Why Scientism is a Faith

[Rocinante]

given the context, don’t you think that’s a bit of a silly remark? or is this supposed to be ‘relevant’ somehow?

i think “justified true belief” is a good way to unpack what we mean by knowledge, but of course this doesn’t help if one decides to take true, justified, and belief to mean something idiosyncratic.

i wasn’t being silly. i tried to respond as best i good. i guess i don’t know what you were getting at. you keep suggesting possible alternative definitions of knowledge to get to which one really is knowledge as though a word can have some real rather than merely conventional meaning. a word’s meaning is it usage.

 

[Betterave]

yes.

you were proposing your purpose of believing something as wanting to believe it. that still doesn’t say why you’d want to believe it.

it also doesn’t say what it is you’d want to believe… but so what? how is that relevant? the point is that on your account we could fill in the details however we wanted.

 

[Betterave]

yes.

you were proposing your purpose of believing something as wanting to believe it. that still doesn’t say why you’d want to believe it.

I guess I should add that you seem to have garbled what I said. I’ll try to clarify it:
When you say that “true beliefs are more likely to fulfill our purposes than false ones,” that implies that if I want to believe X [so that my purpose will be: *believe X], then X is ipso facto more likely to be true, because its being true will fulfill my purpose -]of/-] [which is expressed in my] wanting to believe it. Do you understand that [now]?

[Your claim may well be true in itself, but its use as an epistemic criterion is what is problematic - as well as how you manage to justify it/give it meaning within your conceptual framework.]

 

[Betterave]

i think “justified true belief” is a good way to unpack what we mean by knowledge, but of course this doesn’t help if one decides to take true, justified, and belief to mean something idiosyncratic.

Exactly! That was my point: that is what you are doing by somehow equating knowledge and power (although it’s still not clear how you mean to do this).

i wasn’t being silly. i tried to respond as best i good. i guess i don’t know what you were getting at. you keep suggesting possible alternative definitions of knowledge to get to which one really is knowledge as though a word can have some real rather than merely conventional meaning. a word’s meaning is it usage.

Obviously a word’s meaning is its usage. It does not follow that words have only “merely conventional” meanings - unless usage is also “merely conventional.” But usage is clearly not “merely conventional” (at least not on any ordinary rendering of the notion of “merely conventional”). So the meanings of words are not just conventional.

 

[Rocinante]

Exactly! That was my point: that is what you are doing by somehow equating knowledge and power (although it’s still not clear how you mean to do this).

i think its ought to be obvious that to possess knowledge (justified true beliefs) is to possess a sort of power since true beliefs lead to successful action when we act upon them. justified true beliefs often enable us to predict and to control (i.e., to do stuff).

Obviously a word’s meaning is its usage. It does not follow that words have only “merely conventional” meanings - unless usage is also “merely conventional.” But usage is clearly not “merely conventional” (at least not on any ordinary rendering of the notion of “merely conventional”). So the meanings of words are not just conventional.

my point was that you seemed to be setting up a false dichotomy between conventional and real meaning of words (such as reality and knowledge) when no such dichotomy is possible.

 

[Betterave]

i think its ought to be obvious that to possess knowledge (justified true beliefs) is to possess a sort of power since true beliefs lead to successful action when we act upon them. justified true beliefs often enable us to predict and to control (i.e., to do stuff).

But that’s nonsense: I’m sure you can easily think of all sorts of justified true beliefs that do not enable us to predict or control anything - can’t you?? There are also plenty of unjustified and presumably false beliefs which do enable us to predict or control things (to ‘do stuff,’ to engage in ‘successful’ action - i.e., to get what we want) - can you see that?

my point was that you seemed to be setting up a false dichotomy between conventional and real meaning of words (such as reality and knowledge) when no such dichotomy is possible.

No, I’m pointing out the very possible, very real dichotomy between defensible and indefensible - or reasonable and unreasonable - construals of the meanings of words.

 

[JDaniel]

Exactly! That was my point: that is what you are doing by somehow equating knowledge and power (although it’s still not clear how you mean to do this).

