between things in our physical existence.

Then end result is that things, truth, existence and what not doesn't matter, what matters is that it matters to somebody. That is where it always ends.
A thing doesn't matter in itself. It matters to somebody. We have been here before. In another thread you dismissed a point about knowledge to the effect of that you didn't care about it and didn't find it relevant.

Science is not concerned with 'Truth,' nor the ultimate cause of our existence.

You are not unique in that. It always with variation ends here: "Objective reality matters." Me: To whom and is that objective? What is the evidence for the fact, that objective reality matters?

Objective reality is the physical existence is the reality that we live every day. We physically live in this reality from day to day.

Objective reality is meaningful, because that is the context of our lives in the physical existence and relationships. Remember science is what makes our computers work and airplanes fly. Of course, there are subjective considerations about relationships, but that is not the realm of science.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

your formatting is off

Well, I don't care for truth or ultimate meaning. I care what works for humans in a limited sense.

 

[Polymath257]

Try to understand without yourself and get back to me.

Since I am the one wanting to understand, that makes no sense.

And you do it again. If you only know about them through observation, I would like to know about them without observation.

Sorry, that cannot be done. Observation is crucial for knowledge about the real world.

You make these basic contradictions. You know about something through observation and you know without observation.

Observation is how I know things. And that means I can learn how things work and thereby know what happens even when I am not observing.

And there you are again. We are talking about independent reality and yet you show up and subjectively disagree. But for you to do that, you must be there. That is the joke. You are talking about independent reality and you keep on talking about it, so for once could you admit the following:
For you to do all this you must be there and the rest of reality must also be there. Reality is not, what is independent of you, because that requires you to say that it is independent of you.

Yes, for *me* to do this requires that I am there to do it. But that does not mean that reality is dependent on me. For *you* to understand, you have to be there. But there is still something to understand even if you are not there. *My* understanding is dependent on me, of course. And yours is dependent on you. But the chair is independent of both of us.

You are confusing our understanding of something with the thing that is understood. A finger pointing at the moon is not the moon. But the moon exists even if no finger points to it.

 

[shunyadragon]

Well, I don't care for truth or ultimate meaning. I care what works for humans in a limited sense.

Science does not care for 'Truth' nor the ultimate meaning.

Science cares for what works for humans within the limitations of the objective physical existence.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Science does not care for 'Truth' nor the ultimate meaning.

Science cares for what works for humans within the limitations of the objective physical existence.

Why did you post that? You have already stated it and I know that.
The universe doesn't care for humans and in all likelihood it doesn't care for us in the sense that we are able to rationally and all that and thus make the perfect theory of everything. Evolution didn't bring us about, so we can understand the universe in the perfect theory of everything, unless you can use science to show that the universe has a purpose with humans and we evolved for the purpose of making the perfect theory of everything?
Can you do that?

To me it makes sense that this is a byproduct of our brains - that some people have this desire to make the perfect theory of everything. But from that the desire doesn't follow that we evolved to do that.

 

[metis]

So that is the core: "...belief in anything that cannot be scientifically proved, i.e., faith, “is one of the world’s great evils, comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to eradicate…""
If you learn to spot that one in all its variants, it always ends here. You only need to do science, because it is possible to only hold beliefs, which are scientifically proven.
That is scientism.

I don't know of anyone who actually does that, and I am a scientist, now retired.

 

[shunyadragon]

To me it makes sense that this is a byproduct of our brains - that some people have this desire to make the perfect theory of everything. But from that the desire doesn't follow that we evolved to do that.

I believe that science is misunderstood concerning what the search for concerning the 'Theory of Everything.' This is not what the ultimate cause is, nor what the ultimate 'Truth' is. The present goal of physics in science is to develop the theory that unifies and explains the relationships between the the very large in the general Theory of Relativity and Gravity, and the smallest of the small Quantum Mechanics, and Quantum Gravity.

