Quote:I have not attempted to paraphrase your beliefs (to paraphrase is to restate an argument in different words); merely to critique their salient features. You make certain normative assertions regarding metaphysical and cultural questions (statements regarding how things ought to be) without explaining your basis for doing so, and implicitly denying the possibility that others may legitimately hold different beliefs.
Whatever you call it, your criticism misrepresents my beliefs. I've already explained why I do not hold my system of beliefs and values to be the only valid one.
Quote:My point of view is not a relativistic one
Glad to hear it.
Quote:This is something entirely different from believing that the results of measurement or a study constitute truth itself.
I've neither claimed that the results of a study was "truth itself" (Or at least tried to avoid such phrasing and disclaimed such a view several tiems. I've focused on falsification and questioned our capacity to know perfect truth) nor have I asserted infallibility of clinical studies or measurements. All measurements have margins of error, flaws in study designs and sometimes include outright human deception or bias. Which is part of why we don't rely on a single study for falsification, regardless of whether one holds with Popper's view or idealizes Kuhn's description of scientific bureacracy.
Quote:I do not believe truth is essentially axiomatic
I'm not certain what you mean here. If something is "axiomatic" that ususally means that it is assumed as a basis for other beliefs. All I've said is that all systems of knowledge are based on certain axioms that cannot be proven. Truth is not axiomatic, but it is always derived from systems based on axioms. And that's a potential flaw in any system of knowledge.
Quote:It is a sad truth that no representation of reality can be both complete and coherent. Therefore, all we can do with representations is accept that as a simplified, reduced and useful distillation of the much more complex world that exists out there, and remember always to never ever mistake our simplified representation as being the world itself.
Agreed. This is in line with what I believe and what I've written. The map is not the territory and a map which was the territory would be useless.
Quote:What follows from this, by the way, amongst other things, is the impossibility of optimality
There's a reason I've focused on falsification and predictive value rather than assertions of perfect truth.
Quote:a concept which is much more robust than your fragile optimality.
Strawman. Here's what I wrote;
"Do I believe that my views are the only valid views or the most optimal? No...Many long-standing practices were later demonstrated to be objectively incorrect or suboptimal.
"
To demonstrate that a previous idea was suboptimal, one only need introduce a demonstrably more optimal idea. None of this addresses which idea is the most optimal. Optimality is terribly difficult to prove, as you note.
Quote:I am certainly not surprised that you hold to the Whig view of progress in intellectual history - “everything keeps getting better and better”
Strawman, again. I specifically disclaimed chronology as a reliable tool for indicating improvement. Progress is a general trend, (especially if you believe that some ideas can be historically demonstrated to be false) but not inevitable or irreversable.
Quote:The only way that you will ever arrive at a variant perspective on this is to dig deep into the messy details of real intellectual history
I'm pretty acquainted with history compared to most folks. The better portion of my friends are involved in historical reenactment. (We're talking people who secure the types of grains used in the 1400s, along with relevant equipment to serve their friends period-appropriate beer.) Condescension isn't persuasive.
Quote:on the one hand you assert the superiority of potential falsification as a standard for assessing the worth of knowledge, and on the other refuse to explain why others would want to choose to share your point of view.
I've addressed this. See the contrast of valuing theories with "explanatory power" vs. theories which produce "predictive value." I've explained why methods of objective observation are scalable while finely tuned perception is not. (Though the results may be.) I've given several criticisms of Kuhn's view of science, both from a descriptionist and proscriptionist standpoint.
If you'd like any particular point further explored, please acknowledge it and ask for more information. If you think it's invalid, please address it and explain why you think it's invalid. But the points have been made.
Quote:Falsification does not in actuality describe how genuine breakthroughs in science take place and, as Planchet points out, does not explain why others should prefer falsification as a standard when more sophisticated, older approaches to understanding the growth of knowledge have proven more fertile.
