Can science REALLY explain Reality?

[atheistgirl]

I’m not sure I know enough about it to decide on my own view on it but at first glance I think it could be a first order approximation anyway.

I’m totally with him

Wanting there to be more, believing there is more, just doesn’t make it so

Sarah x

 

[AlanFromWichita]

I’m totally with him

Wanting there to be more, believing there is more, just doesn’t make it so

Sarah x

Then by consequence, believing there is less doesn’t make it less either, right? It just means you’re not focused on it all at once. It can’t possibly mean that you know nothing expect what your focused mind is noticing consciously.

 

[Sample]

I agree “physical evidence” is redundant. Evidence is a proof of a physical phenomenon. This is why insisting on evidence is simply begging the question in favor of scientism – it assumes (irrationally, inconsistently, and without basis) that whatever can’t be demonstrated empirically cannot be true.

No. That’s an incorrect understanding of the scientific method. Science is a skeptical endeavor, a culture of doubt, which cannot prove anything absolutely true but rather gives reasons backed by evidence why a claim can be false. In other words it is also a culture of probability when it comes to positive claims. And I’ve addressed the term scientism elsewhere.

I’m noticing some of my posts are being deleted. If I am violating the TOU, I’d like it pointed out exactly where that’s occurred please. Thank you.

 

[atheistgirl]

Then by consequence, believing there is less doesn’t make it less either, right? It just means you’re not focused on it all at once. It can’t possibly mean that you know nothing expect what your focused mind is noticing consciously.

Right, believing anything, more or less, doesn’t make it so, either way. People can and do believe all sorts. I’m sure I’ve read some where there’s even in this day and age a flat earth society, but I don’t know if they’re serious or not.

I know a woman, who’s daughter believes in fairys, and believes she has several that follow her around everywhere keeping her safe. When she misplaces things, she blames the fairys and thinks they’re playing games and having fun with her.

Are there really fairys following this girl about?

She says yes.

Sarah x

 

[AlanFromWichita]

She says yes.

Sarah x

I guess I can’t tell her there aren’t, just because I haven’t seen them.

 

[atheistgirl]

I guess I can’t tell her there aren’t, just because I haven’t seen them.

I guess I’m more of a realist that you

I can tell her, with confidence, she’s full of it

It’s fine for her to believe what she wants.

It would be much less fine for her to start telling me I too should believe in fairys, because she does, and because they’re real to her, and if I want to live for ever in fairy paradise when I die

No, that would not be fine at all !!!

Sarah x

 

[tonyrey]

On a philosophy forum I love giving my opinions, including brief reasons I suggest other works. If I care about more than name dropping, I’ll want to give it at least a one liner sales pitch.

One thing I’ve noticed on the metadiscussion, is that a great deal of this thread is about procedure rather than information.

Buttt… since we’re not going to get an opinion from the other poster, I’ll take a hit on it and look up this author. I’ll give you my 40 word or less summary if I can control my fingers to that length…

OK, cracking out Wikipedia, the first but never final stop for “serious” researchers: Aha! He talks about Free Will. Maybe we can find something there to object to or endorse. First, let’s get an alleged quote from a 1978 article in MIT Press:

OK. So… next step, looking for something this mortal con understand, I’ll look toward YouTube!! Looks like he talks bout consciousness.

First thing I look for is a short one. Here one four minutes: Daniel Dennett on Deflating Consciousness

I listened to it. Least I could do considering how much longer we’ve spent avoiding his work. I thought it was an interesting theory. I’m not sure I know enough about it to decide on my own view on it but at first glance I think it could be a first order approximation anyway.

Here’s my summary of the video: “Conscious mind does not hold information that it doesn’t need.”

Alan

It’s one of the weakest arguments I’ve come across! As far as I can make out it boils down to a false deduction from the fact that we don’t observe everything that we’re not conscious of anything. Dennett in effect reduces mental activity to brain activity. It would have been much simpler to state (like David Hume):

“When we introspect we find nothing; therefore there is nothing!”

At least Hume admitted his conclusion led to insurmountable problems whereas Dennett blissfully assumes everything is cut and dried:

1. He hasn’t explained how neurones **understand **anything nor even what understanding consists of.
2. There may be impeccable logic in his argument but it is based entirely on the premise that only material objects exist.
3. How on earth can that hypothesis be proved?
4. We infer that material objects exist from our perceptions.
5. We have no **direct **knowledge of external reality.
6. Our sole certainty is our mental activity - which Dennett conveniently leaves out the picture.
7. In his article “Two Dogmas of Empiricism” (online) Q.V.Quine clearly explains how all our knowledge consists of mental constructs - and he had no axe to grind because he was a physicalist!

 

[Sample]

1. We have no direct knowledge of external reality

tonyrey, I can agree with this statement. However, if you are implying that there is indirect knowledge of external reality, please give some attributes or a description of it.

 

[tonyrey]

It’s one of the weakest arguments I’ve come across! As far as I can make out it boils down to a false deduction from the fact that we don’t observe everything that we’re not conscious of anything. Dennett in effect reduces mental activity to brain activity. It would have been much simpler to state (like David Hume):

“When we introspect we find nothing; therefore there is nothing!”

At least Hume admitted his conclusion led to insurmountable problems whereas Dennett blissfully assumes everything is cut and dried:

1. He hasn’t explained how neurones **understand **anything nor even what understanding consists of.
2. There may be impeccable logic in his argument but it is based entirely on the premise that only material objects exist.
3. How on earth can that hypothesis be proved?
4. We infer that material objects exist from our perceptions.
5. We have no **direct **knowledge of external reality.
6. Our sole certainty is our mental activity - which Dennett conveniently leaves out the picture.
7. In his article “Two Dogmas of Empiricism” (online) Q.V.Quine clearly explains how all our knowledge consists of mental constructs - and he had no axe to grind because he was a physicalist!