An important point to remember is the science is descriptive of our physical existence from the human perspective, and not definitive of the nature of our physical existence. There will always be things that are out of the reach of science such as whether our physical existence is infinite or finite, or temporal or eternal.

 

[Polymath257]

Why did you post that? You have already stated it and I know that.
The universe doesn't care for humans and in all likelihood it doesn't care for us in the sense that we are able to rationally and all that and thus make the perfect theory of everything. Evolution didn't bring us about, so we can understand the universe in the perfect theory of everything, unless you can use science to show that the universe has a purpose with humans and we evolved for the purpose of making the perfect theory of everything?
Can you do that?

To me it makes sense that this is a byproduct of our brains - that some people have this desire to make the perfect theory of everything. But from that the desire doesn't follow that we evolved to do that.

OK, so? It doesn't matter that the universe doesn't dictate a purpose for us. WE can still choose to pursue knowledge. And, if you want to do so, then the scientific method is a good way to do it. In fact, it is the only way we know of to actually get knowledge (at least approximately).

Why should we care whether the universe cares or not?

 

[Tambourine]

Keep digging your hole deeper without responding to my specific references on how science is fundamentally defined in terms of objectivity.

Go back to your ancient Agrippa skepticism your responses have no constructive value on how science functions in the contemporary world.

There are multiple competing definitions of science, and not all fields of academic inquiry deal with the problem of objectivity in the same manner, or even consider it a problem in the first place; compare and contrast e.g. social sciences, observational sciences like astronomy or biology, experimental sciences, and purely theoretical fields like mathematics.

 

[shunyadragon]

There are multiple competing definitions of science, and not all fields of academic inquiry deal with the problem of objectivity in the same manner, or even consider it a problem in the first place; compare and contrast e.g. social sciences, observational sciences like astronomy or biology, experimental sciences, and purely theoretical fields like mathematics.

First, math is not science, and is subjective in and of itself. It is part of the tool box of science. Second the foundation of science remains objective verifiable evidence beginning with the basic sciences. The applied science in technology and behavioral sciences have the foundation in the objective verifiable evidence. Behavioral science are increasing their foundation in the objective evidence more and more over time. Yes, the behavioral science do interface with the subjective behavior of of humans, but remain objective in their foundation.

 

[Polymath257]

There are multiple competing definitions of science, and not all fields of academic inquiry deal with the problem of objectivity in the same manner, or even consider it a problem in the first place; compare and contrast e.g. social sciences, observational sciences like astronomy or biology, experimental sciences, and purely theoretical fields like mathematics.

Mathematics is NOT a science. It is closer to an art form. It doesn't use the scientific method, it doesn't use observation to test ideas, etc.

There are aspects of the scientific method used when mathematicians are figuring out a problem: hypothesis formation, testing, etc. But it isn't observation that is the key to validity; it is proof from axioms.

 

[shunyadragon]

Try to understand without yourself and get back to me.

Incoherent and not meaningful.

And you do it again. If you only know about them through observation, I would like to know about them without observation.

OK!, but you will not 'know,' you will believe, have opinions, make subjective judgments from the person perspective.

You make these basic contradictions. You know about something through observation

Objective science and practical objective observations i every day life that are objectively predictable.

. . . and you know without observation.

'know?' are you sure. Without observation you may believe, philosophy and theology, opinions, and subjective judgments

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Second the foundation of science remains objective verifiable evidence beginning with the basic sciences.

So you think that the orthodox/CI understanding of quantum theory as well as the far more recent/modern information-theoretic approaches (especially QBism) are not scientific, despite being a fundamental approach to foundation physics? And would you also therefore discount as unscientific work and research programmes as well as entire fields that take Bayesianism as a basic approach to empirical sciences, building off of the work of e.g. Jaynes' (Probability Theory: The Logic of Science), de Finetti, R. Jeffrey, H. Jeffreys, Cox, and others? Would this include so-called objective Bayesianism as unscientific as well, or would you merely discount as unscientific any field or work that approached scientific inquiry from a subjective Bayesian point of view?