1. I've explained why falsification/predictive value is a superior value to 'explanatory power.' The 'explanatory power' of a theory has been preferred for most of history, (myths, legends, and even what passed for academic theories in ancient and modern history.) At this point, I'm really not sure what evidence you're asking me to give you.
2. I haven't seen evidence that "older theories" have "proven more fertile." (You've complained about assertions without evidence. That's one.)
While most objective evidence is not clinical data, modern academic systems of citation and sharing of objective data have produced an explosion of information. Even with some new area of research like pheromones, I'm able to look at other portions of the scientific literature and apply portions of that knowledge to my own understanding of pheromones, re-using and bolstering that knowledge. The more open the process of discovery, the more that information can be shared and biases can be identified. Gould's "The Mismeasure of Man" is a good critique about how intersubjective standards can intrude on the pursuit for knowledge, while objective standards correlate with a decrease in experimental bias. Differing standards are applied, even to scientific results, in order get the "correct" social/racial conclusions.
The greater the experimental margin of error, the proportionately greater the introduction of bias.
Quote:The flourishing of science over the past few centuries can demonstrably be related to open inquiry, free speech, and a belief in honesty; it cannot be considered a consequence of falsificationism, since Popper only gained influence after WW2.
1. I'll agree that there are many factors in the flourishing of modern peer-reviewed science and that political openness was critical among them. I'm not asserting that Popper's work, in specific, was particularly influential.
2. Your above objection assumes that the notion of falsification only became popular with Popper's work rather than already being one of many trends observable in formal science. This seems to be an example of the fallacy of the excluded middle, "If the process of formal science doesn't strictly adhere to x philosophy, then it cannot contain that philosophy at all." I've already explained why Kuhn's choice of model (Copernican revolution) was flawed as a representative sample of scientific revolutions. (And the Copernican revolution even precedes Bacon and what could be called modern scientific method. And the geocentric model isn't even technically false, given that there are no privileged frames of reference. That kind of 'revolution' from one true paradigm to another is RARE. ) You haven't seen fit to defend his specific choice yet. I've given a number of particular examples from the past 150 years or so which supported my point. If you'd like to address them, great. But it does little for me to hear repeatedly that I haven't supported my assertions when the support I do give isn't addressed. In contrast, I've at least addressed all specific counter-examples whether you find my consideration persuasive or not.
And incidentally, science has 'flowered' a lot more in the 20th and 21st centuries than it had previously. It wasn't until roughly the 20th century that any theoretical estimate of a physical property was shown to be more accurate than the experimentally obtained value at the time. I'm not arguing that Popper, specifically, was the motive force. But despite huge restrictions in terms of ethical constraints on human testing during the second half of the 20th century and after and the rising cost of research equipment, science has flourished during that period far more than in previous times.
3.
Quote:"Furthermore, it's always a problem to apply falsification in the laboratory, because you never know what hypothesis is being falsified, since you are always testing a joint system of interlocking hypotheses."
I don't believe that it is. You make a prediction. If that prediction is false, you take apart the system piece by piece till you find which portion has confounded you. (Granted, reductionism isn't the only valid epistemology. But it is a useful troubleshooting tool.) I'm not sure why you're making this assertion. See my previous example about calcium from diet vs. pills, for example, to see this process midway complete.
Quote:There is a multiplicity of nuances to the meaning of 'intuition', but it always has a sense of direct access to truth, and is opposed to what is purely the evidence of the senses.
Are you asserting that people can know something about the material world, infallibly, without sensation? I'd disagree with that. But if you just want a category for things like mathematical "knowledge" or definitional "knowledge" I won't argue much. But these ideas are produced only by brains which have been exposed to and evolved from interaction with the material world. I think modern work with neural nets places the residence of Platonic forms inside of brains rather than in some external 'heaven.'
Even object permanence (an intuitive belief disproved by Quantum Mechanics, as noted previously) is likely a learned response, as backed up by Jeff Hawkins work, previously cited. Similarly, instincts are evolved through a process necessitating sensation.
Quote:Knowledge does not mean “models with predictive value of the natural world”, and it matters that it does not.
