BJH1960 said
Two articles worth looking at:
How Conspiracy Theorists Get the Scientific Method Wrong
Who is Likely to Believe in Conspiracy Theories?
Terrific articles, thanks. The only point I would add is the tendency among many people, even ones defending it, to treat science itself as a kind of pseudo-religion. We are taught to seek after The TRUTH, and once we find it, to hold onto it no matter what, against all temptation and equivocation. Scientists are seen as a secular priesthood mediating the secrets of the universe to the rest of us.
Science obviously has power, not just because of the information it reveals about nature, but through the technology it produces. But it completely does away with the idea of certainty and objective truth. Scientists build models, not cathedrals. It makes a piss-poor religion simply because it can provide no comfort. Just the opposite! At any moment, without warning we may learn something that could completely transform our society. My Father grew up before television. I grew up before personal computers and the Internet.
As the writer pointed out, we evolved to survive in a world vastly different than the one we live in today. I have often wondered if there will be a point beyond which we simply cannot go. Will we reach our limits? Can we live knowing that we can never be absolutely certain? That there will always be blank spaces on our maps? Will we weary of change? Will nostalgia for the comfort of a world full of answers and no questions drive us back?
Science obviously has power, not just because of the information it reveals about nature, but through the technology it produces. But it completely does away with the idea of certainty and objective truth.
I can see how certainty or at least absolute certainty is done away with. I’m afraid I don’t understand how objective truth is.
I can see how certainty or at least absolute certainty is done away with. I’m afraid I don’t understand how objective truth is.
What I mean is that the “God’s Eye” perspective, where one can stand outside all phenomena and contemplate reality entire, is not available to us. I liken our situation to “building a bridge while crossing it”. We are on the inside looking out. Part of the process, yet our perception of reality itself affects the process.
But just because we can’t know everything doesn’t mean we can’t know anything. If we reach conclusions that seem overwhelmingly likely then colloquially we refer to them as facts. And there are some foundational assumptions we must make to function at all. I assume that I really exist and that my perceptions mirror reality in some fashion. But any conception of “objectivity” rapidly breaks down. Our senses operate in such a narrow spectrum.
We deal with likelihoods, probabilities. We can extrapolate. Predict. We continuously tweak and refine our models but there will never be a time when we will ever know all that is to be known. About anything. To mix me some metaphors: we peel the onion layer by layer but does reality have a floor or a ceiling? Unknown. It is much more likely that we will first reach the limits of our ability to understand.
As I said, a real question is whether we can sustain this perspective. Build a mature stable civilization based on it. Maybe not.
Stephen said
… We deal with likelihoods, probabilities. We can extrapolate. Predict. We continuously tweak and refine our models but there will never be a time when we will ever know all that is to be known. About anything. To mix me some metaphors: we peel the onion layer by layer but does reality have a floor or a ceiling? Unknown. It is much more likely that we will first reach the limits of our ability to understand. …
Note, however, that our inability to state objective truth regarding everything and to know it with absolute certainty is epidemiology, about what we can know, and not ontology, about what kind if reality we inhabit.
We pursue science on the premise that objective truth exists, not on the premise that we can know what it is with complete certainty and for every type of question. There are questions which have objective answers, so that the answers that we provide for these statements are tentative answers which we can then also attempt to assess how great the possibility that our tentative answers are wrong, based on information presently at hand.
And of course, there are questions which are intrinsically subjective, not regarding how the Universe works (for whichever portion of the Universe we are investigating), but rather what should be done about it, and there is no intrinsically objective answer available for what we should be attempting to do.
We pursue science on the premise that objective truth exists, not on the premise that we can know what it is with complete certainty and for every type of question.
We pursue science on the epistemological presupposition that our observations correspond to reality. It is an assumption only borne out by the practical results of having first made that assumption. My point is that the concept of “objective reality” is well nigh meaningless. But this by no means precludes us from describing our environment.
There are questions which have objective answers, so that the answers that we provide for these statements are tentative answers which we can then also attempt to assess how great the possibility that our tentative answers are wrong, based on information presently at hand.
