True?

[Stephen P. King]

Hi,

    Is the following a sound claim?


"...scientifically meaningful propositions are questions about the past, the present, the future, or the eternal laws that:"

• might in principle be both false and true
• admit a method, at least in principle, to evaluate their truth values.

-- 
Onward!

Stephen

[Stephen P. King]

"...examples of propositions that don't belong to science because one of the disqualifying conditions below holds:

• they're purely mathematical in character so they require no empirical input at all
• they're statements about fictional objects such as Hamlet that can't be decided from the only available data, in this case the text of Hamlet (there's no "real Hamlet" offering "additional data")
• they depend on subjective opinions and preferences"

-- 
Onward!

Stephen

PS, I am quoting Sean Carroll

[Craig Weinberg]

They sound ok to me. Subjective opinions should not be included when the topic of consideration is subjectivity itself, but they should be understood as expressions of subjective phenomena.

Craig
 

[Alberto G. Corona]

No.

 

What means "truth value" of something? in which range of phenomena? in all phenomena applicable? how you can test all phenomena applicable to a theory? you can't. The only thing that you can do is to test a particular prediction that the theory predict that may never happen (Popperian falsability)

 

 

Feyerabend demosntrated  that not even that is possible, or at least unique, since the perceptions or "facts" must be interpreted according with the theory. there is no fact that is theory-free. A fact pressuposes a theory. So a theory and their perceptions are a closed set, that may be autocoherent.

 

So there may be different theories for the same phenomena, each one with their interpreted facts, that may have some kind of morphism between them. That is evidently and pefectly exemplified now in some dualities of string theories, or between newtonian and relativistic mechanics, or in a certain way, between heliocentrism and  geocentrisme.  where  agreeement between phenomena and  ptolemaic theory, in the case of heliocentrism, is maintained at the cost of a more complicated theory.

 

Then, to escape the Feyerabend trap, there is necessary additional criteria, such is the economy of axioms or the Occam Razor as criteria for theory acceptance. Fortunately it works, because it seems that we live in a simple, mathematical universe, which is amazing per se.

  

About opinions:

 

But all that one may know, even the facts, are subjective perceptions.

  

But opinions are about internal subjective perceptions,

 

That there are no scientific theory about some subjective perceptions (some internal ones) does not say that these subjective perceptions can never be objects of scientific study. Simply it means that at this historical moment there is no methods (or there is resistance to them, since the rejection of common sense) that would make them testable and scientific.

 

2013/3/19 Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com>

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[Evgenii Rudnyi]

On 19.03.2013 18:37 Alberto G. Corona said the following:
> No.
>

...

> Then, to escape the Feyerabend trap, there is necessary additional
> criteria, such is the economy of axioms or the Occam Razor as
> criteria for theory acceptance. Fortunately it works, because it
> seems that we live in a simple, mathematical universe, which is
> amazing per se.
>

I have listened recently to a lecture by Maarten Hoenen about the
philosophy of Occam. Hence the question. What does it mean when you use
Occam's name? Do you share any of his philosophical/theological
positions? Or in your paragraph his name is just an empty token?

Evgenii

[Bruno Marchal]

On 19 Mar 2013, at 18:37, Alberto G. Corona wrote:

No.

 

What means "truth value" of something? in which range of phenomena? in all phenomena applicable? how you can test all phenomena applicable to a theory?

That's what the theory is all about, if done honestly.

you can't.

of course we can. We do that since centuries, with some rigor in some filed, and less so in other field, for reason of hotness and personal fears.

The only thing that you can do is to test a particular prediction that the theory predict that may never happen (Popperian falsability)

OK.

 

 

Feyerabend demosntrated  that not even that is possible, or at least unique, since the perceptions or "facts" must be interpreted according with the theory. there is no fact that is theory-free. A fact pressuposes a theory. So a theory and their perceptions are a closed set, that may be autocoherent.

OK. But note that you need arithmetic or Turing equivalent to make that precise. 

 

So there may be different theories for the same phenomena, each one with their interpreted facts, that may have some kind of morphism between them. That is evidently and pefectly exemplified now in some dualities of string theories, or between newtonian and relativistic mechanics, or in a certain way, between heliocentrism and  geocentrisme.  where  agreeement between phenomena and  ptolemaic theory, in the case of heliocentrism, is maintained at the cost of a more complicated theory.

And in computer science, where you can see all first order specification of any Turing universal system as a theory (of everything).

