Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Philosophy Club

[Sculptor1]

"Empiricism may be defined as the assertion 'all synthetic knowledge is based on experience'."

(Russell, Bertrand. Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits. 1948. Reprint, Abingdon: Routledge, 2009. p. 437)

So I think here is the gist of the problem - if we accept that knowledge is based on experience, then the question that naturally follows is 'whose experience?' Each of us is too limited to be able to individually experience the universe in all its aspects, so we have to rely on each other and form consensus in order to have knowledge.

I think the rather bland and limited definition here does no justice to empiricism.

It is simply not just personal experience, but all scientific experiment, and witness statements from others can be assessed. Not just any experiments but those that can satisfy the rigors of scientific method. Not just all witness statements, but statements that can be verified. Experiments that are repeated, if the results are not replicable then they are invalidated.

Beyond these constraints there is no valid knowledge.
There is no knowledge at all without empiricism, except abstracted schemes in which the rules are self fulfilling such as maths.

[Thomyum2]

I think the rather bland and limited definition here does no justice to empiricism.

It is simply not just personal experience, but all scientific experiment, and witness statements from others can be assessed. Not just any experiments but those that can satisfy the rigors of scientific method. Not just all witness statements, but statements that can be verified. Experiments that are repeated, if the results are not replicable then they are invalidated.

I agree that such a basic statement is an oversimplification of what constitutes empiricism, and my aim is not to knock empiricism or scientific inquiry, both of which have been and continue to be valuable and useful tools. My point is more that these don't, or in fact can't, decisively demonstrate the validity of the underlying assumption in materialism - that matter is the only fundamental reality.

Beyond these constraints there is no valid knowledge.
There is no knowledge at all without empiricism, except abstracted schemes in which the rules are self fulfilling such as maths.

Perhaps so, yes, but human knowledge is always limited and finite in its scope. There is always a portion of our experience that is not known, not understood, outside of our reach - after each hill we climb, we just see the next mountain behind it. We conceive of our universe in a way that is built upon incomplete knowledge. So how can we be so sure that matter is fundamental or that materialism is true other than just by our choice to accept it as such?

[Thomyum2]

You are approaching philosophy from several scientific points of view. One issue there is that neither philosophers nor scientists understand the language, presumptions, or methods of the other. From the philosopher's point of view which I take here, it is obvious that the scientists, by-and-large, in the great majority of cases, are talking philosophical nonsense, that is, scientists think they are saying something philosophical but they are not.

Hawking was a fine example for this thesis. Hawking was a brilliant mathematical theoretical physicist, a venerated applied mathematician. His background in that field was of no value whatsoever for what he proposed to be an answer to the philosophical question "What is reality?" We can't really tell whether Hawking is referring to what ordinary people think they mean by reality, or what philosophers propose for a technical term of their own making, or whether Hawking is defining his own term from his mathematician's perspective. I would guess without further research that he was a Platonic realist of sorts, where particularly useful objects of mathematics are taken to be 'real' and even fundamental. Like Plato's solids made of geometric triangles.

Yes, thank you for your insights, I think I agree with what you are saying. From my own limited background in formal philosophy, though, I'd ask what are the important differences in the usage of the term 'reality' in this context, between the ordinary use and the technical term as you refer to? As I understand the term, what is 'real' is that which exists and endures independent of my/our own perception of it, independent of my/our will or choice that it exist, that which is not simply imagined. In regard to materialism, it is the belief that matter, and all the concepts that accompany it, i.e. time, space, energy, etc., constitute that reality. Those things exist before us and will continue to exist after us. Science can successfully, to a varying degree, explain and predict the behavior of these, but does science therefore actually show us that they are 'real' in this sense of the word?

[Atla]

No, I'm arguing that something physical occurs in human and other animal heads/brains that doesn't occur anywhere else in the universe.

And there is zero evidence for that, nothing. Doesn't even make sense in principle that a particular arrangement of physical stuff should give rise to qualia, while other arrangements shouldn't.