"To the extent that the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not true; and to the extent that they are true, they do not refer to reality." -Einstein
"Today's scientists have substituted mathematics for experiments, and they wander off through equation after equation, and eventually build a structure which has no relation to reality" - Nikola Tesla
If knowledge is "Justified true belief" and we acknowledge that we can give evidence for truth but not conclusive proof in many instances (As you have) then we're left asking what "justification" means. I take it to mean "predictive value." This is something of an axiom of my beliefs rather than a conclusion. i.e. I value that information which allows me to make accurate, falsifiable predictions. Newton's theories were believed to be "true" for a long time. The fact that they were actually imprecise emphasized to people that the actual attainment of truth was difficult to demonstrate as a positive and that 'predictive value' was a more honest goal for those seeking to understand the relationship between cause and effect. For those who don't consider that search primary or who don't communicate literally, my arguments won't persuade them.
Quote:But this conception of optimality only makes sense if you presume that you have the knowledge and the confidence in the knowledge needed to optimize things. In reality one simply doesn't know what one would need to to achieve such...a concept which is much more robust than your fragile optimality
We don't know what is required to make a system "optimal." We can show a system was "sub-optimal" by demonstratably improving the system.
"Better" is "better" whatever terms you use for it. And such strawman-based posturing as "therefore, I personally strive to achieve the more robust excellence, a concept which is much more robust than your fragile optimality" is really un-interesting to me. Not to mention a blatant misrepresentation of what I've said.
Quote:Beyond questions of proper spelling (something that does matter in this domain, because it can lead to an obscuring from oneself the deep origins of the meaning of words)
I'm writing a long essay in very limited time. My wife majored in linguistics in college, and I can hold my own in a conversation with her discussing the origins of various words. If you want to have a conversation about etymology, I feel I'm reasonably well equipped.
Quote:Are you not aware of how Einstein discovered relativity? It was not via doing the experiment in the laboratory, and realizing that the surprising results falsified all previous insights, throwing science into a crisis. Quite the opposite! He arrived at his insights essentially via intuition – Gedankenexperiments. This demonstrably falsifies your claim that relativity is non-intuitive.
You'd be very hard pressed to demonstrate that Einstein could have arrived at his conclusions without being aware of Lorentz's or Michaelson and Morely's experiments.
Relativity required the disproof of the ether via experiment, among many other things. You defined intuition as being apart "from the evidence of the senses." That assertion simply doesn't hold here.
If your assertion is simply that where hypotheses come from is often obscured from observation as a matter of practice, I'll agree. But you seem to be arguing for far more than that.
If you remove a person's senses; sight, sound, touch, taste, smell and any others they might have do you really hold that they'll develop the capacity to do long division or understand relativity? We're looking at a shell game where processes derived based on sensation are attributed to other sources or no source at all. Plato's forms don't exist in heaven or externally. They are part of the human thought process, as hinted at by the construction of neural nets and the comparison of the layers of the cerebral cortex to a neural net with some interesting feedback loops and the incorporation of time (relating one moment to the next, not trying to identify stillframe photos.) Forms are abstracted from sensory observations. In a few cases, we might defer to instinct. But even those instincts are best described as deriving from an evolutionary process of some kind, which requires sensory feedback as a component.
Ryan: I am arguing that objective judgements like the existence of "falsehood" is necessarily predicated on some measure of a belief in objective truth
Quote:I have no idea what you mean. An understanding of the meaning of falsehood of course requires an understanding of the meaning of truth. One cannot understand a concept without at least having some idea of its negation.
You seemed to be leaning towards a relativistic viewpoint ( or at least one which would have the same effect, if your standards of evidence were applied universally) and I was arguing against that. You've since clarified that you're not a relativist. You do believe in truth but don't seem to believe that modern humans have any kind of heuristics or procedures for recognizing their mistakes that they did not possess in the past.
Quote:You may run an amazing study of 100,000 pheromone users in order to 'objectively' establish the truth of a certain point. But actually, this will never definitively establish the truth as such of anything – it is one set of observations made in a particular context, and one must then infer from this set what the broader implications might be.
