Is There a Cure for Metaphysical Dogma?

[Nous]

Stone walling, hyperbole and ignorance based on a religious agenda, Science does not 'prove' anything. Science is based on consistent predictability through the falsification of theories and hypothesis based on objective verifiable evidence.

The reason that you are unable to prove your claims is because they're nonsense. Most 6th graders know that energy is not tangible.

The reason that you are unable to cite any scientific "test" of the adjective "physical" is because no scientific discipline engages in such vacuous idiocy.

 

[Nous]

So you define "supernatural" - that will help me either to see that everything is supernatural or at least that not all things are "natural".

No, there is no definition of the adjective "supernatural" that will help you to see anything about what is objectively "supernatural" or "natural". That's because those adjectives are hackneyed, unscientific, undefinable fairies. They are the sorts of ideas that people who don't grasp modern physics traffic in.

Non-locality might be outside the limits of relativity, but it does not necessarily mean it is a non-physical effect.

Let me know when you are able to articulate an argument premised on some fact by which to conclude that nonlocality is "physical" according to your definition ("matter/energy"). If you can have is a faith-based argument, then I am not interested in it.

In any case, we don't really know that there is a real "wavefunction" or a real "collapse" do we? There's nothing in Quantum Theory per se that demands it - only in one (preferred) interpretation

No, it isn't in only one QM interpretation that entails wave functions as real objects that collapse. And, regardless of how one wishes to treat the probabilities of QM, it doesn't change the results of any experiments (such as those testing Bell and Leggett-Garg inequalities).

The scientific method "begs the question" by deliberately discounting supernatural causes

Cite those experiments that tested a hypothesis about "supernatural causes". How was "supernatural" defined in those experiments?

Scientific realism is by definition naturalistic

Quote the definition you're referring to. I've never seen "scientific realism" defined in terms of that adjective "naturalistic".

Did you read the thread "Scientific Realism Begets Mathematical Realism"? You don't have a problem with the Quine-Putnam indispensability argument, do you?

 

[Nous]

There is no such thing in math as mathematical realism. This is an odd myth of your own creation.

You should try opening a book sometime.

Realism in the philosophy of mathematics

Mathematical realism is the view that the truths of mathematics are objective, which is to say that they are true independently of any human activities, beliefs or capacities. As the realist sees it, mathematics is the study of a body of necessary and unchanging facts, which it is the mathematician’s task to discover, not to create. These form the subject matter of mathematical discourse: a mathematical statement is true just in case it accurately describes the mathematical facts.​

Realism in the philosophy of mathematics - Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy

 

[Nous]

Exactly. And how could that apply to any metaphysical thesis that is believed?

Good lord. Evidently you were able to understand what "falsifiable" means, even after I explained what it means. It means that a proposition or thesis or theory is able to falsified, than that it is false.

My belief that the earth is approximately 150 million kilometers (between 147 and 152 million kilometers, depending where the earth is in its orbit) from the sun is falsifiable. My belief can be falsified by evidence showing that the the sun is actually on average 200 million kilometers from the earth.

You should try reading Karl Popper's philosophy of science sometime. It will blow your mind.

 

[siti]

You don't have a problem with the Quine-Putnam indispensability argument, do you?

Er, yes - since you ask - I have a problem with equating 'indispensability' with 'fundamental realism' - which is what you are doing if you insist that because 'mathematical objects' are indispensable (as they are) in describing the world, they must be a fundamental precondition or precedent to the existence of the physical world. There is no way that can be established and if the manifest world is necessarily and always both physical and 'mental' (mathematical) in nature (as it seems to be) then at best we have a fundamentally bipolar world in which neither can exists independently of the other, and at worst an impossibly intractable chicken and egg conundrum that can never be resolved. I don't know which version of 'reality' is true, but if the world is fundamentally mathematical, how on earth did (does) the physical world emerge from it? Indispensability has to work both ways in my opinion - and inseparably - there's no "ne'er the twain shall meet" dualism here, just an intrinsically and intractably bipolar physical/mental reality - at every level. But we can't detect the mental part directly - only the physical - that's why all the experiments you talk about (anyone can talk about) are based on the measurement of matter and energy and the effects thereof. No matter how you cut it, we have no choice but to accept the evidence (no matter how perplexing) presented to us by a fundamentally physical world.

 

[Koldo]

Prove it.

Read the rest of the post:

You can't use the scientific method to rule out metaphysical theses without holding certain metaphysical assumptions in the first place. That there is a world that can be observed and that the data you can gather from this world can be used to rule out some metaphysical theses is one of those assumptions.

 

[Nous]

Read the rest of the post:

You bolded your statement: "That there is a world that can be observed and that the data you can gather from this world can be used to rule out some metaphysical theses is one of those assumptions."