Then I don’t know what you mean by “objective” here. Our knowledge can only ever be tentative. This would seem to preclude any sort of formal objectivity. Correct me if I misunderstand, but if you mean by “objective” that there is a reality that exists apart from our perception of it, then I consider that part of the “epistemological presupposition” I mentioned.
Stephen said
We pursue science on the premise that objective truth exists, not on the premise that we can know what it is with complete certainty and for every type of question.
We pursue science on the epistemological presupposition that our observations correspond to reality. It is an assumption only borne out by the practical results of having first made that assumption. My point is that the concept of “objective reality” is well nigh meaningless. …
The concept “objective” exists, first and foremost, as a contrast to “subjective”.
That is, we pursue science on the epistemological presupposition that our observations correspond to the same reality that other observers also have access to.
That presupposition is ontological, a presupposition about how reality works.
If a question is subjective, then shared conclusions are evidence about something held in common by the observers.
If a question is objective, then a shared conclusion might be evidence about that reality.
However, what we possess is not the objective reality itself, but rather our mental model of the objective reality, and quite often it is far more useful to somebody to have that mental model of reality biased in their favor than to have it line up with the best evidence presently at hand.
Bruce, I think I understand the distinction you’re making. I’m trying to think of a response that doesn’t simply go round in circles. I do think the foundational presupposition we make is epistemological. Because science is a way of knowing it must concern itself primarily with how we know. The fundamental nature of being seems beyond its purview.
If a question is subjective, then shared conclusions are evidence about something held in common by the observers.
Perhaps a function of shared culture and traditions. Even if there is something about which all humans agree it might be an existential function of having evolved as a social species. (Moral insights shared across cultures can be explained in this way I think.)
If a question is objective, then a shared conclusion might be evidence about that reality.
It would help me to understand what you mean by “objective” if you gave an example of a question you think is objective. The speed of light? The gravitational constant?
However, what we possess is not the objective reality itself, but rather our mental model of the objective reality…
I suppose I look at this question functionally. I think of Huxley’s agnosticism, his “unknowable” god. On a purely functional level, what is the difference between an “unknowable” god and no god at all? (Indeed, in his later writings Huxley scarcely distinguished between agnosticism as he defined it and atheism.)
All I can ever experience is my mental model of reality. We can assume there is a reality apart from our perception of it but we can still quantify and categorize our experiences without certainty it exists. “Objective reality” is a perspective that is not available.
…quite often it is far more useful to somebody to have that mental model of reality biased in their favor than to have it line up with the best evidence presently at hand.
For sure. Unfortunately for us nature selects only for survivability. And the neuroscientists and psychologists note that what we do is construct a model of reality that seems logical to us and then spend all our time accepting signals that confirm it and rejecting those that don’t. And we do this even when it’s pointed out to us that we’re doing it. A feature. Not a bug. The only method that seems to mitigate this situation to any degree is to consciously seek out opposing points of view on the grounds that folks who have opposing points of view are probably accepting signals that we’re rejecting. Gradually, we expand our mental model of reality. (At the very least we come to understand what our opponents really think as opposed to what we think they think.)
Stephen, I think you are drifting into some manner of idealism.
The concept of objective truth is that things are a certain way in reality–whether we perceive that reality correctly or not.
The speed of light in a vacuum is a fine example. Perhaps we have mismeasured it. Or perhaps, contrary to our assumptions, it isn’t actually a constant at all. But in any of those cases our mistake is only a *mistake* because there is an objective matter of fact to be mistaken about.
Here is another: extraterrestrial life exists. You may want to quibble over the meaning of the expression (what counts as life? In reference to what time period is the statement to be interpreted?), but once we clear up any such ambiguities, the expression is objectively true or objectively false, even if we never find the answer, even if the life is outside the observable universe such that we can never find them. Whether there are living organism far from our little blue planet does not depend on our knowing whether there are living things out there
Now you may say, objective truth is a functionally meaningless concept, a truth independent of any knower might as well not be true. But I think that would be too facile. The whole project of science is built on trying to get at (or at least get closer to) objective truth, trying to better describe things as they really are. And it is precisely in getting closer to that objective truth, to reality as it actualy is, that science enables technology and strong predictions.