Again, there's a reason that I've focused on falsification and falsifiability rather than 'truth' in terms of what humans know. (I use the term 'truth' occasionally, more out of social convention than belief.)
Quote:But testing is not really objective.
I suspect you're using a different definition of 'objective' than I am
"... existing independent of thought or an observer as part of reality."
Quote:But testing is not really objective. For it to be such, one would need to control for all the conditions that matter.
I don't hold that a controlled experiment is required for an objective observation. I've noted that a few times. We seem to be going back and forth on this without resolution.
For example; I can test whether a person touches my hand when I wear a pheromone. I don't control for many things in this experiment. I don't control for self effects. (I could, perhaps, with flonase.) I don't control for variables in the setting including all those you mentioned. I don't properly control for my own behavior (I do try, if the interaction is short.) Whether the person touches me or not is still an objective observation, not a subjective opinion or an impression. A video or observer could confirm the result.
Is this flawed? Sure. Is it still useful? Yes. Is it objective? Yes. because it describes a state apart from the person observing the state.
You seem to keep asserting that an objective observation is equivalent to a controlled experiment. I say it's not. Then you respond as if I'd never even asserted a difference and continue to answer as if I'd equated objective observations with controlled clinical trials. If you want to discuss
whether objective assertions are equivalent to controlled experiments, lets address that explicitly.
Quote:Therefore, if one finds a mix works very well in Manhattan, but not so well in LA, what is one to make of this?
We say that we have a red flag that something needs exploring. We'd create various hypotheses informed by various models (dominant and non-dominant since unexpected results should put us on our toes.) First, are our results accurate. How small is our sample? Can it be accounted for by chance?
If we had several reports of such results enough to confirm some actual trend between the cities we'd have a lot on our plate, but we could work through the results. We'd work through things one at a time if possible;
temperature, humidity, local culture, drug use of local inhabitants, racial trends of local inhabitants, conditions of mones in transport, self effects and trends among the users etc. Once we saw the trend more clearly we might start asking about aspects of the trend. If the issue is heat, is the issue regarding the propensity of the wearer to sweat? Or the diffusion of the mones? Or the bacteria on the person's skin? Can adjustments in fixatives correct for a hot or cold climate? If yes, great. We've made a testable prediction, tested it and found a result that can be shared. If not... try something else. Maybe spraying mones on clothes to lessen bacterial contact or even cotton pads etc. With lots of feedback from users we would get a better sense of things through guess and check, though it still wouldn't be complete (maybe there's more than one issue at play, for instance.)
Re: The benefits of epistimology; An understanding of trends in bias is useful in producing information. I've also noted experiments related to self effects. I've noted the use of blind testing. I've noted integration with the wider corups of scientific knowlege (particularly since the ability to critically read scientific literature is helped by an understanding of study design.)
Among other things.
Quote:I asked you to show us the benefits of doing so for the kind of pheromone research we do here, and also to demonstrate the practical improvements that might be achieved by a superior understanding of epistemology. So far you have declined to do so.
As noted, I've given a few examples. I don't see the point in discussing the point further if you don't acknowledge what I've already written already.
If you don't find it persuasive, that's fine.
Quote:Draw up a list of the most talented pheromone testers and commentators – this is after all, a highly empirical field. They are quite clearly not distinguished from the rest by their explicit and profound consideration of epistemological theory.
dbot and Chris of Alpha dream are certainly familair with epistimology in some form, at least as it relates to the production of scientific knowledge. Chris's understanding of structure-activity relationships has been a most helpful contribution. Similarly, dbot has promoted as many new molecules as any new member. There are some aspects of testing like user sensitivity which are likely unrelated to any kind of model, granted. But I see a very different pattern than you do. Mark has an understanding of blind studies, as do other members on the forum.
The people who find truth are often also those who can give a good explanation of how they sought it out, or else they just happen to listen to someone with this skill.