The fact that "there is a world that can be observed and that the data you can gather from this world can be used to rule out some metaphysical theses" is not any particular metaphysical thesis. Your statement is consistent with every metaphysical thesis that I know of. The truth of your statement does not tell us which metaphysical thesis is the correct one.

As you see demonstrated on this thread, people turn singular metaphysical theses, for which they cannot even define their essential adjectival terms, into religion. They are not turning into religion general statements that would be consistent with all metaphysical theses.

 

[Nous]

Er, yes - since you ask - I have a problem with equating 'indispensability' with 'fundamental realism' - which is what you are doing if you insist that because 'mathematical objects' are indispensable (as they are) in describing the world, they must be a fundamental precondition or precedent to the existence of the physical world. There is no way that can be established and if the manifest world is necessarily and always both physical and 'mental' (mathematical) in nature (as it seems to be) then at best we have a fundamentally bipolar world in which neither can exists independently of the other, and at worst an impossibly intractable chicken and egg conundrum that can never be resolved. I don't know which version of 'reality' is true, but if the world is fundamentally mathematical, how on earth did (does) the physical world emerge from it? Indispensability has to work both ways in my opinion - and inseparably - there's no "ne'er the twain shall meet" dualism here, just an intrinsically and intractably bipolar physical/mental reality - at every level. But we can't detect the mental part directly - only the physical - that's why all the experiments you talk about (anyone can talk about) are based on the measurement of matter and energy and the effects thereof. No matter how you cut it, we have no choice but to accept the evidence (no matter how perplexing) presented to us by a fundamentally physical world.

Why don't you address (that is, refute) the actual argument that Colyvan identifies as the Quine-Putnam Indispensability Argument?

(P1) We ought to have ontological commitment to all and only the entities that are indispensable to our best scientific theories.
(P2) Mathematical entities are indispensable to our best scientific theories.
(C) We ought to have ontological commitment to mathematical entities​

Indispensability Arguments in the Philosophy of Mathematics (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

As Professor Colyvan notes, the argument puts anti-realists in the position of needing to show where the argument goes wrong.

As far as I can tell, in order to refute the Indispensability Argument, one will need to show that mathematics is dispensable to physics. I will be most interested in reading an argument, premised on facts, that concludes that.

I noted on that thread that what physicists discover about empirical reality are mathematical relations.
E=mc2, F=ma, F=k(q1q2)/d2 (Coulomb’s law), ∆S ≥ 0 (second law of thermodynamics), Schrodinger’s equation, the laws of conserved quantities, etc., etc. Thus, it does not seem to me that physics without mathematics is a coherent idea. But you are welcomed to prove me wrong. Be sure to enumerate and substantiate your premises.

What physicists definitely don't discover in their investigations of empirical reality are adjectives such as "physical" or "natural".

 

[siti]

Why don't you address (that is, refute) the actual argument that Colyvan identifies as the Quine-Putnam Indispensability Argument?

(P1) We ought to have ontological commitment to all and only the entities that are indispensable to our best scientific theories.
(P2) Mathematical entities are indispensable to our best scientific theories.
(C) We ought to have ontological commitment to mathematical entities

As you say, what physicists discover about empirical reality are mathematical relations. So the question is not whether physics is complete without math, but whether relations are ontologically real entities. Can you measure a mathematical relation? Can you specify its properties? What would E=mc2 mean in a universe with zero energy? Can E=mc2 exist in and of itself? What would be the value (I mean explanatory value not the number) of c in a universe with no energy? The indispensability of the relation is contingent on the existence of the real entities that it relates. You say you would like to see an argument that shows that math is dispensable to physics - I would like to see one that shows that math has anything to relate in the absence of any physics.

 

[LukeS]

I am less confident now than I was a couple of days ago that there is a cure.

What about 1 valued logic, or a zero valued logic...

 

[Nous]

As you say, what physicists discover about empirical reality are mathematical relations. So the question is not whether physics is complete without math, but whether relations are ontologically real entities.

How can one discover a relation if it isn't "ontologically real"? If the relation isn't ontologically real, then it isn't discovered; it's invented. Right?

Above I quoted the first paragraph on mathematical realism from Routledge:

Mathematical realism is the view that the truths of mathematics are objective, which is to say that they are true independently of any human activities, beliefs or capacities. As the realist sees it, mathematics is the study of a body of necessary and unchanging facts, which it is the mathematician’s task to discover, not to create. These form the subject matter of mathematical discourse: a mathematical statement is true just in case it accurately describes the mathematical facts.​

Realism in the philosophy of mathematics - Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Do you dispute and argue against these mathematical realist propositions:

"the truths of mathematics are objective, which is to say that they are true independently of any human activities, beliefs or capacities."