Stephen said
… All I can ever experience is my mental model of reality. We can assume there is a reality apart from our perception of it but we can still quantify and categorize our experiences without certainty it exists. “Objective reality” is a perspective that is not available. …
Ah, by “mental model of reality”, I was referring to our anticipatory model, but yes, in terms of the sensorium, if the same wavelength of light triggers the same cones in our eyes, then that’s the objective stimulus for what we call “red”, and whether it is subjectively the same color in your consciousness and in mine doesn’t affect its wavelength, and that we can both agree to call it “red” when light of that wavelength hits our eyes.
Perhaps the problem is defining what we might mean by “objective reality”. And the limits of my own ability to express what I mean by it.
I was responding originally to what I regarded as a misapprehension about what science does. Looking it at more like a religious revelation (The Truth!) than as humanly constructed, ongoing methods of analysis. I’m not sure how my actual viewpoint really differs from Kant. Nothing original.
Stephen said
Perhaps the problem is defining what we might mean by “objective reality”. And the limits of my own ability to express what I mean by it.
Yes, the evidence for there being an objective reality is not the “knowing” of it, but the fact that for some types of things, different people can go through the same process and get the same result.
In my view, we can easily go overboard in the direction of “nothing is objective”, but the reason that we sometimes go too far in that direction is that we quite often have to go some distance in that direction. Once people start relying on the anticipatory models developed by others, then that opens us up to adopting anticipatory models which are not the result of repeated efforts to uncover evidence to overturn the model, but instead are the result of working out the benefit to Party A if other Parties should happen to be working with a model like that.
So, yes, the claim to be the possessor or final arbiter of what is “objective reality” is often the foundation of a scam, and it is as important to be sensitive to the limits of what is objectively testable as it is to be sensitive to the benefits of gathering evidence to correct and refine the models that we have available.
I was responding originally to what I regarded as a misapprehension about what science does. Looking it at more like a religious revelation (The Truth!) than as humanly constructed, ongoing methods of analysis. I’m not sure how my actual viewpoint really differs from Kant. Nothing original.
Given my own background, my philosophical roots probably go back more to Charles Sanders Pierce than to Kant.
My mind structures my perception. To function I must presume that my perceptions mirror reality in some fashion. I presume that some sort of reality exists apart from my experience of it precisely because of data like Bruce’s example. So if that’s all we mean by objective reality, that some sort of reality exists apart from our perception of it, fine. But I’m talking about something more than that.
Yes, IIUC, that is the pragmatic approach to it … smuggling subjective criteria (“pragma”) into the process of deciding what objective criteria to use may be an effective way to get a group working in unison, but without that kind of begging the question, the approach to objective reality must be tentative, subject to change when faced with compelling evidence as a continuously evolving, ongoing process.
The objective reality of which I speak is unknowable. (As Kant pointed out.) I am critiquing what I call the “God’s Eye’ view of reality, a point of view that stands apart from reality and contemplates it entire. This was the old dream of the Enlightenment philosophes. That by measuring and quantifying each discrete moment we could then extrapolate back to the beginning and forward to the end. This is a perspective that is simply unavailable. Science itself has undermined this perspective. And I think it has profound implications.
To be sure (though absolute surety be impossible).
I, at least, am not happy simply to adopt Kant’s solution–namely, that the noumenal is unknowable by theoretical reason.
I think Kant was genuinely brilliant, a once-in-a-millennium mind. His framing of the epistemological problem was transformative. But his attempt to save science–essentially by relocating the question of how scientific knowledge can count as objectively valid knowledge, and then declaring the question it begs, in principle, off limits to rational investigation–is deeply unsatisfying.
Kant secures the necessity science requires only by bracketing precisely what makes scientific knowledge most philosophically remarkable: its uncanny capacity to reveal deep, non-obvious structure in reality itself. Math works. Physics–even our incomplete physics–works. They have been used, many times, to make remarkable, non-obvious predictions. Why does the noumenal world yield appearances that so reliably conform to the lawful structure of the phenomenal world? That is the real question–one Kant not only declines to answer, but declares in principle beyond the reach of rational inquiry, even as it is precisely the question that most urgently begs for an answer. I simply cannot accept that we landed men on the moon using laws that our minds merely impose on reality.