 

Then, to escape the Feyerabend trap, there is necessary additional criteria, such is the economy of axioms or the Occam Razor as criteria for theory acceptance. Fortunately it works, because it seems that we live in a simple, mathematical universe, which is amazing per se.

Locally, but then comp explains the remative importance of the little numbers, and the less little numbers, ...

  

About opinions:

 

But all that one may know, even the facts, are subjective perceptions.

  

But opinions are about internal subjective perceptions,

 

That there are no scientific theory about some subjective perceptions (some internal ones) does not say that these subjective perceptions can never be objects of scientific study.

Totally agree.

Simply it means that at this historical moment there is no methods (or there is resistance to them, since the rejection of common sense) that would make them testable and scientific.

Well, with comp there is. See my url for links, but that is what I explain here. The discovery of the universal numbers/machines makes that possible. We can derive physics from computer science + some modal logic of knowledge, and compare with the facts.

Bruno

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

[Alberto G. Corona]

Since I´m more in the side of Aquinas/Aristotle -or even Plato sometimes- I don not share the Occam views.Occam was a nominalist, that  is rejected the existence of universals, he did not like to think in terms universals, because if universals exist, for example Truth, Love and Peace then they impose some obligations to God: for example, God must do Good, and must not do Evil by definition. Then, why Evil exist?

 

Nominalist did not like to think about these entitities, and wanted an omnipotent God.  That was the original meaning of the Occam razor.

 

But the secularization of this principle produced the modern concept of materialist science, separated from philosophy, via an empiricism science and the negation of the nous of the greek, the common sense and finally the negation of the possibility of objective understanding of anything but some phisical phenomena, and in general the negation of anything that can be not tested by experiments

2013/3/19 Evgenii Rudnyi <use...@rudnyi.ru>

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[meekerdb]

On 3/19/2013 10:37 AM, Alberto G. Corona wrote:

No.

 

What means "truth value" of something? in which range of phenomena? in all phenomena applicable? how you can test all phenomena applicable to a theory? you can't. The only thing that you can do is to test a particular prediction that the theory predict that may never happen (Popperian falsability)

 

 

Feyerabend demosntrated  that not even that is possible, or at least unique, since the perceptions or "facts" must be interpreted according with the theory. there is no fact that is theory-free. A fact pressuposes a theory. So a theory and their perceptions are a closed set, that may be autocoherent.

 

So there may be different theories for the same phenomena, each one with their interpreted facts, that may have some kind of morphism between them. That is evidently and pefectly exemplified now in some dualities of string theories, or between newtonian and relativistic mechanics, or in a certain way, between heliocentrism and  geocentrisme.  where  agreeement between phenomena and  ptolemaic theory, in the case of heliocentrism, is maintained at the cost of a more complicated theory.

 

Then, to escape the Feyerabend trap, there is necessary additional criteria, such is the economy of axioms or the Occam Razor as criteria for theory acceptance. Fortunately it works, because it seems that we live in a simple, mathematical universe, which is amazing per se.

Of course it works in the sense that the selected theory will save the facts, because you only consider theories that are not contradicted by the facts - and if you are fortunate enough to have more than one, then you consider Occams razor and esthetic criteria.  But you don't have to throw out all but one.  You use esthetic criteria just to decide which theory is most likely to lead further.  A theory suggests new tests and more comprehensive theories, so in general all of them: string-theory, loop-quantum-gravity, causal sets, are pursued by different people.  It is neither necessary or desirable to choose one and nominate it THE TRUTH.

Brent

No virus found in this message.
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[Stephen P. King]

On 3/19/2013 6:29 PM, meekerdb wrote:
> Of course it works in the sense that the selected theory will save the
> facts, because you only consider theories that are not contradicted by
> the facts - and if you are fortunate enough to have more than one,
> then you consider Occams razor and esthetic criteria. But you don't
> have to throw out all but one. You use esthetic criteria just to
> decide which theory is most likely to lead further. A theory suggests
> new tests and more comprehensive theories, so in general all of them:
> string-theory, loop-quantum-gravity, causal sets, are pursued by
> different people. It is neither necessary or desirable to choose one
> and nominate it THE TRUTH.
>
> Brent

Amen!


--
Onward!