For another example, I'd point to a number of statements by P.Z. Meyers equating evolution with 'randomness' and his inability to predict epigenetic effects as another example of failed epistemology, but that's another kettle of fish and far more than I have time to cover properly.
Quote:I suggested that the best people are not in fact distinguished from others by their high attention to epistemology – one important reason being that for profound and essential reasons (see McGilchrist, epistemology can not really be made explicit).
You've suggested this, but I've given examples of how epistemology can be made explicit. The notion of logical fallacies is another example of how epistemology could be made explicit. Demonstration of bias, clinical experimentation, heck, simply knowing the basis a person usually has for forming rapport or building trust with others. These are all relevant to how one comes closer to "truth", and all have been studied, clinically and non-clinically.
Further, such knowledge is helpful in transmitting knowledge to others. It's one thing to be a black belt and another to teach martial arts. As mentioned several times.
Quote:They are quite clearly not distinguished from the rest by their explicit and profound consideration of epistemological theory. And this is true in almost all fields where recognition is driven by demonstrated performance rather than conformity to the Shibboleths of the field (the latter happening when bureaucracy is running the show, as happens in much of official science these days).
I've personally noticed that the best researchers do consistently have some knowledge of epistimology. This is not to say that they read books on the topic. They often pick it up through a kind of osmosis, or learning study design. A lack of such knowledge often causes serious problems. If you go to any popular science forum, as I often have, and find the worst fallacies being promoted there, you can almost always trace the problem back to the writer's lack of rigor in searching for truth and their willingness to simply repeat what trusted authorities have told them repeatedly. The ability to interpret a study design critically is a matter of epistimology. Without that skill, a person is left to repeat what the 'experts' have told them.
Quote:There is no doubt that the worst in all fields are distinguished by their ignorance and weak characters. However I see no reason to believe that they are distinguished especially by their ignorance of epistemological questions in particular (when compared to ignorance of all the other important things that are important to know), although I look forward to seeing your demonstration to the contrary.
I'd go into this in greater detail, but my time is limited. I've given some evidence. There are likely a confluence of other factors besides epistimology that influence a person's success (capacity, desire, humility etc.) As far as weighting one value against another, I suppose I'd note that the people with the highest IQs are not necessarily those who get nobel prizes. Feynmann didn't even qualify for Mensa. So that points to some factor other than capacity than simply raw ability, at the least. And some of Feynmann's stories include things like teaching kids proofs from numbers theory.
If I believed that more evidence would be more persuasive, I'd provide it.
But the fact that the points I've made so far have been miscontrued lead me to believe that there wouldn't be much in the way of positive results for either of us relative to time invested. This isn't intended as a personal affront against you. Just an observation.
Quote:I note in passing that you made certain claims about the merits of different kinds of work done in this field. Since you do not believe so much in intuition or discernment, on what basis do you make the claim that “I'd note that there are some of each group of professionals that you mention who do make their epistimology explicit, indicating it's possible to do so. Popper did some of the best work in this area in regards to science”.
1. I don't equate intuition with discernment. Discernment is judgement. I've already agreed that judgement is valuable. But judgement can (theoretically) be made explicit. What I've objected to repeatedly is the notion that judgement is necessarily obscure and inexplicable.
Quote:This is a very interesting observation about which I have written at a reasonable length before. It may well be in full, or in part a question of body language, but that is an assumption.
There's at least a little clinical evidence for the body language hypothesis as at least a contributing factor. I didn't review the study design, so it could be absolute junk. But in passing; they seemed to assert that movies of men exposed to pheromones were rated as more attractive while still frame photos eliminated the effect.
Similarly, women who are ovulating are rated as more attractive, while makup mimicks that attractiveness in non-ovulating women. Many styles of female makeup application are, of course, mimicing sexual arousal (sex flush.)
These observations may not be comprehensive, of course. There may be more 'out there.' But I hope studies asserting other effects at least take these observations into account.