So you say:

Metaphysical theorizing ought to be consistent with, informed and constrained by our empirical knowledge! Antiscientific metaphysics ought to be "committed to the flames"!

And then you do the opposite and stick to your antiscientific belief, like Sculptor.

You people stuck in a late 19th century worldview need to realize that materialism was already refuted by science long ago (along with idealism).

[Atla]

I just don't understand this.
1) How can "physical matter" be the only or fundamental reality when physics, the real physics of mathematical physics, nowhere says what "matter" is?
2) If matter is not physical, then what is it?
2a) Is matter but a figment of our naïve metaphorical imagination attempting to give a name to what we imagine ought to be there to make some sense of our daily experience?
2b) Or, if matter is substantial then what is its substance?

Here, I won't even attempt to tackle "reality" or something worse, a "fundamental" reality. Nor the OP's attempt to steer towards the subjectivity of the I, or my private notions about the world.

I think we expected to find little separate chunks of matter (little things/objects), for example billiard balls, that simply fill out space. All we have to do is zoom in enough to see them, and how they "interact" with each other.

A simple picture consistent with how human thinking works. However, no such chunks of matter have ever been found. As someone noted, whatever matter is made of, it isn't made of matter.

So it's 2a

[Sculptor1]

I think the rather bland and limited definition here does no justice to empiricism.

It is simply not just personal experience, but all scientific experiment, and witness statements from others can be assessed. Not just any experiments but those that can satisfy the rigors of scientific method. Not just all witness statements, but statements that can be verified. Experiments that are repeated, if the results are not replicable then they are invalidated.

I agree that such a basic statement is an oversimplification of what constitutes empiricism, and my aim is not to knock empiricism or scientific inquiry, both of which have been and continue to be valuable and useful tools. My point is more that these don't, or in fact can't, decisively demonstrate the validity of the underlying assumption in materialism - that matter is the only fundamental reality.

Wadda ya got?

[Consul]

No, I'm arguing that something physical occurs in human and other animal heads/brains that doesn't occur anywhere else in the universe.

And there is zero evidence for that, nothing.

If "that" refers to brain-independent nonanimal consciousness, you're right.

Doesn't even make sense in principle that a particular arrangement of physical stuff should give rise to qualia, while other arrangements shouldn't.

Yes, it does make sense. What doesn't make sense is panpsychism, according to which all nonbiological physical systems, including molecules and atoms, can generate qualia.

So you say:

Metaphysical theorizing ought to be consistent with, informed and constrained by our empirical knowledge! Antiscientific metaphysics ought to be "committed to the flames"!

And then you do the opposite and stick to your antiscientific belief, like Sculptor.
You people stuck in a late 19th century worldview need to realize that materialism was already refuted by science long ago (along with idealism).

???
The materialistic worldview is neither antiscientific nor scientifically refuted—on the contrary!

[Consul]

So I think here is the gist of the problem - if we accept that knowledge is based on experience, then the question that naturally follows is 'whose experience?' Each of us is too limited to be able to individually experience the universe in all its aspects, so we have to rely on each other and form consensus in order to have knowledge.

I think the rather bland and limited definition here does no justice to empiricism.
It is simply not just personal experience, but all scientific experiment, and witness statements from others can be assessed. Not just any experiments but those that can satisfy the rigors of scientific method. Not just all witness statements, but statements that can be verified. Experiments that are repeated, if the results are not replicable then they are invalidated.

There's no experiment without experience. An experiment is a procedure or series of actions, and "experience" means (sensory) perception or observation. For example, seeing measurement results on a computer display counts as experience.

Beyond these constraints there is no valid knowledge.
There is no knowledge at all without empiricism, except abstracted schemes in which the rules are self fulfilling such as maths.

The funny problem with empiricism is that if it is true, it cannot be known to be true, since the universal proposition <all synthetic knowledge is based on experience> is itself a synthetic proposition which cannot be known empirically/a posteriori (via deductive or inductive inference).

