Now here I think I ought to elaborate a bit, since your view differs. Science is fundamentally a social coordination activity. It takes a private experience as falling short of knowledge until it can be confirmed as a verifiable public object. So […]
-
-
Replying to @arlynculwick @vgr
if (following Quine) you can privately experience either the experiment's outcome, or experience an experimenter signalling outcome known to confirm a hypothesis, then you directly experience a publicly verified object.
1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes -
Replying to @arlynculwick @vgr
Now a solipsist could object here with "well how do we even know these other scientists exist? I experience them, sure, but they might be in my mind only." But that lands the solipsist in the hard problem of what the "I" even is, AND the problem of how to know anything as an "I"
1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes -
Replying to @arlynculwick @vgr
Meanwhile, analysing the solipsist's scenario in terms of relations opens up a new possibility. A relation always terminates at something. This thing can be real or unreal. If it's unreal, it has only a "formal" terminus. If real, it additionally has a "material" terminus.
1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes -
Replying to @arlynculwick @vgr
So the solipsist can ask "how do I know that any directly experienced relation has a material terminus?" If it doesn't, then everything is in the mind.
1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes -
Replying to @arlynculwick @vgr
Now it looks more likely that some relations have material termini. We don't know this with certainty, but rather simply by contrasting what we discover to be merely formal termini with what is revealed to have a nature transcending a given formal terminus, e.g.:pic.twitter.com/dOK0Tng4jx
1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes -
Replying to @arlynculwick @vgr
"But you don't know any of this," says the solipsist. Well sure. But this isn't about certainty, it's about the scientific knowledge we actually have, which we use to build space shuttles, computers, etc. The growth of scientific knowledge starts on shaky foundations [...]
1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes -
Replying to @arlynculwick @vgr
but by building up test after test, hypothesis after hypothesis (each one provisional, and each one revealing extremely little about reality), after centuries we get the Standard Model.
1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes -
Replying to @arlynculwick @vgr
Even equipped with the standard model, we still don't know the intrinsic natures of objects. We *only* know real relations between things, in terms of directly experienced relations to ourselves. But we do really know these relations (e.g. Newtonian mechanics). Hence, realism!
1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes -
Replying to @arlynculwick @vgr
I'm aware of how similar our views actually are. (I'm being polemical in order to draw out contrasts where they may be found). We both exist in the "valley of the least unstable," as you say. We both need to know before accepting. We both deny that reality is the way it looks.
2 replies 0 retweets 1 like
I think I understand our diffs now :D Won't go another round since this is already at the limit of twitter conversations, but yeah... good points, which I mostly agree with, but cash out differently.
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.