Obviously a word’s meaning is its usage. It does not follow that words have only “merely conventional” meanings - unless usage is also “merely conventional.” But usage is clearly not “merely conventional” (at least not on any ordinary rendering of the notion of “merely conventional”). So the meanings of words are not just conventional.

I agree. Some words, for example, are pregnant with meaning. In fact, some words are more pregnant than others!

God bless,
jd

 

[tonyrey]

On this very thread there have been challenges to produce a form of knowledge other than science, implying that there isn’t any… For a materialist there can be no other form of knowledge because there is nothing else to know besides matter and its products.

Your notion of knowledge is vitiated because it assumes that only material objects exist. Yet knowledge of **your mind **is more direct and more important than anything else. Introspection and information about the personal experiences of others are the only way to the truth about ourselves. We teach children primarily how to live reasonably and in harmony with themselves and others. If they cannot achieve that then knowledge of the world will never give them happiness and fulfilment. Reality begins at home… within yourself.

The OP stated that “the element of faith… is basic to all belief” because in every subject we “start off with postulates or axioms, statements that are presumed to be self-evident and don’t need proof (that is, statements that one takes on faith)”. Do you disagree? If so why?

(Emphasis mine). That is a really bad way to start the teaching process. Twisting words to your own purposes is hardly a good way to establish common ground. Faith has many meanings, but to intentionally confuse it with “reasonable assumption” is not one of them. Better make a different start.

If anyone is twisting words it is you. The last thing faith means is an unreasonable assumption. Faith in science, for example, is not merely intellectual assent but a willingness to **trust **its discoveries - with your life if necessary. If it were merely an intellectual exercise you would not be a genuine scientist. Don’t you have faith in your doctor? If not you’d better change him fast. Medicine happens to be a science…

 

[Rocinante]

But that’s nonsense: I’m sure you can easily think of all sorts of justified true beliefs that do not enable us to predict or control anything - can’t you??

off hand, no, actually. can you please provide some examples?

but at any rate, i didn’t intent predicting and controlling to necessarily encapsulate all possible knowledge.

but, if it makes any sense to say that a claim is true or false, that truth or falsity must be at least potentially realizable (it must somehow at least potentially make a difference) in some way whether we are talking about verifying predictions, or exerting control, or some other way where we could talk about knowing that we know. (this is why i can’t figure out why it would even make sense to say that transubstantiation is false let alone true.)

There are also plenty of unjustified and presumably false beliefs which do enable us to predict or control things (to ‘do stuff,’ to engage in ‘successful’ action - i.e., to get what we want) - can you see that?

once again, can you give any examples?

we recognize that it is possible to get lucky. that’s why knowledge isn’t just any old true belief but justified true belief, and if some particular false beliefs you may have in mind reliably lead us to successful action, then it seems to me there is some truth to them.

 

[AntiTheist]

However, that we were here today, holding this conversation, is both real and true. And, simply because the event is concluded does not mean that the reality and truth of the event evaporated into thin air. The evidence for this activity is that it is saved on the CAF server for years to come.

Now, let’s say that, six months from now, the CAF server - and all backups - take a swan dive into a waterless pool, destroying all of our electronic verification. That we had this conversation is still true and real, although past, goes without saying. But, where’s the evidence? We can inquire all we want, but it will be to no avail.

And if I then claimed to someone else that we had had this conversation, I would only be able to present my recollection of it, which might differ significantly from your recollection of it, or Spock’s recollection of it. We might never be able to agree on exactly what we had really said or exactly what arguments were made.

But who cares? In this hypothetical world – a world without a CAF server, oh the humanity! – it would just mean that no one could be 100% sure what a bunch of loons talking about philosophy had to say.

But let’s say that I later claim that on this thread I presented evidence that proved beyond a reasonable doubt that leprechauns are real (and that, for some reason, I could only have presented that evidence once and that now it’s gone forever). In that situation, I contend that no one would have any good reason to believe it.

 

[AntiTheist]

Two(ish) questions

Alright. But then you have answer one of mine.