"mathematics is the study of a body of necessary and unchanging facts, which it is the mathematician’s task to discover, not to create."

"a mathematical statement is true just in case it accurately describes the mathematical facts."

?

You say you would like to see an argument that shows that math is dispensable to physics - I would like to see one that shows that math has anything to relate in the absence of any physics.

Are you joking? What do you think geometry and algebra are? Obviously neither of these subject matters depend on the findings of physics. Obviously they were both prior to physics.

 

[Nous]

What about 1 valued logic, or a zero valued logic...

You got me. I'm not familiar with 1-valued or zero-valued logic. What are those things?

 

[siti]

How can one discover a relation if it isn't "ontologically real"? If the relation isn't ontologically real, then it isn't discovered; it's invented. Right?

Above I quoted the first paragraph on mathematical realism from Routledge:

Mathematical realism is the view that the truths of mathematics are objective, which is to say that they are true independently of any human activities, beliefs or capacities. As the realist sees it, mathematics is the study of a body of necessary and unchanging facts, which it is the mathematician’s task to discover, not to create. These form the subject matter of mathematical discourse: a mathematical statement is true just in case it accurately describes the mathematical facts.​

Realism in the philosophy of mathematics - Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Do you dispute and argue against these mathematical realist propositions:

"the truths of mathematics are objective, which is to say that they are true independently of any human activities, beliefs or capacities."

"mathematics is the study of a body of necessary and unchanging facts, which it is the mathematician’s task to discover, not to create."

"a mathematical statement is true just in case it accurately describes the mathematical facts."

?

Are you joking? What do you think geometry and algebra are? Obviously neither of these subject matters depend on the findings of physics. Obviously they were both prior to physics.

You are very confused. Ontologically real is not the same as objective any more than it is the same as indispensable. If I measure two particles and discover the relationship that one is twice the size of the other - is "twice the size" an ontologically real entity? Or is it just a relation that holds between these two ontologically real entities? If I now get several people to measure them independently and they all get the same result and I find a way of measuring them that does not depend on anything any human does so that the "twice the size" relation becomes an objective fact about the two particles - has "twice the size" now become an ontologically real entity? Do I need to know the physics of the particles in order to know that "twice the size" is a physical relationship? I can do the geometry and algebra without knowing anything at all the physics - but that doesn't mean the physics isn't happening.

 

[Nous]

You are very confused. Ontologically real is not the same as objective any more than it is the same as indispensable. If I measure two particles and discover the relationship that one is twice the size of the other - is "twice the size" an ontologically real entity? Or is it just a relation that holds between these two ontologically real entities? If I now get several people to measure them independently and they all get the same result and I find a way of measuring them that does not depend on anything any human does so that the "twice the size" relation becomes an objective fact about the two particles - has "twice the size" now become an ontologically real entity? Do I need to know the physics of the particles in order to know that "twice the size" is a physical relationship? I can do the geometry and algebra without knowing anything at all the physics - but that doesn't mean the physics isn't happening.

So you're saying that it is the relata, not the relations, that are ontologically real.

So in the case of the relation E=mc2, the quantity E, the quantity m, and the quantity c squared are what are ontologically real. How could any mathematical realist disagree with that?

 

[siti]

So you're saying that it is the relata, not the relations, that are ontologically real.

So in the case of the relation E=mc2, the quantity E, the quantity m, and the quantity c squared are what are ontologically real. How could any mathematical realist disagree with that?

No - still confused. The particles, in my example, are ontologically real - the size and the ratio of their sizes are contingent on the existence of the particles. If the particles did not exist, neither relata nor relation would exist. Ditto - if you want to take a more circumspect example - the universe. If there were no universe, there would be no E, no m and no c - squared or otherwise. E=mc2 might be mathematically true of all possible universes (perhaps), but it is only actually true of universes that actually exist. It has no objective 'existence' unless there is an actual universe in which it could be verified. So it what sense is it ontologically real?

 

[Willamena]

Good lord. Evidently you were able to understand what "falsifiable" means, even after I explained what it means. It means that a proposition or thesis or theory is able to falsified, than that it is false.

My belief that the earth is approximately 150 million kilometers (between 147 and 152 million kilometers, depending where the earth is in its orbit) from the sun is falsifiable. My belief can be falsified by evidence showing that the the sun is actually on average 200 million kilometers from the earth.

You should try reading Karl Popper's philosophy of science sometime. It will blow your mind.

Science isn't something to believe in. It's theories aren't intended to impress truth upon the world. Same for theories in philosophy.

 

[Nous]

No - still confused. The particles, in my example, are ontologically real - the size and the ratio of their sizes are contingent on the existence of the particles. If the particles did not exist, neither relata nor relation would exist.

In your example of particles having a size relationship to each other, either the particles (the relata) are real or the relation is real. Which do you want it to be?