Stephen

[Evgenii Rudnyi]

On 19.03.2013 22:25 Alberto G. Corona said the following:

> Since I�m more in the side of Aquinas/Aristotle -or even Plato
> sometimes- I don not share the Occam views.Occam was a nominalist,
> that is rejected the existence of universals, he did not like to
> think in terms universals, because if universals exist, for example
> Truth, Love and Peace then they impose some obligations to God: for
> example, God must do Good, and must not do Evil by definition. Then,
> why Evil exist?
>
> Nominalist did not like to think about these entitities, and wanted
> an omnipotent God. That was the original meaning of the Occam
> razor.
>
> But the secularization of this principle produced the modern concept
> of materialist science, separated from philosophy, via an empiricism
> science and the negation of the nous of the greek, the common sense
> and finally the negation of the possibility of objective
> understanding of anything but some phisical phenomena, and in general
> the negation of anything that can be not tested by experiments

I see a bit of irony in the fact that people who believe in physical
reality often call to a principle developed by Occam.

A small note. At some time in the middle ages nominalist and realist
philosophy departments co-existed in the same University. A lovely fact
from the dark middle ages.

Evgenii

[Bruno Marchal]

On 19 Mar 2013, at 22:25, Alberto G. Corona wrote:

Since I´m more in the side of Aquinas/Aristotle -or even Plato sometimes-

?

I see Plato and Aristotle as the most opposite view we can have on reality.

(To be sure by Aristotle I means its usual interpretation by the followers. Aristotle himself is still close to Plato, at least that can be accepted, if only because his treatise on metaphysics is quite unclear and hard to interpret).

I don not share the Occam views.Occam was a nominalist, that  is rejected the existence of universals, he did not like to think in terms universals, because if universals exist, for example Truth, Love and Peace then they impose some obligations to God: for example, God must do Good, and must not do Evil by definition. Then, why Evil exist?

 

Nominalist did not like to think about these entitities, and wanted an omnipotent God.  That was the original meaning of the Occam razor.

In the least Occam refer only to the idea that between a simple (short) and a complex (long) theory, having the same explanative power for the same range of phenomena, we will choose the shorter, and this most often (but allowing exception). It is the idea that the conceptually simple is better than the ad hoc complex construct. In particular we don't introduce as axiom what is a theorem. 

 

But the secularization of this principle produced the modern concept of materialist science,

I am not sure. materialism violate Occam directly. It is bad metaphysics at the start. No one has ever given a way to test the existence of primary matter. 

separated from philosophy, via an empiricism science and the negation of the nous of the greek, the common sense and finally the negation of the possibility of objective understanding of anything but some phisical phenomena, and in general the negation of anything that can be not tested by experiments

This is more like Aristotle + a bit of positivism. Positivism has been refuted, mainly. But most scientist still believe that Aristotelianism is "scientific". They confuse the physical reality with the primary physical reality.

Bruno

2013/3/19 Evgenii Rudnyi <use...@rudnyi.ru>

On 19.03.2013 18:37 Alberto G. Corona said the following:

No.

...

Then, to escape the Feyerabend trap, there is necessary additional
criteria, such is the economy of axioms or the Occam Razor as
criteria for theory acceptance. Fortunately it works, because it
seems that we live in a simple, mathematical universe, which is
amazing per se.

I have listened recently to a lecture by Maarten Hoenen about the philosophy of Occam. Hence the question. What does it mean when you use Occam's name? Do you share any of his philosophical/theological positions? Or in your paragraph his name is just an empty token?

Evgenii

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http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

[Alberto G. Corona]

2013/3/20 Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be>

On 19 Mar 2013, at 22:25, Alberto G. Corona wrote:

Since I´m more in the side of Aquinas/Aristotle -or even Plato sometimes-

?

I see Plato and Aristotle as the most opposite view we can have on reality.

(To be sure by Aristotle I means its usual interpretation by the followers. Aristotle himself is still close to Plato, at least that can be accepted, if only because his treatise on metaphysics is quite unclear and hard to interpret).

 

Are you a follower of La Rouche? I do not see such opposition between Plato and Aristotle .  Aristotle believed in essences and ideas and in the the inner sense of what is right, just like Plato. he was not an empiricist nor a materialist. its phisics is drawn both form intuition and observation, not from experiments (and it was quite right for the range of  the terrestrial phenomena that he studied)

 

I don not share the Occam views.Occam was a nominalist, that  is rejected the existence of universals, he did not like to think in terms universals, because if universals exist, for example Truth, Love and Peace then they impose some obligations to God: for example, God must do Good, and must not do Evil by definition. Then, why Evil exist?