There is one point Dennet makes elsewhere that confounds those who deride philosophy (including some members of this forum!):

But there is no such thing as philosophy-free science; there is only science whose philosophical baggage is taken on board without examination.

en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Daniel_Dennett

 

[AlanFromWichita]

I guess I’m more of a realist that you

I can tell her, with confidence, she’s full of it

How I’d handle it would be pretty context dependent. If it wasn’t causing any particular harm – like she was trying to get away with things – I’d be more likely to ask her about first before telling her anything. It may give valuable insight into how she thinks.

It’s fine for her to believe what she wants.

It would be much less fine for her to start telling me I too should believe in fairys, because she does, and because they’re real to her, and if I want to live for ever in fairy paradise when I die

No, that would not be fine at all !!!

Sarah x

I’d say that if she wants to invite you, that’s fine. Invite, not insist. But when it gets to kids thinking they’re smarter than their parents, or tell you that you are bad or will be punished if you don’t believe, I’d definitely put and end to that.

Alan

 

[tonyrey]

1. We have no direct knowledge of external reality

1. I think you will agree that we are aware of our thoughts, feeling, decisions and perceptions.
2. We cannot get outside our mind!
3. As babies all we are aware of is a set of shapes, colours, sounds, smells, tastes and tactile sensations.
4. With the help of our parents we learn to associate these stimuli with external objects.
5. None of us see the external world in precisely the same way because we all interpret it differently.
6. But we know by experience that in similar conditions our decisions have the same effect on the outside world.
7. So we deduce the uniformity and predictability of nature.
8. We also learn that we cannot always do what we want to do.
9. That is why we believe there is an outside world which sometimes resists our attempts to change it!

 

[Sample]

1. I think you will agree that we are aware of our thoughts, feeling, decisions and perceptions.
2. We cannot get outside our mind!
3. As babies all we are aware of is a set of shapes, colours, sounds, smells, tastes and tactile sensations.
4. With the help of our parents we learn to associate these stimuli with external objects.
5. None of us see the external world in precisely the same way because we all interpret it differently.
6. But we know by experience that in similar conditions our decisions have the same effect on the outside world.
7. So we deduce the uniformity and predictability of nature.
8. We also learn that we cannot always do what we want to do.
9. That is why we believe there is an outside world which sometimes resists our attempts to change it!

1: Some humans, yes.
2. Solipsism?
3. Some babies, yes.
4. Agreed.
5. Agreed.
6. By evidence, not necessarily experience as experience may be subjective.
7. Probability is deduced.
8. Relevance?
9. Belief yes, but as I asked before, can you please list an attribute or at least a description of what you believe about “external reality”?

 

[atheistgirl]

or tell you that you are bad or will be punished if you don’t believe, I’d definitely put and end to that.

So you wouldn’t support those Christians who claim if people like me do not repent of our ways, and believe in their Deity, we will be subjected to eternal punishment?

You don’t support this?

"He who believes on Him is not condemned, but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God.’'
(John 3:18-19)

It seems very clear, believe, and live, don’t believe, and be condemned.

Now, what would be reasonable for this woman’s daughter to do, to prove, that the fairys she believes in, are real, and if I don’t believe in them, they will damn me to eternal punishment?

Is there anything she could do?

Sarah x

 

[tonyrey]

1. I think you will agree that we are aware of our thoughts, feeling, decisions and perceptions.

Your request was ambiguous:

However, if you are implying that there is indirect knowledge of external reality, please give some attributes or a description of it.

I took “it” to refer to “indirect knowledge”! My ideas about external reality correspond to the consensus of science and common sense. Even though we cannot get outside our mind the success of science is convincing evidence that we can control external events to a considerable extent and that they occur independently often without our knowledge - which falsifies solipsism.

 

[Sample]

I’m sure I’ve read some where there’s even in this day and age a flat earth society, but I don’t know if they’re serious or not. (atheistgirl)

Quite serious. news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7540427.stm

 

[Sample]

My ideas about external reality correspond to the consensus of science and common sense. (tonyrey)

Description of your ideas about external reality please. And what exactly do you mean by this:

we cannot get outside our mind

 

[tonyrey]

Description of your ideas about external reality please.

I’ve given them and don’t know what else you expect me to do.
Isn’t science concerned with external reality?

 

[Sample]

I’ve given them and don’t know what else you expect me to do. (tonyrey)

No, in your post #303, you said at 5: “we have no direct knowledge of external reality.” What knowledge do you have tonyrey? Can you please appreciate the contradiction I am getting from you?

 

[tonyrey]

No, in your post #303, you said at 5: “we have no direct knowledge of external reality.” What knowledge do you have tonyrey?

Indirect via our perceptions. We are in what philosophers call “the egocentric predicament”. We can’t get into another person’s mind. Or into the world for that matter. We are only aware that we are receiving stimuli from beyond ourselves. Everything else is constructed within our mind in the form of ideas and images. In other words the world is what we make it. One prisoner sees bars and another sees stars! Very often we select what we want to see and ignore the rest… but usually we can’t ignore the hard facts - especially if we’re in pain.

 

[Sample]

Indirect via our perceptions. We are in what philosophers call “the egocentric predicament”. We can’t get into another person’s mind. Or into the world for that matter. We are only aware that we are receiving stimuli from beyond ourselves. Everything else is constructed within our mind in the form of ideas and images. In other words the world is what we make it. One prisoner sees bars and another sees stars! Very often we select what we want to see and ignore the rest…

This sounds like an indefensible and simultaneously irrefutable position. I question the value of it in our discussion. And I still don’t know what you mean by “external reality.” I am letting you off the hook for a clarification of that claim.