1. How do we know, in general, if a model allows us to manipulate or have control over ‘reality’? (What are our criteria for ‘reality’ and for ‘control’/‘manipulate’?)

Reality is “that which appears to presents itself to us that continues to exist even when we are not consciously thinking it into existence.”

“Control/Manipulate” means to modify reality in some fashion.

We know that a model allows us to manipulate reality when we decide to perform an action on the basis of a model and the results allow us to modify reality in ways that the model predicts.

So, for example, on the basis of our model of how electrons work, we’ve taken actions that – our model predicts – should allow us to do all kinds of neat technological things, like – wonder of wonders! – send messages at lightning fast speeds across the world.

And, lo and behold! The results of taking these actions allow us to modify reality (in this case, send messages and do other cool technological things) that the model predicted would happen.

The more we can do this, the more evidence we have that the model accurately describes reality.

[Now that I’m thinking about it, “manipulate” might be the wrong word. Some models allow us to make predictions like, “we’ll be able to measure things and pick up cosmic background radiation” – which is a kind of action whose results the model predicts, but it’s not quite “manipulation”]

1. Why do you think that knowledge must imply control? How is it possible for you to make this claim? What do you take to be the epistemic status of this alleged implication?

It’s not that knowledge implies control – it’s that control is evidence for knowledge in the manner I’ve already suggested above. [And, if you consult the bracketed portion above, it’s not just “control” – it’s any results that the model predicts]

I don’t know how to be any clearer about this. We all have, in our heads, models about how reality works. The tribal shaman has in his head this model whereby doing a rain dance causes the gods to see his devotion and causes them to make it rain. I have in my head a model whereby the light switch on my wall is connected to these electric thing-a-ma-jigs inside the wall that cause the light to turn on when I flip the switch.

How do we go about determining who has an accurate model of reality? Well, we take actions on the basis of the models and see if reality reacts the way the model predicts.

The process of obtaining knowledge is nothing more than working toward better and better models of reality – and by “better,” I mean models that are more capable of predicting how reality will react to our actions.

If you mean something different by knowledge, now would be a good time to give a very clear and unambiguous definition of what you mean, with examples.

Ok. Now it’s your turn.

Please name a method of coming to knowledge about reality other than the process I’ve described. Please give an example of how it works and how you know that results are accurate. Thanks.

 

[Anselm33]

,

the belief that science explains everything about the world is itself an article of faith; it can’t be proven by science. You can’t do a scientific experiment to show that everything is explained by science. That statement about what science can do is, in fact, a metaphysical argument

 

[AntiTheist]

No one has given a rational argument to justify that science can explain everything one wants to know about the world (whether science is better in some realms of knowledge, or philosophy, or inner intuition was not the original question).

Wake up. No one is claiming that “science can explain everything one wants to know about the world.” I have, in fact, been very clear that science and/or our minds might be limited in what they can discover.

However, whatever its limits, science is a form of evidence-based inquiry, and evidence-based inquiry is the only consistently-reliable method of coming to conclusions about the world around us (which, for the thousandth time, doesn’t mean 100% consistent or 100% reliable).

You seem to think that there are other ways of knowing things about the world, but before you can claim that, you have to actually demonstrate that they provide a better insight into reality than evidence-based inquiry.

Now, of course, if you want to plug up your ears and chant “la la la la la,” I would understand why someone who holds to your position might want to do that.

 

[JDaniel]

And if I then claimed to someone else that we had had this conversation, I would only be able to present my recollection of it, which might differ significantly from your recollection of it, or Spock’s recollection of it. We might never be able to agree on exactly what we had really said or exactly what arguments were made.

But who cares? In this hypothetical world – a world without a CAF server, oh the humanity! – it would just mean that no one could be 100% sure what a bunch of loons talking about philosophy had to say.

But let’s say that I later claim that on this thread I presented evidence that proved beyond a reasonable doubt that leprechauns are real (and that, for some reason, I could only have presented that evidence once and that now it’s gone forever). In that situation, I contend that no one would have any good reason to believe it.