 

Nominalist did not like to think about these entitities, and wanted an omnipotent God.  That was the original meaning of the Occam razor.

In the least Occam refer only to the idea that between a simple (short) and a complex (long) theory, having the same explanative power for the same range of phenomena, we will choose the shorter, and this most often (but allowing exception). It is the idea that the conceptually simple is better than the ad hoc complex construct. In particular we don't introduce as axiom what is a theorem. 

Probalby what Occam said was purely teological and philosophical. Occam AFIK did not told about scientific theories. What we know as the Occam Razor is a materialistic version of the philosophical principle of "not to multiplicate the (philosophical) entities without need"

 

But the secularization of this principle produced the modern concept of materialist science,

I am not sure. materialism violate Occam directly. It is bad metaphysics at the start. No one has ever given a way to test the existence of primary matter. 

 

materialism ios a bad name. The appropriate name is phenomenalism. What is know now as "science" is the sole study of the phenomena  (as if they were no concepts beyond that) . Materialism may be considered as a hypostasization of phenomenalism. in such a way that "because phenomena are the only thing that I care for, let´s make them real as "things" outside me, and let´s make the mind and everithing else , inexistent until more phenomena prove otherwise.

 

separated from philosophy, via an empiricism science and the negation of the nous of the greek, the common sense and finally the negation of the possibility of objective understanding of anything but some phisical phenomena, and in general the negation of anything that can be not tested by experiments

This is more like Aristotle + a bit of positivism. Positivism has been refuted, mainly. But most scientist still believe that Aristotelianism is "scientific". They confuse the physical reality with the primary physical reality.

I don´t think so. It is not so historically AFAIK. Positivism is the modern form of the different secularizations of nominalism, a philosophical movement  born to explicitly reject Aristotle and Aquinas (who imposed logical limitations what God can and can not do) during the middle ages.

 

Although Plato is more radically opposed than Aristotle to what is comonly know as materialism.

--
Alberto.

[meekerdb]

On 3/20/2013 2:22 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
> On 19.03.2013 22:25 Alberto G. Corona said the following:
>> Since I�m more in the side of Aquinas/Aristotle -or even Plato
>> sometimes- I don not share the Occam views.Occam was a nominalist,
>> that is rejected the existence of universals, he did not like to
>> think in terms universals, because if universals exist, for example
>> Truth, Love and Peace then they impose some obligations to God: for
>> example, God must do Good, and must not do Evil by definition. Then,
>> why Evil exist?
>>
>> Nominalist did not like to think about these entitities, and wanted
>> an omnipotent God. That was the original meaning of the Occam
>> razor.
>>
>> But the secularization of this principle produced the modern concept
>> of materialist science, separated from philosophy, via an empiricism
>> science and the negation of the nous of the greek, the common sense
>> and finally the negation of the possibility of objective
>> understanding of anything but some phisical phenomena, and in general
>> the negation of anything that can be not tested by experiments
>
> I see a bit of irony in the fact that people who believe in physical reality often call
> to a principle developed by Occam.

What's the irony? Occam is about our theories and models. One generally believes in some
reality; that why you develop theories about it and try to model it. I'm not sure what
'physical' adds to 'reality'?

Brent

[Evgenii Rudnyi]

On 20.03.2013 20:18 meekerdb said the following:

> On 3/20/2013 2:22 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
>> On 19.03.2013 22:25 Alberto G. Corona said the following:

...

>> I see a bit of irony in the fact that people who believe in
>> physical reality often call to a principle developed by Occam.
>
> What's the irony? Occam is about our theories and models. One
> generally believes in some reality; that why you develop theories
> about it and try to model it. I'm not sure what 'physical' adds to
> 'reality'?

Let us take an atom as an example (you may replace it by an elementary
particle or a superstring, your choice). Physicists using such a concept
usually believe that the atom does exist, aren't they? In this sense,
physicists are realists.

At the Occam's time, realists were people who have believed that
universals exist. Occam has employed his razor to strip universals from
the reality and his position has led to nominalism. That is, universals
are just creation of the mind and it does not make sense to search for
them in the real world.

Presumably his positions about atoms were the same, an atom is just a
concept created by the mind - hence it does not make sense to search for
it in reality. Here is the irony.

Evgenii

[Alberto G. Corona]

2013/3/20 Evgenii Rudnyi <use...@rudnyi.ru>

Very right. The atom become a pure abstraction of the mind when studying subatomic phenomena not at the human scale. In the same way that good and evil becomes abstract inventions of of the mind -the nominalist would say-  withour associated phenomena  when the reality is  observed  ahistorically, not at the human scale. 