To claim that relations are not real is anti-Whiteheadian nonsense. Relations are the most essential findings of any scientific discipline. If relations are human inventions, then the scientific method does not reveal what is objectively real.

Again, what physicists discover are relations between quantities. E=mc2, F=ma, F=k(q1q2)/d2 (Coulomb’s law), ∆S ≥ 0 (second law of thermodynamics), Schrodinger’s equation, the laws of conserved quantities, etc., etc.

And in the OP of the Scientific Realism thread, I discussed the example where:

Perhaps one wishes to claim that physicists discover other kinds of stuff in addition to mathematical relations, such as, say, the discovery of the electron. Few people would quibble with that. I would note that, even so, everything we know about electrons pertains to their mathematical (measurable) nature and their relations with other quantities or mathematical relations. J. J. Thomson’s cathode ray experiments did not involve the discovery of anything of a non-mathematical nature about empirical reality: he deduced the particulate aspect of the rays (which had been speculated), that the particles have a negative charge, and he arrived at estimates of the size of charge and mass by way of calculations and deduction premised on the degree the rays were bent by electrical currents of differing strengths. The discovery of the electron was ultimately the discovery of a quantity or a set of quantities and mathematical relations.​

You haven't articulated any argument contrary to the thesis of mathematical realism as described in the quoted paragraph of the Routledge article. (Please note that arguments are not mere assertions. I.e., you haven't deduced any thesis of mathematical anti-realism from any fact. I dare you to try.)

You haven't shown where the Quine-Putnam Indispensability Argument goes wrong.

Ditto - if you want to take a more circumspect example - the universe. If there were no universe, there would be no E, no m and no c - squared or otherwise.

Just the other way around: without relations between quantities such as E, m, and c times itself, there would be no universe.

E=mc2 might be mathematically true of all possible universes (perhaps), but it is only actually true of universes that actually exist. It has no objective 'existence' unless there is an actual universe in which it could be verified. So it what sense is it ontologically real?[/QUOTE]In your example of particles having a size relationship to each other, either the particles are real or the relation

 

[Nous]

Science isn't something to believe in. It's theories aren't intended to impress truth upon the world. Same for theories in philosophy.

So, you are a scientific anti-realist. That explains a lot.

Do you believe that there is any epistemological method available to humans by which to discover reality?

 

[Willamena]

Do you believe that there is any epistemological method available to humans by which to discover reality?

it's called science.

 

[siti]

In your example of particles having a size relationship to each other, either the particles (the relata) are real or the relation is real. Which do you want it to be?

Your confusion remains - the relata in my example are the sizes of the particles, not the particles themselves, and the ratio of the sizes is the relation. To claim that the relations are not real is neither "anti-Whiteheadian" nor "nonsense" it is a perfectly rational position referred to as "nominalism". In fact it is probably non-Whiteheadian to claim that there even are "particles" as such in the first place - or any genuine "entities" for that matter - fundamentally there are just "occasions of experience" and processes through which these entities "appear" - on observation - as freeze-frame snap-shots of a bit of a world that once was (perhaps) but is continually becoming other than it is. The relations discovered by science, under a truly Whiteheadian view, can be no more than observed regularities among the countlessly many creative becomings that the manifest world comprises. Its hard to get the head around Whitehead, but his process-relational philosophy of organism doesn't really have any "real entities" at all in the end - just an impossible intricate and overlapping mess of "occasions of experience" each of which has a mental pole and a physical pole (what I call a "WHAT it is" and a "what it IS" respectively - except that there is no real "is" and no real "it" as such).

Be all that as it may, Whitehead certainly wasn't a mathematical realist in the sense you are applying the term - he was (with Frege and Russell) a logicist who thought that math could ultimately be reduced completely to fundamental logical statements - it turned out that they couldn't - but that's a long and complicated story.

...you haven't deduced any thesis of mathematical anti-realism from any fact. I dare you to try

Explain to me how the Quine-Putnam argument is deduced from fact - it is not - it is, at best, abduced from the idea that scientifically observed regularities are somehow "real entities". The fact that it is an abduction is hinted at by the use of the word "ought" in the formulation you presented earlier. The first premise is weak and therefore cannot guarantee the conclusion. The second premise begs the question by assuming that mathematical statements ARE real entities - which assumption IS itself an ontological commitment to mathematical entities - but regardless of what we happen to believe, this cannot be asserted at this point in an argument that seeks to establish the ontological commitment it has already assumed as an axiom.

So the only fact the indispensability argument you presented can possibly be based on is that mathematical statements are indispensable to our best scientific theories. It says nothing about whether those statements are real, nominal, formal,...or even fictional.

Convince me that there is a genuinely sound argument for realism and I'll go for your challenge of formulating an argument for anti-realism.