AT:

Very funny! But, “belief” is not the point. Truth and reality are. No mater how we contort what we remember, the meeting actually, really and truly happened.

God bless,
jd

 

[Betterave]

off hand, no, actually. can you please provide some examples?

Finding examples is really too easy. Here’s one: I know that if I were Steven Hawking, I’d be able to impress people with my math skills (this is a true justified belief).

but at any rate, i didn’t intent predicting and controlling to necessarily encapsulate all possible knowledge.

Well then you’ve just reversed your original claim about knowledge! (That’s one way to manufacture a “justified true belief” - make it so vague that it can’t be criticized.)

but, if it makes any sense to say that a claim is true or false, that truth or falsity must be at least potentially realizable (it must somehow at least potentially make a difference) in some way whether we are talking about verifying predictions, or exerting control, or some other way where we could talk about knowing that we know. (this is why i can’t figure out why it would even make sense to say that transubstantiation is false let alone true.)

That’s obvious, but it’s so vague that it doesn’t tell us anything.

once again, can you give any examples?

If I believe that Marx got the meaning of history right and that ends justify means (false unjustified beliefs), this enables me to promote the revolution of the proletariat and the establishment of the communist state using the kind of violent repression that we saw during the 20th century. Or if I believe that Saddam has WMDs (a false belief, and quite possibly unjustifed), this enables me to seriously consider measures to do something about it.

we recognize that it is possible to get lucky. that’s why knowledge isn’t just any old true belief but justified true belief, and if some particular false beliefs you may have in mind reliably lead us to successful action, then it seems to me there is some truth to them.

Yeah, that’s what you said, but I’ve already pointed out that the transition from “justified true belief” to “leads to successful action” is seriously problematic, and this is because of your nonsensical pragmatic conceptualization of ‘knowledge.’

 

[Betterave]

Alright. But then you have answer one of mine.

1. How do we know, in general, if a model allows us to manipulate or have control over ‘reality’? (What are our criteria for ‘reality’ and for ‘control’/‘manipulate’?)

So what does that include and what does that exclude? Why do you think this is a reasonable way to define ‘reality’?

“Control/Manipulate” means to modify reality in some fashion.

[Now that I’m thinking about it, “manipulate” might be the wrong word. Some models allow us to make predictions like, “we’ll be able to measure things and pick up cosmic background radiation” – which is a kind of action whose results the model predicts, but it’s not quite “manipulation”]

I think this is an important after-thought. I’m glad it occurred to you. But what is your answer now? Suppose we forget ‘manipulate’ - where does that leave us? We still need to be ‘modifying’ reality ‘in some fashion’ using our model/belief? - that is, if we are to know that our belief is true? (That seems not to follow, as I’ve already pointed out - see immediately preceding post.)

1. Why do you think that knowledge must imply control? How is it possible for you to make this claim? What do you take to be the epistemic status of this alleged implication?

It’s not that knowledge implies control – it’s that control is evidence for knowledge in the manner I’ve already suggested above. [And, if you consult the bracketed portion above, it’s not just “control” – it’s any results that the model predicts]

So your claim is… if a model predicts results reliably, that is evidence that the model is true…

The process of obtaining knowledge is nothing more than working toward better and better models of reality – and by “better,” I mean models that are more capable of predicting how reality will react to our actions.

So suppose I believe that the purpose of owning a slave is to extract his labor - in this case, the more labor I can extract from him, the better I know him, according to your model. In other words, the optimal model for knowing my slave is the one by the use of which I can extract the most labor from him. Right?

If you mean something different by knowledge, now would be a good time to give a very clear and unambiguous definition of what you mean, with examples.

I mean true justified belief, just like people ordinarily mean. I see no reason for your ad hoc stipulation that justification is all about predictive models and nothing else. I think I know that if I were Stephen Hawking, then I could impress people with my math skills. I think I know that black skin is not a mark of an inferior grade of humanity. I think I know that “that which appears to present itself to us [such] that [it] continues to exist even when we are not consciously thinking it into existence” is not a reasonable construal of ‘reality’ - I think I know that that definition is ad hoc and obviously too narrow.