 

(but the Bible supplies what the "inventions" of philosophy can not provide, nominalists theologues would clarify) ( to what their positivists descendants, more radical would answer:  no , there is nothing that we known about good and evil, all is relative and subjective) (to what heidegger would say: that`s right, then the will to be and the will to power is the only justification needed for human action)  (to what Hitler would say: Good point!)

Evgenii

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[Stephen P. King]

On 3/20/2013 2:51 PM, Alberto G. Corona wrote:

2013/3/20 Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be>

On 19 Mar 2013, at 22:25, Alberto G. Corona wrote:

Since I´m more in the side of Aquinas/Aristotle -or even Plato sometimes-

?

I see Plato and Aristotle as the most opposite view we can have on reality.

(To be sure by Aristotle I means its usual interpretation by the followers. Aristotle himself is still close to Plato, at least that can be accepted, if only because his treatise on metaphysics is quite unclear and hard to interpret).

 

Are you a follower of La Rouche? I do not see such opposition between Plato and Aristotle .  Aristotle believed in essences and ideas and in the the inner sense of what is right, just like Plato. he was not an empiricist nor a materialist. its phisics is drawn both form intuition and observation, not from experiments (and it was quite right for the range of  the terrestrial phenomena that he studied)

 

I don not share the Occam views.Occam was a nominalist, that  is rejected the existence of universals, he did not like to think in terms universals, because if universals exist, for example Truth, Love and Peace then they impose some obligations to God: for example, God must do Good, and must not do Evil by definition. Then, why Evil exist?

 

Nominalist did not like to think about these entitities, and wanted an omnipotent God.  That was the original meaning of the Occam razor.

In the least Occam refer only to the idea that between a simple (short) and a complex (long) theory, having the same explanative power for the same range of phenomena, we will choose the shorter, and this most often (but allowing exception). It is the idea that the conceptually simple is better than the ad hoc complex construct. In particular we don't introduce as axiom what is a theorem. 

Probalby what Occam said was purely teological and philosophical. Occam AFIK did not told about scientific theories. What we know as the Occam Razor is a materialistic version of the philosophical principle of "not to multiplicate the (philosophical) entities without need"

 

But the secularization of this principle produced the modern concept of materialist science,

I am not sure. materialism violate Occam directly. It is bad metaphysics at the start. No one has ever given a way to test the existence of primary matter. 

 

materialism ios a bad name. The appropriate name is phenomenalism. What is know now as "science" is the sole study of the phenomena  (as if they were no concepts beyond that) . Materialism may be considered as a hypostasization of phenomenalism. in such a way that "because phenomena are the only thing that I care for, let´s make them real as "things" outside me, and let´s make the mind and everithing else , inexistent until more phenomena prove otherwise.

 

separated from philosophy, via an empiricism science and the negation of the nous of the greek, the common sense and finally the negation of the possibility of objective understanding of anything but some phisical phenomena, and in general the negation of anything that can be not tested by experiments

This is more like Aristotle + a bit of positivism. Positivism has been refuted, mainly. But most scientist still believe that Aristotelianism is "scientific". They confuse the physical reality with the primary physical reality.

I don´t think so. It is not so historically AFAIK. Positivism is the modern form of the different secularizations of nominalism, a philosophical movement  born to explicitly reject Aristotle and Aquinas (who imposed logical limitations what God can and can not do) during the middle ages.

 

Although Plato is more radically opposed than Aristotle to what is comonly know as materialism.

Dear Albert,

    I agree 100% with your comments here!

-- 
Onward!

Stephen

[Stephen P. King]

Dear Evgenii,

I agree! What is almost worse is that immaterialism makes the very
idea that a 'reality' has any existence outside one the mind of the
individual. This makes escape from solipsism impossible.

--
Onward!

Stephen

[meekerdb]

That's a false dichotomy. You are assuming that because something, like an atom, is an
element of a model which was invented to describe reality that it is *just* a concept.
No, it is a concept which is part of very successful model and which we therefore have
reason to believe captures some aspect of reality. It makes perfect sense to "search for
it" in the sense of test the predictions of the model to see if they agree with observation.

Brent

[Evgenii Rudnyi]

On 20.03.2013 22:59 meekerdb said the following:

> On 3/20/2013 1:01 PM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
>> On 20.03.2013 20:18 meekerdb said the following:
>>> On 3/20/2013 2:22 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:

...