And this dissatisfaction has been a dominant impulse in post-Kantian philosophy. Practically every major philosopher working in epistemology or metaphysics since Kant can be read as reacting to him in one way or another. Outside of a relatively small and historically bounded Neo-Kantian tradition that has produced no household names, few have been content to simply accept Kant’s settlement.
So, yes, the claim to be the possessor or final arbiter of what is “objective reality” is often the foundation of a scam, and it is as important to be sensitive to the limits of what is objectively testable as it is to be sensitive to the benefits of gathering evidence to correct and refine the models that we have available.
Yeah, what sets me off is when I hear certain well-meaning science popularizers sniff at pseudoscience with the claim that science deals with “objective reality”, not mere opinion. Now the fight against pseudoscience is a noble effort but what victory is it to replace one misapprehension with another? Of course these folks recognize their audience wants answers so they attempt to present “right” answers rather than “wrong” answers. But sometimes the universe contains a “maybe”. Admitting that must not be seen as a weakness anymore than the willingness to change our minds in the face of new evidence.
Kant secures the necessity science requires only by bracketing precisely what makes scientific knowledge most philosophically remarkable: its uncanny capacity to reveal deep, non-obvious structure in reality itself. Math works. Physics–even our incomplete physics–works. They have been used, many times, to make remarkable, non-obvious predictions. Why does the noumenal world yield appearances that so reliably conform to the lawful structure of the phenomenal world? That is the real question–one Kant not only declines to answer, but declares in principle beyond the reach of rational inquiry, even as it is precisely the question that most urgently begs for an answer. I simply cannot accept that we landed men on the moon using laws that our minds merely impose on reality.
Well that’s as straightforward a summation of the issue as one could want. Perhaps we have to acknowledge what seems to be the case. Science works. But why it works is not altogether clear. Science inhabits an uneasy space. A space it carved out for itself. It genuinely makes claims about reality while undermining a certain conception of reality.
There’s a reason people want to treat science like a religion. Religion provides a foundation on which to build. Can a culture thrive based on a continual critique of its own presumptions? Can culture flourish based on doubt?
Days since Kant/can’t pun: 0
Ha! The best way to avoid the temptation is to pronounce each of these terms in the proper southern fashion.
Kahnt vs Caynt
>> Perhaps we have to acknowledge what seems to be the case. Science works. But why it works is not altogether clear. Science inhabits an uneasy space. A space it carved out for itself. It genuinely makes claims about reality while undermining a certain conception of reality.
That’s not too far from where I think I am. I don’t have a fully developed epistemology, but I think I can at least sketch my general inclination.
I think millions of years of evolution have given us some really useful intuitions and structures of thought that it is natural for us to read into the world; lenses through which we interpret and make sense of the world. They are useful because–even if not perfect–they at least roughly mimic the way our environment actually works most of the time.
I’m reminded of an experiment done on some sort of monkey: if you put a tablecloth over a table so the monkey can’t see what’s underneath it, place a box on top, and then drop a banana into the box, the monkey will look under the table. From living in trees, it has a naive sense of an absolute ground–when things fall, that is where they go.
I think something like that explains why we were surprised when Galileo showed that heavy things don’t fall faster than light things, or why we struggle with special relativity’s claim that simultaneity is observer-relative. It’s also why Einstein himself resisted the non-locality and indeterminism suggested by quantum mechanics.
What’s interesting to me, though, is that we were able to discover these things–even when they were deeply unintuitive–and to make sense of them and systematize them once we discovered them. We had the capacity to assess the evidence and reason over it. And the world didn’t fall apart when that investigation led us to conclusions that cut against our most basic expectations. We adapted to the evidence.
What is really remarkable about humanity is that we can think abstractly, using mathematics and logic. I think that, too, is a cognitive faculty endowed by evolution because–like the rest–it turned out to be useful. And the fact that our most basic synthetic a priori commitments (for example, basic mathematical truths or the fundamental laws of logic) turn out to describe the real world with striking accuracy–the fact that an armchair mathematician can discover structures that later turn out to perfectly describe real phenomena he never imagined, or that a child can confidently predict that two and two is four even in distant galaxies–seems best explained by the thought that the world itself really does operate according to deep, stable systems, and that we have evolved to imperfectly but genuinely grasp them.