Please name a method of coming to knowledge about reality other than the process I’ve described. Please give an example of how it works and how you know that results are accurate. Thanks.

The basic method, which includes yours but is broader, is something like this:

A: Think about proposition P. It must be true for reason R. Can you see that?
B: Yes.

or

A: Think about proposition P. It must be true for reason R. Can you see that?
B: No.
A: Why not?
B: It seems that P must be wrong for reason Q or But reason R is unacceptable for reason S or But R does not provide sufficient grounds for concluding P… or cetera

…in other words, the method is: rational dialogue.

Now how do we know its results are accurate? That’s a bit of a red herring. We don’t need to know that we know, or know that we know that we know. We can make second-order judgments about our first-order judgments, but these will be subject to the *same dynamics of justification *as the first. And this is possible on my model, not possible on yours. That’s why I think yours is unjustifiable - your tacit distinction between first and second order modes of justification seems completely ad hoc - while mine can reasonably be thought to be justified (though neither position can provide a demonstration of the falsity of the skeptics arguments).

 

[AntiTheist]

So what does that [definition of “reality”] include and what does that exclude? Why do you think this is a reasonable way to define ‘reality’?

When we talk about what’s real, we’re talking about it in contrast to what we just imagine. So “real” is – of necessity – not imaginary, not a product of the mind.

“Real” includes all things not produced by the imagination and not contingent on a mind.

Under this definition, the chair I’m sitting on is real, and the dragon I’m imagining is not real. [The mental image I have of the draon is a real mental image – it’s the dragon that’s not real]

If you’re using “reality” in a different way – which I strongly suspect that you are – let’s hear it.

So your claim is… if a model predicts results reliably, that is evidence that the model is true…

Yes. In some cases, the results predicted will be our ability to manipulate reality; in other cases, the results predicted will be our ability to measure reality.

But in all cases, we know that a claim about reality is true when that claim allows us to make accurate predictions.

So suppose I believe that the purpose of owning a slave is to extract his labor - in this case, the more labor I can extract from him, the better I know him, according to your model.

No. Comments like this make me wonder if you’re even reading what I’m saying.

The claim “My slave can perform action X well” can only be verified by 1) defining “well” and 2) making a prediction on the basis of the claim ("I would expect to see my slave performing action X to a degree that I have defined as “well”) and observing the results.

The claim “My slave has the quality of being funny” – which is a claim about his personality, which is what we’re talking about when we talk about “knowing someone” – can be verified by making predictions on the basis of the claim (“I would expect to see my slave say stuff that makes me laugh on a fairly regular basis”) and seeing if the results match.

If your ideas about someone do not match anything you observe about the person, I would say that you do not know that person very well at all.

I think I know that if I were Stephen Hawking, then I could impress people with my math skills.

First of all, you are talking about a hypothetical world here.

Second of all, the claim, “Having great math skills tends to impress people” is a claim about the world that we can verify (we can, in fact, make predictions about how people will react and examine said reactions).

From this claim – which we can verify – we can deduce the hypothetical claim you made, but we cannot do so without evidence.

Remember, I have claimed that induction and deduction are parts of evidence-based inquiry. Deduction, specifically, does not work unless you start from true premises. Induction is far from perfect, and its general conclusions must be tested against reality.

We keep coming back to the need to measure our models against reality.

I think I know that black skin is not a mark of an inferior grade of humanity.

“inferiority” and “superiority” are ideas that we have about reality, not inherent qualities of reality.

the method is: rational dialogue.

As long as you’re talking about induction and deduction – which, again, I consider parts of “evidence-based inquiry” – we’re on the same page. I’m just emphasizing that both induction and deduction are utterly useless unless they begin from premises that we can demonstrate to be true in the way that I’ve indicated – by making predictions on the basis of those premises and seeing how accurately it predicts how reality will respond.