>> At the Occam's time, realists were people who have believed that
>> universals exist. Occam has employed his razor to strip universals
>> from the reality and his position has led to nominalism. That is,
>> universals are just creation of the mind and it does not make
>> sense to search for them in the real world.
>
>>
>> Presumably his positions about atoms were the same, an atom is just
>> a concept created by the mind - hence it does not make sense to
>> search for it in reality. Here is the irony.
>
> That's a false dichotomy. You are assuming that because something,
> like an atom, is an element of a model which was invented to describe
> reality that it is *just* a concept. No, it is a concept which is
> part of very successful model and which we therefore have reason to
> believe captures some aspect of reality. It makes perfect sense to
> "search for it" in the sense of test the predictions of the model to
> see if they agree with observation.
>

I completely agree with the last sentences. This is exactly what Van
Fraassen says. Yet, physicists like Deutsch seem to believe for example
that multiverse exists as reality - see his The Beginning of Infinity
and his defense of realism.

Evgenii

[Evgenii Rudnyi]

On 20.03.2013 22:14 Stephen P. King said the following:

>
> On 3/20/2013 4:01 PM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
>> On 20.03.2013 20:18 meekerdb said the following:
>>> On 3/20/2013 2:22 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
>>>> On 19.03.2013 22:25 Alberto G. Corona said the following:
>>

...


>>

>> Presumably his positions about atoms were the same, an atom is just
>> a concept created by the mind - hence it does not make sense to
>> search for it in reality. Here is the irony.
>>
>> Evgenii
>>
> Dear Evgenii,
>
> I agree! What is almost worse is that immaterialism makes the very
> idea that a 'reality' has any existence outside one the mind of the
> individual. This makes escape from solipsism impossible.
>

Well, you have the way out when you consider the Other - look what
Sartre says about consciousness. "The Other" intrinsically belongs to
the Universe in the same way as "I". Solipsism happens when you forget
about The Other. I believe that Sartre is very good in this respect.

Evgenii

[Evgenii Rudnyi]

On 20.03.2013 22:06 Stephen P. King said the following:

>
> On 3/20/2013 2:51 PM, Alberto G. Corona wrote:
>>
>>

...

>> Are you a follower of La Rouche? I do not see such opposition
>> between Plato and Aristotle . Aristotle believed in essences and
>> ideas and in the the inner sense of what is right, just like Plato.
>> he was not an empiricist nor a materialist. its phisics is drawn
>> both form intuition and observation, not from experiments (and it
>> was quite right for the range of the terrestrial phenomena that he
>> studied)
>>

A small note. I have recently listened to lectures by Maarten Hoenen

Antike und mittelalterliche Philosophie

He has considered in his lectures

Plato
Aristotle
Plotinus
Augustine of Hippo
Avicenna
Anselm of Canterbury
Albertus Magnus
Thomas Aquinas
Meister Eckhart
Duns Scotus
William of Ockham
Nicolaus Cusanus
Descartes

In his words, Christian philosophers have tried all the time to find the
right mixture between Aristotle and Plato. Say Augustine is almost
Neo-Platonic while Thomas Aquinas is almost pure Aristotelian. And it
seems that among Christian philosophers you could find any possible
superposition between ideas of Plato and Aristotle.

Evgenii

[Stephen P. King]

How do we forget what we cannot even know that we know?



--
Onward!

Stephen

[Evgenii Rudnyi]

On 21.03.2013 12:20 Stephen P. King said the following:

As far as I know, that's the main Sartre's point. You just start with
that you know that you know. Without the Other there is no I.

Evgenii

[Stephen P. King]

Sartre was the philosopher that was the hardest for me to study, but
I did manage to finish Being and Nothingness. Consciousness might be,
itself, the act of distinctioning between I and Other, but how to do so
without Being other than either of these?



--
Onward!

Stephen

[Evgenii Rudnyi]

On 21.03.2013 12:44 Stephen P. King said the following:

>
> On 3/21/2013 7:30 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
>> On 21.03.2013 12:20 Stephen P. King said the following:

...

>>> How do we forget what we cannot even know that we know?
>>
>> As far as I know, that's the main Sartre's point. You just start
>> with that you know that you know. Without the Other there is no I.
>>
>> Evgenii
>>
> Sartre was the philosopher that was the hardest for me to study, but
> I did manage to finish Being and Nothingness. Consciousness might
> be, itself, the act of distinctioning between I and Other, but how to
> do so without Being other than either of these?

