Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Steve3007]

...So they see no need to worry about philosophical underpinnings.

I think the fact that you use the phrase "philosophical underpinnings" suggests that you think those parallel worlds can't always happily exist in parallel and there is some sense in which the instrumentalists' instruments derive from the philosophical/ontological positions. Do you think it would make an equal amount of sense to invert that idea and think of the instruments as the underpinnings of the philosophy?

[Terrapin Station]

...Of course, science can't divorce itself from philosophical content, but for the sort of people I'm talking about--and that's a lot of scientists/mathematicians, the only important thing is that science/mathematics as practiced at present works--we have things like computers and smart phones and microwave ovens and we've gone to the moon, etc. So they see no need to worry about philosophical underpinnings.

I think the point where that subset of scientists and/or mathematicians (the purely practical/utilitarian/instrumentalist ones) cross paths with the philosophers of science is where the philosophical positions taken by those philosophers imply different practical positions. So the two groups can no longer continue in their separate parallel worlds but crash into each other. I'm trying to think of any examples of where that has definitely happened in any of the science-related discussions that have happened recently on this board. Surprisingly (maybe), it's hard to immediately and unambiguously think of one.

There have been discussions about things like "what's really going on" in experiments relating to quantum mechanics. But of course "what's really going on" is ontology, and practical/utilitarian/instrumentalist scientists aren't really interested in ontology and sometimes claim that QM demonstrates the question "what's really going on?" is meaningless. There have also been wider discussions about the general nature of reality, like the physicalist proposition that everything is matter or relationships between matter (or some better version of that phrasing). Maybe there are implications for those instrumentalists arising from that philosophical position which force them to either agree or disagree with it? It certainly felt as though there were when we last discussed it. But I can't immediately put my finger on what those implications might be.

I'm thinking more of the academic and professional worlds, really, based on my experiences as a student, briefly as a teacher, and then later interactions with both philosophy professors and a number of scientists/mathematicians/engineers and science/mathematics professors who are friends and family. For example, as a philosophy major taking science and mathematics courses, I used to bring up philosophical points about stuff we were learning in class sometimes, but there wasn't much interest in them (either from professors or students who were STEM majors), not much patience for them.

[Steve3007]

I'm thinking more of the academic and professional worlds, really, based on my experiences as a student, briefly as a teacher, and then later interactions with both philosophy professors and a number of scientists/mathematicians/engineers and science/mathematics professors who are friends and family. For example, as a philosophy major taking science and mathematics courses, I used to bring up philosophical points about stuff we were learning in class sometimes, but there wasn't much interest in them (either from professors or students who were STEM majors), not much patience for them.

It's interesting that that's been your experience. As a physics major (who started taking a philosophy minor but dropped it and stuck to physics) I found that there was a fair amount of interest, in a small percentage of fellow students and in a larger percentage of lecturers, in the philosophical implications of some parts of the subject. But I didn't get to discuss it in enough depth with the lecturers to see how deep that interest went, and I didn't stay in academia beyond first degree level. I think the students who weren't interested in the philosophical implications tended to be those who were motivated to study physics largely because of its practical uses on their resumes/CVs and didn't really appear particularly interested in it for its own sake. They just knew that, for whatever reason, they were good at it (i.e. they knew what to do to get the answers to the questions right) and potential employers liked it. I can understand that attitude in a student but would find it harder to understand in an academic who must surely be interested in the subject for its own sake and not for its use as a tool.

[Terrapin Station]

I'm thinking more of the academic and professional worlds, really, based on my experiences as a student, briefly as a teacher, and then later interactions with both philosophy professors and a number of scientists/mathematicians/engineers and science/mathematics professors who are friends and family. For example, as a philosophy major taking science and mathematics courses, I used to bring up philosophical points about stuff we were learning in class sometimes, but there wasn't much interest in them (either from professors or students who were STEM majors), not much patience for them.

It's interesting that that's been your experience. As a physics major (who started taking a philosophy minor but dropped it and stuck to physics) I found that there was a fair amount of interest, in a small percentage of fellow students and in a larger percentage of lecturers, in the philosophical implications of some parts of the subject. But I didn't get to discuss it in enough depth with the lecturers to see how deep that interest went, and I didn't stay in academia beyond first degree level. I think the students who weren't interested in the philosophical implications tended to be those who were motivated to study physics largely because of its practical uses on their resumes/CVs and didn't really appear particularly interested in it for its own sake. They just knew that, for whatever reason, they were good at it (i.e. they knew what to do to get the answers to the questions right) and potential employers liked it. I can understand that attitude in a student but would find it harder to understand in an academic who must surely be interested in the subject for its own sake and not for its use as a tool.