"…what I shall call 'the empiricist hypothesis', namely that what we know without inference consists solely of what we have experienced (or, more strictly, what we are experiencing) together with the principles of deductive logic. But we cannot know the empiricist hypothesis to be true, since that would be knowledge of a sort that the hypothesis itself condemns. This does not prove the hypothesis to be false, but it does prove that we have no right to assert it. Empiricism may be a true philosophy, but if it is it cannot be known to be true; those who assert that they know it to be true contradict themselves."

(Russell, Bertrand. Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits. 1948. Reprint, Abingdon: Routledge, 2009. p. 161)

[Consul]

You are approaching philosophy from several scientific points of view. One issue there is that neither philosophers nor scientists understand the language, presumptions, or methods of the other. From the philosopher's point of view which I take here, it is obvious that the scientists, by-and-large, in the great majority of cases, are talking philosophical nonsense, that is, scientists think they are saying something philosophical but they are not.
Hawking was a fine example for this thesis.

He was talking nonsense when he said the following:

"How can we understand the world in which we find ourselves? How does the universe behave? What is the nature of reality?….Traditionally these are questions for philosophy, but philosophy is dead. Philosophy has not kept up with modern developments in science, particularly physics. Scientists have become the bearers of the torch of discovery in our quest for knowledge." – Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow (The Grand Design, 2010, p. 5)
-----
Anderson: "In May of last year Stephen Hawking gave a talk for Google in which he said that philosophy was dead, and that it was dead because it had failed to keep up with science, and in particular physics. Is he wrong or is he describing a failure of philosophy that your project hopes to address?"

Maudlin: "Hawking is a brilliant man, but he's not an expert in what's going on in philosophy, evidently. Over the past thirty years the philosophy of physics has become seamlessly integrated with the foundations of physics work done by actual physicists, so the situation is actually the exact opposite of what he describes. I think he just doesn't know what he's talking about. I mean there's no reason why he should. Why should he spend a lot of time reading the philosophy of physics? I'm sure it's very difficult for him to do. But I think he's just . . . uninformed."

(Maudlin, Tim. Interview by Ross Anderson, "What Happened Before the Big Bang? The New Philosophy of Cosmology", The Atlantic, January 19, 2012: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/a ... gy/251608/)

[Consul]

A simple picture consistent with how human thinking works. However, no such chunks of matter have ever been found.

What about the Standard Model of physics?

[Karpel Tunnel]

A simple picture consistent with how human thinking works. However, no such chunks of matter have ever been found.

What about the Standard Model of physics?

Nothing in there that explains how we notice our thinking, and as far as I can tell my noticing my thinking, affects my thinking. There is no experiencer explanation in the standard model.

[Consul]

What about the Standard Model of physics?

Nothing in there that explains how we notice our thinking, and as far as I can tell my noticing my thinking, affects my thinking. There is no experiencer explanation in the standard model.

Physics isn't psychology, so you shouldn't expect to find psychological explanations in it. However, if ontological physicalism is true, humans and their minds are nothing more than very complicated physical systems fundamentally composed of standard-model elements and ultimately governed by standard-model laws.

[Consul]

…"experience" means (sensory) perception or observation. For example, seeing measurement results on a computer display counts as experience.

Actually, Russell's concise definition of empiricism—"All synthetic knowledge is based on experience"—is insufficient.

One reason is that there are epistemological rationalists such as Elijah Chudnoff, who calls rational intuition "intellectual perception" and speaks of "intuition experiences" as a special kind of experience. But rational intuition is the paradigmatic non-empirical, a priori source of knowledge, and Russell's definition of empiricism is certainly not meant to include "intuition experiences"!

Furthermore, in the context of epistemology and empiricism, external perception of one's body or other physical things isn't the only empirical or a posteriori source of knowledge, because there are also internal perception of one's body (interoception, proprioception) and internal perception of one's mind/consciousness (introspection).

Moreover, memory or recollection counts as an empirical epistemic source too, since you cannot remember what you haven't experienced or perceived.