Do you agree?

your tacit distinction between first and second order modes of justification seems completely ad hoc - while mine can reasonably be thought to be justified

I’m sorry, but I’m not totally familiar with the jargon – could you give me some concrete examples of “first order” and “second order” modes of justification as they apply to your method and to mine (and our methods may ultimately be identical)?

 

[Betterave]

When we talk about what’s real, we’re talking about it in contrast to what we just imagine. So “real” is – of necessity – not imaginary, not a product of the mind.

“Real” includes all things not produced by the imagination and not contingent on a mind.

Under this definition, the chair I’m sitting on is real, and the dragon I’m imagining is not real. [The mental image I have of the draon is a real mental image – it’s the dragon that’s not real]

If you’re using “reality” in a different way – which I strongly suspect that you are – let’s hear it.

‘Real’ vs. ‘imaginary’ indeed gives one sense of ‘reality.’ But we can really know things about imaginary entities (e.g., we can really know that a dragon is not the same as a mouse), so it seems clear to me that that sense is not the right one to fix upon here (where we are talking about reality as that which can be known).

Yes. In some cases, the results predicted will be our ability to manipulate reality; in other cases, the results predicted will be our ability to measure reality.

But in all cases, we know that a claim about reality is true when that claim allows us to make accurate predictions.

That could be true, but it’s far too vague. It can only be true if we take the notion of ‘prediction’ is an extremely broad sense, a sense in which we do not usually take it. So if I know what a dragon is, sure, I’ll be able to predict what others who know about dragons will say on the subject. How does that sound?

No. Comments like this…
So suppose I believe that the purpose of owning a slave is to extract his labor - in this case, the more labor I can extract from him, the better I know him, according to your model
…make me wonder if you’re even reading what I’m saying.

The claim “My slave can perform action X well” can only be verified by 1) defining “well” and 2) making a prediction on the basis of the claim ("I would expect to see my slave performing action X to a degree that I have defined as “well”) and observing the results.

The claim “My slave has the quality of being funny” – which is a claim about his personality, which is what we’re talking about when we talk about “knowing someone” – can be verified by making predictions on the basis of the claim (“I would expect to see my slave say stuff that makes me laugh on a fairly regular basis”) and seeing if the results match.

If your ideas about someone do not match anything you observe about the person, I would say that you do not know that person very well at all.

I’m confused. Your rebuttal here doesn’t make any sense to me as a rebuttal. 1) I did define ‘well’ for the purpose of my thought experiment and 2) there was obviously a prediction relative to that definition - so on your view, it seems, this should entail that I know my slave well to the extent that I can extract more labor from him. For my purposes, I don’t care whether he’s funny, any more than I care whether my donkey is funny - unless he happens to be my jester, which presumably would be a very unusual happenstance.

First of all, you are talking about a hypothetical world here.

Second of all, the claim, “Having great math skills tends to impress people” is a claim about the world that we can verify (we can, in fact, make predictions about how people will react and examine said reactions).

From this claim – which we can verify – we can deduce the hypothetical claim you made, but we cannot do so without evidence.

Okay, that’s true. I needed evidence in order to come to know that my hypothetical claim is true. I never said otherwise. But the question is: what can I predict (manipulate or measure) on the basis of my true justified counterfactual claim: “If I were SH, then I could impress people with my math skills”? I can predict that other people who know what I know will assent to my assertion… but that’s a funny kind of prediction, isn’t it?

“inferiority” and “superiority” are ideas that we have about reality, not inherent qualities of reality.

But it’s all ideas! Right? So how do you distinguish “ideas that we have about reality” from “ideas that we have about inherent qualities of reality” (such that we can have knowledge of one, but not of the other)??

 

[Betterave]

As long as you’re talking about induction and deduction – which, again, I consider parts of “evidence-based inquiry” – we’re on the same page. I’m just emphasizing that both induction and deduction are utterly useless unless they begin from premises that we can demonstrate to be true in the way that I’ve indicated – by making predictions on the basis of those premises and seeing how accurately it predicts how reality will respond.

Do you agree?