Van Fraassen's answer to this question is as follows:

�Let us begin with a statement that I am sure you must have heard before:

God is dead.

You are right if you take it that I am serious about this. But what do I
mean? When Pascal died, a scrap of paper was found in the lining of his
coat. On it was written � The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, not the
God of the philosophers.� Pascal was a contemporary of Descartes in the
seventeenth century, and the God who appears in Descartes� Meditations
on First Philosophy was the paradigmatic philosophers� God. He is of
course omniscient, omnipotent, and omni-benevolent, and he is designed
precisely so as to guarantee that everything that Descartes says is
true. So Pascal had a very good example near at hand. Here is what I
mean when I say that God is dead:

The God of the philosophers is dead.

This God is dead because he is a creature of metaphysics � that type of
metaphysics � and metaphysics is dead.�

I am trying now to see things along this way. I should confess though
that this is not that easy.

Evgenii

[Bruno Marchal]

On 20 Mar 2013, at 19:51, Alberto G. Corona wrote:

2013/3/20 Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be>

On 19 Mar 2013, at 22:25, Alberto G. Corona wrote:

Since I´m more in the side of Aquinas/Aristotle -or even Plato sometimes-

?

I see Plato and Aristotle as the most opposite view we can have on reality.

(To be sure by Aristotle I means its usual interpretation by the followers. Aristotle himself is still close to Plato, at least that can be accepted, if only because his treatise on metaphysics is quite unclear and hard to interpret).

 

Are you a follower of La Rouche? I do not see such opposition between Plato and Aristotle .  Aristotle believed in essences and ideas and in the the inner sense of what is right, just like Plato. he was not an empiricist nor a materialist. its phisics is drawn both form intuition and observation, not from experiments (and it was quite right for the range of  the terrestrial phenomena that he studied)

I aml not sure that Arsitotle and Plato differ so much, theologically, as Aristotle is unclear. But it is generally accepted that we can sum up "Aristotelianism" by the belief in the existence of a primary matter, and that this is related to the widespread physicalist belief.

But Plato makes clear in more than one text that the physical reality, what we see and measure, might be only the shadow of something else. 

So a usefulm summary, which might not been entirely fait to the historic Aristotle is that:

- with Aristotle, reality is WYSIWYG  (what you see in what you get)

- With Plato, reality is NOT WYSIWYG. (what you see is not the reality, but a facet of reality).

 

I don not share the Occam views.Occam was a nominalist, that  is rejected the existence of universals, he did not like to think in terms universals, because if universals exist, for example Truth, Love and Peace then they impose some obligations to God: for example, God must do Good, and must not do Evil by definition. Then, why Evil exist?

 

Nominalist did not like to think about these entitities, and wanted an omnipotent God.  That was the original meaning of the Occam razor.

In the least Occam refer only to the idea that between a simple (short) and a complex (long) theory, having the same explanative power for the same range of phenomena, we will choose the shorter, and this most often (but allowing exception). It is the idea that the conceptually simple is better than the ad hoc complex construct. In particular we don't introduce as axiom what is a theorem. 

Probalby what Occam said was purely teological and philosophical. Occam AFIK did not told about scientific theories. What we know as the Occam Razor is a materialistic version of the philosophical principle of "not to multiplicate the (philosophical) entities without need"

It is more general than that. Occam principle has nothing to do with materialism a priori. It is just the idea that we should use the simplest general assumption which explain the most.

 

But the secularization of this principle produced the modern concept of materialist science,

I am not sure. materialism violate Occam directly. It is bad metaphysics at the start. No one has ever given a way to test the existence of primary matter. 

 

materialism ios a bad name. The appropriate name is phenomenalism. What is know now as "science" is the sole study of the phenomena  (as if they were no concepts beyond that) .

You simplify too much here. By materialism I mean what I call most of the time weak materialism, and it is the doctrine that primary matter exist. Its epistemological version is physicalism (physics is the fundamental science to which all other are in principle reductible).

My point (proof) is that if we are machine, then physics is reduced to arithmetical truth. Most mathematicians would not catalog the mathematical truth into a phenomena.

Materialism may be considered as a hypostasization of phenomenalism. in such a way that "because phenomena are the only thing that I care for, let´s make them real as "things" outside me, and let´s make the mind and everithing else , inexistent until more phenomena prove otherwise.