I admit to knowing nothing about "morphic fields" though I've heard dbot refer to them and watched a video on them some time ago whose contents I've forgotten entirely.
Quote:Well – if we are just to arrive at the pragmatic conclusion that when there is confusion it may very well be helpful to set forth some of the principles and assumptions about the way we look at the world, then that is a destination I think we can all agree on.
Excellent.
Quote:...that is a destination I think we can all agree on. But it's a very long way from asserting the superiority of what can be objectively ascertained, and of the philosophy of Karl Popper.
Superiority relative to what?
I suspect I have a more general view than you of the set of things which can be objectively known (observed.)
This may account for much of our disagreement if you interpret my statements too narrowly.
Quote:That is not very Popperian of you – to observe the 'plenty' of examples of scientists behaving in a Popperian manner and consider this support for the Popperian view of science. It is rather the point that the great preponderance of scientists do not behave as if they sincerely believed in falsificationism.
First, I've given support that a number of scientists changed beliefs when their beliefs were disproven regarding critical issues or that prominent theories were debunked through falsification. Second, I question to what extent history is a 'science.' It's iffy at best. But admittedly the incidents I'm familiar with are not a representative sample. Further, I'm not making a primarily descriptivist argument. As noted previously, I'm not primarily concerned with what the majority of scientists do or what science is as a political institution (relevant though that is.) Neither are you, given your comments regarding bureaucracies, 'natural authorit' etc. If a majority of people or even scientists believed in the notion of 'explanatory power' as determining the value of a theory I'd still disagree with that majority from a proscriptivist standpoint because I favor predictive value. It's worth noting that Popper provides a more persuasive grounding to actively criticize the scientific bureaucracy that you've said you disliked.
My
desire for predictive value is almost axiomatic, though the benefits are not. If someone simply wanted a "just so story" for whatever reason, I have little grounds to argue with that value, though I hold a different one.
The evolutionary biologists who point to the explanatory power of the evolutionary paradigm (PZ Meyers, for instance) didn't seem particularly capable of predicting phenomenon such as epigenetics. And he had a large number of followers. What would you proscrible to correct that problem? Better insight? How is that developed if one's teachers are unreliable? How does one realize that one's teachers are unreliable? Popper provides a method for that. But this is just a layman's observations, not a controlled study. So take it for what you will.
The question of which theories are responsible for the benefits of science could be argued. I admit that I mostly have only a long string of anecdotal evidence to back up by beliefs. Perhaps some other political reality is waiting to make a hash of my ideals. If so, I admit, I'm probably not prepared now to argue against it.
Quote:And whether people change their minds about small things is not the question.
The disproof of a static universe vis a vis the Red Shift was a huge thing. It implied the universe had a beginning. The implications can't be understated.
Quote:such collapses in prestige only occasionally happening as the result of a single instance of falsification,
I never claimed that things happened based on a 'single instance.' Quite the opposite. I'm not sure you're seeing the difference between falsifiablity and falsification.
Lets say that we have two theories. One which predicts that "all things fall towards planets" and another which predicts that "all things fall towards planets at
9.8m/second ^2"
The first theory is true. The second theory is demonstrably false under the right circumstances. If you're on another planet, it will give you the wrong value. But the second theory is more "falsifiable", and thus has more predictive value when it does apply. Do you see where I'm going with that? More 'falsifiable' is more predictive.
I don't hold that a single experiment has to disprove a dominant theory, and in fact claimed the opposite as there are mistaken experiments all the time.
But once the effect is real, that's a starting flag to begin looking for a new explanation.
Quote:I suggests that Popper fails to meet this test, and therefore is not a good guide to thinking about how one ought to proceed. Nothing that you have written appears grounds for believing anything to the contrary.
1. You complained about bureaucracies in science, noted effects of prestige, etc.
2. You said you preferred alternate and more natural systems of authority.
3. You conclude by holding with Kuhn's view of science which essentially describes a bureaucracy, and criticizing popper whose theories provide a basis for actively critiquing, undermining and reforming those bureaucracies.