If you have understood my point thus far, you will see that I could agree, but only if we agree that we are using ‘predict’ in a funny sense, a sense which is much broader than that in which it is used in stereotypical models of how natural science works.

I’m sorry, but I’m not totally familiar with the jargon – could you give me some concrete examples of “first order” and “second order” modes of justification as they apply to your method and to mine (and our methods may ultimately be identical)?

Here’s what I mean: First order modes of justification apply to first order judgments, judgments about ‘the world’ (taken in a broad sense - everything which we can reasonably discuss). Second order modes of justification apply to second order judgments, i.e., judgments which are specifically about first order judgments. The typical kinds of models for rational dialogue I provided presumably apply to both of our first order judgments (it is hard to see how they couldn’t). For me these models apply to second order judgments too. For you it seems that an ad hoc insistence upon an inherently problematic ‘knowledge’-criterion, which you label ‘prediction,’ gets inserted as a general constraint upon your second order judgments (i.e., your judgments about our knowledge of ‘the world,’ i.e., that which you claim to know about knowledge).

 

[AntiTheist]

‘Real’ vs. ‘imaginary’ indeed gives one sense of ‘reality.’

And that’s the sense I use the word in.

But we can really know things about imaginary entities (e.g., we can really know that a dragon is not the same as a mouse), so it seems clear to me that that sense is not the right one to fix upon here (where we are talking about reality as that which can be known).

When we say we know things about dragons, we’re saying that we know the kinds of things that people who have made up stories about dragons attribute to them.

The stories about dragons indeed exist in reality, and those stories attribute qualities to these creatures. But what doesn’t exist are dragons.

The stories are real, not the dragons.

Similarly, if I invent a character and write a book about him, the character is not real. You can read my book and learn things about my imaginary character – which is to say, you can learn the qualities that I attribute to him in the story – but your learning things about him doesn’t make him any more real.

So if I know what a dragon is, sure, I’ll be able to predict what others who know about dragons will say on the subject. How does that sound?

The claim that “A person familiar with stories about dragons will be able to list some of the qualities attributed to dragons in those stories” is absolutely a claim that we can verify as true.

But it doesn’t make dragons real.

What’s real here are the stories, not the dragons.

Your rebuttal here doesn’t make any sense to me as a rebuttal.

Alright, I’ll try again. You said: “So suppose I believe that the purpose of owning a slave is to extract his labor - in this case, the more labor I can extract from him, the better I know him, according to your model.”

The error you’re making here is your equivocation on the phrase “know him better.” In everyday speech, when we say, “I know him well,” we mean that we know qualities about an individual’s personality (for example, that he’s funny or that he likes a certain kind of cheese or that his favorie movie is Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!).

The test you propose here doesn’t correspond to “knowing him” in that sense – it corresponds to knowing his abilities as a worker. And I agree, if by “know him” we mean “know how good a worker he is,” then yes, the amount and quality of labor he produces tells us how good a worker he is. We know how good a worker he is by observing the quality of the work he produces.

But I would never say that observing his work can let you “know him” in the sense of knowing his personality, which is an altogether different subject.

Now look. It seems to me that we have a bunch of fundamental disagreements about what “reality” means, and I’m not going to address the rest of your points until we can come to some kind of agreement because it would be a waste of time to continue when we can’t even agree on what it is that we’re talking about.

Now, I don’t doubt that you can define the word “real” in such a way so that pixies, dragons, and Spiderman can be considered “real,” but that’s not the way I use the word.

You note above that reality vs. imaginary is “one sense” of the word reality, and it’s in that sense that I’d like to use the word for the remainder of the thread. The reason is that I am interested in distinguishing fact from fantasy, which I hope is something that you agree is useful and important for people to be able to do.

If you just indicate that you’d be willing to use the word “real” in this way for the remainder of the thread, I will be happy to continue.

Please note: I’m not asking that you never again use any other definition of “real” in any other thread. I’m just saying that what I am talking about in this thread is “real” in the sense of “not imaginary” and I would like you to adopt this definition for the purposes of us being able to communicate.