You can see it in that way, but few materialist would agree. But we agree that they are wrong. I mean that what you say is consistent with comp.

 

separated from philosophy, via an empiricism science and the negation of the nous of the greek, the common sense and finally the negation of the possibility of objective understanding of anything but some phisical phenomena, and in general the negation of anything that can be not tested by experiments

This is more like Aristotle + a bit of positivism. Positivism has been refuted, mainly. But most scientist still believe that Aristotelianism is "scientific". They confuse the physical reality with the primary physical reality.

I don´t think so. It is not so historically AFAIK. Positivism is the modern form of the different secularizations of nominalism, a philosophical movement  born to explicitly reject Aristotle and Aquinas (who imposed logical limitations what God can and can not do) during the middle ages.

Positiism was still in vogue when I was young, but since a long time I have never met philosophers of science defending positivism. It is obviously inconsistent, as to make sense, it needs to be presented as a metaphysical assumption. Positivism, like relativism are self-defeating theory. They don't need opponents, and they fall quickly from their own contradiction.

 

Although Plato is more radically opposed than Aristotle to what is comonly know as materialism.

I read Aristotle, and I think he is quite responsible for the coming back to our animal conception of reality, where milk is an independent primary substance. This primary matter hypothesis has been without doubt a fertile methodological assumption, but it is inconsistent with computationalism, and hard to make clear with current physics.

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

[Bruno Marchal]

Good point. I missed it :)

Obviously people who believe in a *primary physical* reality already
might not obey to Occam. (provably so with comp).

But it is true that some materialist invoke Occam for saying that
"God" is not a useful concept. But they are just choosing some other
(Aristotelian) God.

And you are right we have to assume some reality to do research, or
just to live.

Bruno

>
> Brent
>
>
>>
>> A small note. At some time in the middle ages nominalist and
>> realist philosophy departments co-existed in the same University. A
>> lovely fact from the dark middle ages.
>>
>> Evgenii
>>
>

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http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

[Bruno Marchal]

On 20 Mar 2013, at 21:01, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:

> On 20.03.2013 20:18 meekerdb said the following:
>> On 3/20/2013 2:22 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
>>> On 19.03.2013 22:25 Alberto G. Corona said the following:
>
> ...
>
>>> I see a bit of irony in the fact that people who believe in
>>> physical reality often call to a principle developed by Occam.
>>
>> What's the irony? Occam is about our theories and models. One
>> generally believes in some reality; that why you develop theories
>> about it and try to model it. I'm not sure what 'physical' adds to
>> 'reality'?
>
> Let us take an atom as an example (you may replace it by an
> elementary particle or a superstring, your choice). Physicists using
> such a concept usually believe that the atom does exist, aren't
> they? In this sense, physicists are realists.
>
> At the Occam's time, realists were people who have believed that
> universals exist.

But the notion of atom of the physicist is based on many universals.
You can't believe in atoms if you don't believe that *all* electron in
a electromagnetic field will not behave in such or such way. And the
notion of field relies on even stronger universal propositions, like
analytical assertion on all complex numbers, etc.

> Occam has employed his razor to strip universals from the reality
> and his position has led to nominalism. That is, universals are just
> creation of the mind and it does not make sense to search for them
> in the real world.

That can make sense in comp. Ontologically you need on the true
sigma_1 sentences, which are existential (ExP(x), P decidable, or
sigma_0). So you can indeed put all universal propositions in the
epistemology. Now this leads to awkward statements, and comp is
provocative enough, so I put the negation of sigma_1 propositions also
at the ontological level. It is not important where we put the exact
cut between ontology and epistemology, with comp, as far as we don't
put too much in the ontology, as this will make more obscure the
derivations.

>
> Presumably his positions about atoms were the same, an atom is just
> a concept created by the mind - hence it does not make sense to
> search for it in reality.

Ah Ah, even better. Occam was good!




> Here is the irony.


OK.

Bruno

>
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http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

[meekerdb]

But Deutsch is just making the argument that instrumentalism is wrong and that when we
create models we're aiming to explain reality. It doesn't follow that our model IS
reality and it doesn't follow that it IS NOT reality. When you say be believes the
multiverse exists (I don't think it adds anything to say "as reality") he's just saying he
thinks it's the right model, it's the one to try to test and extend and use in explaining
things. It doesn't mean he wouldn't change his mind if it failed some test.

Brent