"I found that there was a fair amount of interest, in a small percentage of fellow students and in a larger percentage of lecturers, in the philosophical implications of some parts of the subject. " --definitely. I found that too. I wasn't saying that no one is interested. I tried to make that explicit in my comments above: "My experience with this aspect is that a lot of (but certainly not all) " "Folks with this disposition" (so there are folks without the disposition, too), "for the sort of people I'm talking about--and that's a lot of scientists/mathematicians," (so again, it's definitely not all of them, just a lot)

I have a lot of family/friends in general who basically have zero interest in philosophy . . . which is one of the reasons I like boards like this, because I don't have a lot of people I can interact with regularly to talk about philosophical stuff. If I'd stayed in academia that would have been different.

[Steve3007]

I wasn't saying that no one is interested. I tried to make that explicit in my comments above: "My experience with this aspect is that a lot of (but certainly not all) " "Folks with this disposition" (so there are folks without the disposition, too), "for the sort of people I'm talking about--and that's a lot of scientists/mathematicians," (so again, it's definitely not all of them, just a lot)

Yes, I got that. It's why I referred to them as a subset in my reply.

[Steve3007]

Following a discussion with @Terrapin Station in several topics, I hereby start a topic dedicated to the question whether it is valid to consider facts to be intrinsically different from truths...

If you decide to use the word "fact" to mean how things are in the world and the words "true" and "false" to be properties of propositions (which could be propositions about how things are in the world) then yes, facts are different from truths. If you decide to use those words to mean the same thing then facts are the same as truths.

If the former definitions, then "it is raining" could be a proposed fact and true could be a property of that proposition. It would seem odd to me to say that "true" is a property of things in the world. "The rain is true" sounds odd. "Rain is a fact of life" less so.

"It is true that it is raining" sounds fine. "It is a fact that it is raining" sounds fine. I can see how superficially those two sentences might give the impression that "true" and "fact" are synonyms, but they don't.

[Terrapin Station]

Following a discussion with @Terrapin Station in several topics, I hereby start a topic dedicated to the question whether it is valid to consider facts to be intrinsically different from truths...

If you decide to use the word "fact" to mean how things are in the world and the words "true" and "false" to be properties of propositions (which could be propositions about how things are in the world) then yes, facts are different from truths. If you decide to use those words to mean the same thing then facts are the same as truths.

If the former definitions, then "it is raining" could be a proposed fact and true could be a property of that proposition. It would seem odd to me to say that "true" is a property of things in the world. "The rain is true" sounds odd. "Rain is a fact of life" less so.

"It is true that it is raining" sounds fine. "It is a fact that it is raining" sounds fine. I can see how superficially those two sentences might give the impression that "true" and "fact" are synonyms, but they don't.

The main reason that (especially analytic) philosophers don't like using "true/truth" so that it's a property of facts is that in that case, "false(hood)" is required to be a property of an entirely different sort of thing ontologically. The asymmetry of that doesn't feel right for something that's a modality--it seems like "true/false" should be opposite modalities of the same sort of thing, not two different sorts of things. Modalities (or polarities, etc.) are almost always (and some would argue must definitionally be) alternate statuses or properties of the same sort of thing, not different sorts of things. The latter doesn't make much sense for the idea of modalities/polarities/etc.

[Steve3007]

1. What is the basis for the idea that facts can be obtained that differ from truths?
2. Is autonomous application of science justified without a dogmatic belief in uniformatarianism?
3. Can empirical science be a guiding principle for life (human progress), i.e. would it be valid to blindly follow the scientific method?

Those three questions seem to me to be unrelated. Or at least 1 is unrelated to 2 and 3. So I don't see why they're in the same list.

In my view, question 1 is a mismatching of concepts, a bit like asking: "What is the basis for the idea that words can be obtained that differ from biscuits?"

2: I'd answer yes. You don't need a dogmatic belief that the world has patterns in it. You just need to observe that it appears to be the case.

3: The question implies that the part after "i.e." is a restatement of the part before. I don't think it is. Using something as a guiding principle is not synonymous with blindly following it, although those terms are open to interpretation.

[Steve3007]

The main reason that (especially analytic) philosophers don't like using "true/truth" so that it's a property of facts is that in that case, "false(hood)" is required to be a property of an entirely different sort of thing ontologically. The asymmetry of that doesn't feel right for something that's a modality--it seems like "true/false" should be opposite modalities of the same sort of thing, not two different sorts of things. Modalities (or polarities, etc.) are almost always (and some would argue must definitionally be) alternate statuses or properties of the same sort of thing, not different sorts of things. The latter doesn't make much sense for the idea of modalities/polarities/etc.