Again, not perfectly. I share your allergy to claims of absolute or incorrigible knowledge of objective truth. I’m reluctant to name any belief I wouldn’t be willing to revise in light of sufficiently strong evidence. The history of science is full of truths once taken to be per se nota that later turned out not to be self-evident at all–Euclid’s parallel postulate being the canonical example; another might be the assumption that there cannot be something “greater than infinity” (see Cantor’s demonstration that there are multiple infinities). I now understand that the quantum eraser experiment may not have shown quite what it was once claimed to show. But before learning that it had been over-interpreted, I was open to the possibility that it had shown that the past is not actually fixed, and that present events can exert causal influence on past events. And that’s the point: the ability to reason over and systematize evidence even when it cuts to the core of our web of belief–even when it upends our most basic convictions–is precisely what gives our capacity to do science its extraordinary power. And it is powerful: time and again, science has made strong, startling predictions that later bear out.
How exactly all of that works–how we manage to grasp those laws at all–I leave, for now, as an exercise to the reader.
I think millions of years of evolution have given us some really useful intuitions and structures of thought that it is natural for us to read into the world; lenses through which we interpret and make sense of the world. They are useful because–even if not perfect–they at least roughly mimic the way our environment actually works most of the time.
Precisely. In a state of nature there was no time to brood over decisions. Humans evolved to become really good at quickly sizing up a situation and making snap judgements. Our problem is we don’t live in that world anymore. Now more than ever we need thoughtfulness and consideration. Yet we still prize the “damn the torpedoes full speed ahead” approach. And the sense of perspective provided by science, Deep Space & Deep Time, is not a natural way of thinking. Humans are really bad at putting off short term gratification in favor of long term gain. And how to explain to people that it is the very qualities that made us an evolutionary success, our aggressiveness and acquisitiveness, that will destroy us?
I think something like that explains why we were surprised when Galileo showed that heavy things don’t fall faster than light things, or why we struggle with special relativity’s claim that simultaneity is observer-relative. It’s also why Einstein himself resisted the non-locality and indeterminism suggested by quantum mechanics.
Science is often counterintuitive. And Quantum Mechanics is nuts. How often physicists begin to sound like raving mystics!
What is really remarkable about humanity is that we can think abstractly, using mathematics and logic.
We observe the universe through a particular visible spectrum as do all creatures who are possessed of eyes. But alone among these creatures we are not only aware of a wider spectrum but can build instruments that enable us to observe in this wider spectrum! Why us? Why not the cockroach or the trilobite? I don’t mock someone who sees a quality almost divine in this. But, as far as we can tell we are just as much a product of natural selection as them all.
…the ability to reason over and systematize evidence even when it cuts to the core of our web of belief–even when it upends our most basic convictions–is precisely what gives our capacity to do science its extraordinary power.
But how long until we weary of this flux? As a civilization won’t we eventually long for tomorrow to be just like yesterday? After all, historically, that’s what we were used to. Millennia of small changes.
I think Hume has not been corrected…
The writer Robert Anton Wilson described Hume as the Master of Those Who Do Not Know as he had described Aristotle as the Master of Those Who Do.
Hello Bloggers, I am new to this blog. I would appreciate your generosity in helping me find my way around to the content most pertinent to me. I have read one of Bart’s books (How Jesus became God) and listened to some of his content online.
I have a son who went from being agnostic to becoming a fundamental Christian in a short time while at the University of California, Davis, by participating in an off-campus group, the Davis Christian Fellowship. My son is highly agreeable and really enjoyed the community, becoming friends with many in the fellowship. Lovely people, with a very fundamental Christian message.
I was thinking it might help him to read one of Bart’s books. He agrees he is a truth seeker. For him, the Bible is a message about how to have a relationship with God. He believes God is speaking to him, telling him he must become a minister and a missionary now. Rather than using his own reason, he turns to prayer and is then informed by God what to do. The group’s bible studies have led to increasingly fundamental positions and a very constrained life. It appears very whimsical and misguided at times.
I should add that I left a fundamental religion in my early adulthood, and it was no easy task, so I am just shocked that this has happened.
Is there any content that I could direct him to first to help dissect this fundamental Christian thinking and help him see a bigger picture? I appreciate your thoughts.
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
evgendob
Robert
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