"[N]ot only sense experience, but also introspection, memory, and nonsensory forms of input like clairvoyance and telepathy (if these should exist) count as varieties of experience and the knowledge derived therefrom as a posteriori."

(BonJour, Laurence. The Structure of Empirical Knowledge. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985. p. 192)

[BigBango]

"(Maudlin, Tim. Interview by Ross Anderson, "What Happened Before the Big Bang? The New Philosophy of Cosmology", The Atlantic, January 19, 2012: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/a ... gy/251608/)"

Good reference Consul. It should at least provide a background for more speculation grounded in a dash of empiricism. Of course the many worlds argument that has a wide variety of different values for the standard physical constants really just ends with an anthropomorphic argument for what they would have to be for conscious beings to be capable of experience. That thesis never holds out any hope for empirical verification because these various worlds end up being completely beyond any experience, for us, except for the one we are in. These other worlds just become a cushion for our understanding much like "Santa Clause" for children or God for adult children.

What that article said that I felt was key is the reference made to how the world was created with such low entropy or a high amount of order. Especially since it was suppose to come from quantum fluctuations of the "nothing". Then Bohr and Heisenberg were cleverly spanked like Einstein tried to do but failed. Also Hawking is spanked for not keeping up with philosophy.

Maudlin's comments about the possibility of technology arising on other planets is not well thought out. It is true that we are a young universe that is expanding and our technology must be quite infantile compared to the technology that would be natural to an aging universe that may have collapsed causing the Big Crunch/BB. An old universe or local part of a universe that collapses could have the "Technology" to escape that crunch, wait for its plasma to cool and then come back to initiate a new beginning to that purely physical world by infecting it with "life" and a method for evolving the new life(Us). The "Subject" of this new life is those technologically advanced galactic civilizations. The molecules of our world are made up of the galactic centers of the galaxies that preceded the Big Crunch/BB. That makes those galactic civilizations very small compared to us(near a Plank Volume) Those civilizations need us so that they have some causal efficacy over the remnants of their former world.

[Sculptor1]

"(Maudlin, Tim. Interview by Ross Anderson, "What Happened Before the Big Bang? The New Philosophy of Cosmology", The Atlantic, January 19, 2012: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/a ... gy/251608/)"

Good reference Consul. It should at least provide a background for more speculation grounded in a dash of empiricism. Of course the many worlds argument that has a wide variety of different values for the standard physical constants really just ends with an anthropomorphic argument for what they would have to be for conscious beings to be capable of experience. That thesis never holds out any hope for empirical verification because these various worlds end up being completely beyond any experience, for us, except for the one we are in. These other worlds just become a cushion for our understanding much like "Santa Clause" for children or God for adult children.

What that article said that I felt was key is the reference made to how the world was created with such low entropy or a high amount of order. Especially since it was suppose to come from quantum fluctuations of the "nothing". Then Bohr and Heisenberg were cleverly spanked like Einstein tried to do but failed. Also Hawking is spanked for not keeping up with philosophy.

Maudlin's comments about the possibility of technology arising on other planets is not well thought out. It is true that we are a young universe that is expanding and our technology must be quite infantile compared to the technology that would be natural to an aging universe that may have collapsed causing the Big Crunch/BB. An old universe or local part of a universe that collapses could have the "Technology" to escape that crunch, wait for its plasma to cool and then come back to initiate a new beginning to that purely physical world by infecting it with "life" and a method for evolving the new life(Us). The "Subject" of this new life is those technologically advanced galactic civilizations. The molecules of our world are made up of the galactic centers of the galaxies that preceded the Big Crunch/BB. That makes those galactic civilizations very small compared to us(near a Plank Volume) Those civilizations need us so that they have some causal efficacy over the remnants of their former world.

I think you need to heed the council of your own words; "That thesis never holds out any hope for empirical verification because these various worlds end up being completely beyond any experience,...", since the above is a litany of wild speculation.
BTW
I think it is a no brainer to suggest nothing escapes the crunch. Of some things we can be sure.