Yes, I see. So if "true/false" is a polarity (a special case of a modality which has two modes?) then both of those two modes should be properties of the same sort of thing. If that thing is a proposition, that's fine, because both "true" and "false" can both be properties of propositions. But if that thing is a fact then it seems odd to talk about "true facts" and "false facts".

[Steve3007]

Modalities (or polarities, etc.) are almost always (and some would argue must definitionally be) alternate statuses or properties of the same sort of thing, not different sorts of things. The latter doesn't make much sense for the idea of modalities/polarities/etc

I tend quite often to relate these things back to software. In software, a mode is often represented by an enumeration. An enumeration (in the context of software) is simply an integer variable where each valid value of that variable is given a name. A boolean is a special example, where there are two valid values which are given the names "true" and "false". In that context, it's clear that any given type of mode generally refers to the same type of object, and you wouldn't generally have some values in the enumeration storing a property of one type of object and other values another. I'm sure compile-able code could be written to do that, but it would be bad, "inelegant" programming practice.

[Terrapin Station]

The main reason that (especially analytic) philosophers don't like using "true/truth" so that it's a property of facts is that in that case, "false(hood)" is required to be a property of an entirely different sort of thing ontologically. The asymmetry of that doesn't feel right for something that's a modality--it seems like "true/false" should be opposite modalities of the same sort of thing, not two different sorts of things. Modalities (or polarities, etc.) are almost always (and some would argue must definitionally be) alternate statuses or properties of the same sort of thing, not different sorts of things. The latter doesn't make much sense for the idea of modalities/polarities/etc.

Yes, I see. So if "true/false" is a polarity (a special case of a modality which has two modes?) then both of those two modes should be properties of the same sort of thing. If that thing is a proposition, that's fine, because both "true" and "false" can both be properties of propositions. But if that thing is a fact then it seems odd to talk about "true facts" and "false facts".

Right. If we're talking about states of affairs, we can't have a false state of affairs. It basically amounts to claiming that something that doesn't exist does in fact exists somehow.

For example, take Mt. Everest being made of gold. If we try to say that it's a state of affairs that's false there, well, just what is that state of affairs ontologically? A gold Mt. Everest doesn't exist. So how would there be a state of affairs that's a "gold Mt. Everest" in order for that to be false?

[psyreporter]

Arjand

What would be the argumentative foundation for that idea? The claim is retro-perspective at most, not much different than any other empirical evidence for 'reality'.

I'd put it that this is a directly known fact which I can't be mistaken about, because the nature of experience is itself to be directly known. It's just the way it is, if you have conscious (as Nagel puts it ''what it is like'') experience, you can't help but know it while it's happening.

How would that be different from 'knowing' that an apple falls to the ground when you release an apple in front of your eyes? The mentioned experience is a manifestation of something that is not yet known today (the origin of consciousness) by which it cannot be said that it is a 'fact'. The experience derives significance by means of memory (a retro-perspective) which is empirical.

I don't know what you mean by ''facts having a ''qualiative nature''. The utilitarian value of having a shared model of the world we share is obvious. The scientific method builds on that by incorporating tests of peer review and repeatability in order to progress methodically by consensus. The utility proof is in the pudding. But all that our observations and theories can build is a model, because evolution tells us we are limited and flawed observers and thinkers, adapted for utility. So as regards truths and facts, science can only say This Model or Theory Holds... Until It Doesn't.

A Guiding Principle in life or progress is about more than facts and truths of course. Because conscious critters have a quality of life. We can't be fully described in 'objective' physicalist and measurable terms, the toolkit of science. We also have feelings, desires, goals, frustrations, etc. Life is meaningful, matters and has value to conscious critters. This is where Morality comes in, because it's our ability to experience a quality of life which makes it matter how we treat each other. That is the appropriate foundation for Oughts imo - the wellbeing of conscious creatures, as Harris pithily puts it.

While repeatability provides one with what can be considered certainty within the scope of a human perspective which value can be made evident by the success of science, at question would be if the idea that facts obtain outside the scope of a perspective is accurate on a fundamental level. If the idea is not valid, then that could have profound implications.

An example is the belief that natural selection is driven by random chance. Without the idea that facts obtain outside the scope of a perspective, such a belief would not be possible.

With regard to potential implications. The idea that natural selection is driven by random chance logically results in the idea that thinking isn't needed and that anything random counts as 'good'. It can result in a striving or conviction to abolish morality with excesses such as the Nazi holocaust (which originated from eugenics, an idea that was developed and supported by Universities from around the world before the Nazi's built their death camps). The idea that facts obtain outside the scope of a perspective logically results in the idea that a human perspective can master life itself and that morality is a stupid illusion.

A modern practical example is synthetic biology which is based on the idea that life (Nature) can be 'done better' from a human perspective. It is similar to eugenics but it focuses on plants and animals instead of humans (for now).

economist-gmo.jpg (60.71 KiB) Viewed 1694 times

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Remaking life means automating biology

Those given to grand statements about the future often proclaim this to be the century of biology in the same way that the 20th century was that of physics and the 19th century was that of chemistry. ...

Humans have been turning biology to their own purposes for more than 10,000 years. ...

Reprogramming nature is extremely convoluted, having evolved with no intention or guidance. But if you could synthesize nature, life could be transformed into something more amenable to an engineering approach, with well defined standard parts.

As can be seen from the report in The Economist, the synthetic biology revolution is 'unguided' ( thinking isn't needed) and is based on the idea that life can be done better based on 'well defined standard parts' ( facts that obtain outside the scope of a perspective).

While your arguments in favor of morality may appear common sense for any human that would read it, a belief that facts obtain outside the scope of a perspective logically results in a conviction to abolish morality and to develop a relentless mentality based on that exact belief.

The belief that facts are intrinsically different from truths, in specific that they remain the same in time, has far-reaching implications. It results in a sort of religion with as primary idea that the value of life is limited to what an individual (e.g. a company) can 'see' in it and that idea in turn is used as a guiding principle for human progress.

How so? I can say it's a fact that I'm currently typing a reply to you, for example. In a minute that won't be a fact. It's hard to follow you without agreeing definitions.

One can also argue that it is a truth that one types a reply. At question would be whether the term fact would apply and that the truth obtains outside the scope of a perspective, i.e. that it is a "synthetic proposition predicated by existence in the real world".

My argument is that memory, which can have the form of a human body or earth, can at most provide a retro-perspective and not evidence of anything 'real' with regard to existence.

The idea that facts are outside the scope of a perspective therefor, when invalid, could have profound implications when it is used as a guiding principle for (human) progress.

I'd say that once we accept that plants and animals exist in our shared world, how we treat them is then an issue of morality. If plants have no quality of life (can't experience 'what it is like' to be a tree or daffodil) they have no interests in the state of affairs - what happens to them is meaningless to them. Same with rocks and toasters. However conscious animal species do have a quality of life, and thus a stake in what happens to them, and so Ought to be treated with Moral consideration.

So I don't see this as an issue of Facts v Truth, rather of acknowledging the special qualitative (''what it is like'') nature of consciousness, which give conscious Subjects an interest in the state of affairs (ie why it matters what happens to us and how we treat other experiencing Subjects)

Would moral consideration only be applicable when the concept is plausible within the scope of a human perspective? If so, why?

For example, recent evidence shows that rocks on earth developed the first photosynthesis by which the earth obtained oxygen that enabled life to arise. It started hundreds of millions of years before the first life forms existed.

(2021) Non-classical photosynthesis by earth's inorganic semiconducting minerals
Our work in this new research field on the mechanisms of interaction between light, minerals, and life reveals that minerals and organisms are actually inseparable.
https://phys.org/news/2021-01-non-class ... cting.html

When facts cannot exist outside the scope of a perspective, then the requirement of a basis of respect (for Nature) can be made evident. My personal argument (idea) is that one cannot stand above life as being life and that one can at most serve life.

Give me your definitions of ''fact'' and ''truth'' and I'll try to answer more specifically, I think we're largely talking past each other.

A fact is considered a truth that obtains outside the scope of a perspective, i.e. that is a "synthetic proposition predicated by existence in the real world".

At question in this topic is whether the idea that facts obtain outside the scope of a perspective is valid and the potential implications when the idea is not valid.

[Terrapin Station]

It's difficult for me to understand a lot of what you write due to the way you phrase things and the way you connect one sentence to another.

For example, it's not clear to me what you're saying by:

a belief that facts obtain outside the scope of a perspective

Is that simply an odd way of alluding to a realist ontology?

And then I don't know why you'd take a realist ontology to amount to "a conviction to abolish morality" and I don't know what the heck a "relentless mentality" would be.

I have issues such as that with most of what you're writing. It's just not clear to me what you're saying or how you're reasoning.

[psyreporter]

It's difficult for me to understand a lot of what you write due to the way you phrase things and the way you connect one sentence to another.

For example, it's not clear to me what you're saying by:

a belief that facts obtain outside the scope of a perspective

Is that simply an odd way of alluding to a realist ontology?

It could be an argumentative foundation for alluding to a realist ontology. The idea that facts obtain outside the scope of a perspective nessesarily lays at the basis of the idea that reality is 'real'.

A commitment to there being a fact of the matter might reasonably be expected to accompany accounts that go to the trouble of laying down what there is. Thus, if I say tables are real, as an ontological realist, I might reasonably be interpreted as claiming that this is an objective fact. Things, of course, are not this simple. There are ontological realists who don’t care to claim there’s any fact of the matter; there are those who dispute exactly which bits of a given ontology exist; there are those who argues that it all depends on exactly what you mean by ‘exist’ and/or ‘real’, which can vary according to context. On top of that, there endless nuance in the term ‘realism’.

https://philpapers.org/browse/ontological-realism

At question in this topic is specifically whether facts can be intrinsically different from truths. If it is proven otherwise then ontological realism would lose its ground.

And then I don't know why you'd take a realist ontology to amount to "a conviction to abolish morality" and I don't know what the heck a "relentless mentality" would be.

It appears to be an ideal of science to abolish morality completely. From an individual scientist perspective, it will require the development of a certain mentality. Logically, it will be based on a conviction which is ultimately based on the idea that facts obtain outside the scope of a perspective.

Immoral advances: Is science out of control?
To many scientists, moral objections to their work are not valid: science, by definition, is morally neutral, so any moral judgement on it simply reflects scientific illiteracy.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg ... f-control/

(2019) Science and Morals: Can morality be deduced from the facts of science?
The issue should have been settled by David Hume in 1740: the facts of science provide no basis for values. Yet, like some kind of recurrent meme, the idea that science is omnipotent and will sooner or later solve the problem of values seems to resurrect with every generation.
https://sites.duke.edu/behavior/2019/04 ... f-science/

The idea that facts obtain outside the scope of a perspective has profound implications, the natural tendency to abolish morality completely being one of them.

[Terrapin Station]

It could be an argumentative foundation for alluding to a realist ontology. The idea that facts obtain outside the scope of a perspective nessesarily lays at the basis of the idea that reality is 'real'.

"Perspective" need not refer to "a particular view from a particular human consciousness." There's a broader sense of "perspective" that's akin to the visual art sense, where "perspective" is a broader "situatedness." In that broader sense of "perspective," I'm a general ontological "perspectivalist." Human-independent reality is different ways from different reference points or frames, different situatedness, and there's no way to have a "reference-point/frame-free" or "situatedness-free" reference point/frame or situatedness.

So in other words, I'm an ontological realist, but I wouldn't say that facts can obtain outside of a perspective. It's just that I'm not talking about humans or persons in general (necessarily) with the word "perspective." Or in other other words, it's a sort of thoroughgoing ontological relativism.

. . . There are ontological realists who don’t care to claim there’s any fact of the matter . ..

There are, but I wouldn't necessarily say those folks are coherent.

At question in this topic is specifically whether facts can be intrinsically different from truths. If it is proven otherwise then ontological realism would lose its ground.

No one is going to be proving that realism is or isn't the case. It's an empirical claim. No one is going to be proving any empirical claims.

It appears to be an ideal of science to abolish morality completely.

That's not the case. It's just that science realizes that the only way to scientifically study morality is as a subset of sociology and psychology, because moral phenomena (in the sense of moral edicts, moral judgments, etc.) only occur as psychological, and by extension, sociological phenomena.

Logically, it will be based on a conviction which is ultimately based on the idea that facts obtain outside the scope of a perspective.

Well, people can do science as ontological idealists, but it's a bit unusual to take that approach (for good reason in my opinion).

To many scientists, moral objections to their work are not valid: science, by definition, is morally neutral, so any moral judgement on it simply reflects scientific illiteracy.

Moral objections are seen as "not scientific," because science's task is to describe what's the case in the world (whether we're idealists or not). This includes what's the case when it comes to morality/ethics from a sociological and psychological perspective.

Science's task is not to prescribe what should be the case. There are no facts about that aside from individuals feeling however they do (which is what we then descriptively study in a scientific look at morality/ethics from sociological/psychological perspectives).

And putting the cataloging/description/etc. of what's the case aside because of moral objections is seen as not in the spirit of scientific pursuits.

At that, though, scientists are certainly aware of moral issues that follow in the wake of some scientific knowledge, which is why, for example, some scientists have refused to work on some projects, because they realize the dangers that can result (from people who aren't simply pursuing scientific knowledge for its own sake).