Tal's epistemology (and DCP's)

[_tojohndillonesq]

Are Science and Religion even comparable? The realm of science is in the measurable repeatable physical Universe. Does ANY scientist anywhere ever address that which cannot be measured or detected? (We can get into the psychology of human experience, but I think we immediately hit an argument over whether that is actually a science. Following Kuhn think it is not.)

A good scientist will say "I was unable to detect any evidence." This will NOT lead him to conlude that the object being sought does not exist. Just that he could not find it using his particular methodology. If you posit that which has no physical manifestation, no good scientist would wast his time on it.

And no good scientist would counter that his training forces him to posit that things without a detectable physical manifestation do not exist.

(Am I way off base here?)

So... the two subjects do not even cross. Catholics believe (not one, but like their statements in this area) that "religion has no part in Science." This is official Vatican theological council doctrine. Would not a scientist say that "science has no part of religion?"

I do want to make one note here, to avoid chasing a relevant side issue that is off my point that science can be and is correctly applied to the study of the historical evidence for religious figures or events; Jesus, Siddhartha, Mohammed, Noah's Ark, etc. Any claim of historical verifiable fact is fair game for scientific examination.

Basically, I guess that for purposes of discussion we could limit it to God.

A little too much caffeine this morning... hope this all made sense.

[_Tarski]

Are Science and Religion even comparable? The realm of science is in the measurable repeatable physical Universe. Does ANY scientist anywhere ever address that which cannot be measured or detected? (We can get into the psychology of human experience, but I think we immediately hit an argument over whether that is actually a science. Following Kuhn think it is not.)

A good scientist will say "I was unable to detect any evidence." This will NOT lead him to conlude that the object being sought does not exist. .

But without evidence we will be unjustified in believing that the entity exists. It remains a fantasy.

The realm of science is in the measurable repeatable physical Universe

And what is the evidence for any other world?

[_tojohndillonesq]

I am going to skip the arguments for/against God and stick to the issue of relevance or applicability of science to the question.

We have both implicitly agreed that by "evidence" we mean physical evidence that can be recorded by some measuring device; be it a camera, an oscilloscope, or what have you. I think another way of saying it (help me here… I may be saying this wrong) is that it consists of particles and/or waves. (Footnote 1)

To remain in the realm of science we have to eliminate “experiential” evidence; the evidence of thought, emotion, feelings, etc. (The “burning in my heart” of the LDS.) If we cannot build a device to measure it, then any evidence is indirect. We may know something is happening, but we do not know what or why.

For example, we can posit a large body in orbit based on its gravitational effects on other bodies, but until we get a picture, it is just a guess. The actual “what and why” could be something that cannot yet be measured directly… like dark matter. We have indirect evidence and go in search of the direct evidence.

And that is the realm of science; to look at the physical evidence, and determine the cause (not saying that is all science does, but that it is properly included in scientific methods).

But what if we posit the existence of something which, by definition, cannot be recorded by any technology… either known or imagined or even imaginable? This “something” simply does not have any existence at all in the sense of particles or waves.

MY contention, the sum of my argument, is not that this “something” exists, but that if we do posit such a thing, it is outside the realm of science to comment. (Footnote 2). Science is no more capable of commenting on God than it is capable of commenting on the aesthetic merits of Picasso or Shakespeare.

And I would contend the corollary – that religion is not capable of commenting on science, The subjects simply do not intersect.

I believe we can say this while also recognizing that science can and should comment on any claims that have to do with the physical realm. When a religious text (or person) claims that the nonphysical realm has left behind evidence in the physical realm (e.g., a miracle has occurred), it is absolutely the role of science to examine the evidence.

Which leads us to the issue of miracles… for a later posting.

(Footnote 1) It is a logical fallacy to argue against the “weaker” form of a proposition. You must “fill in the gaps” and assume the stronger form of the argument if you wish to refute it in a valid manner. In other words, if I have this wrong, please correct it for me so that you can refute it in a valid way. Also note that invalid arguments remain invalid even if they are convincing to the opponent and he accepts them.

(Footnote 2) I believe mathematics can be used to describe things that do not exist, like imaginary numbers. Does that mean those numbers exist? Or does it prove that they do not exist? I suspect we need a more structured definition of the word “exist.”

by the way, I was pleased I got a response from Tarski… clear and to the point, as are all of his postings that I have seen.

Southwest

[_marg]

Because science is a game with rules and the body of scientists decide what rules/assumptions to use. There are reasons for the various assumptions.

It's been my experience that scientists might talk about rules, but don't really think too hard about rock-bottom assumptions that science rests on, and that it doesn't really matter.

Well perhaps your experience is not indicative of the majority of scientists and their appreciation of what science is. I see no reason to believe that scientists would not appreciate assumptions in science. The appreciation of what science is and what it offers has evolved. It is clear now a days to anyone with a basic understanding of science that science doesn't offer theories as absolute fact whereas in the past scientists and public may have perceived science was about what is "real." And I'm confident that most scientists appreciate science attempts to understand reality but appreciates theories are models and models are useful but not necessarily tied to reality.

The supernatural is never assumed because for one, it's not an explanation for any phenomenon. If we explain lightning as being caused by a God that doesn't explain the phenomenon, it explains it away. If God is the answer, there is no reason for further investigation or reasoning. Nature is assumed orderly. If it weren't orderly it would be impossible to determine causes of effects. So philosophers can philosophize all they want but they don't get to tell scientists what can or can not be assumed.

But it can't be demonstrated. And because it can't be demonstrated, Descartes is open to skepticism - absurd as it sounds in practice - to evil demons distorting his representations. So skepticism still wins and the deeper philosophical problems remain unsolved and their problematic nature is just assumed away for the sake getting on with more important things.

What can not be demonstrated? That a God doesn't exist? One can not physically prove a universal negative but it is very easy to prove a positive. One example is all that is necessary. Hence those who claim logically have the burden to prove. And this is part of science. When science makes claims/theories it has the burden to establish reasoning which justifies those claims. Science and individuals should view all beliefs/theories as temporary such that they can be changed upon new information or further reflection but those temporary viewed beliefs or theories can be used operationally as if fact.

Well nature being orderly is demonstrable, for example, but it can not be deductively shown with certainty that it will always be so under all circumstances.

When I say demonstrated, I mean proven with indubitibility as the modern project of philosophy demands and as Tal continues to assert is necessary. What perhaps you don't see, is that as soon as we just "call it good" for all practical purposes, we become pragmatists or something like that, and when articulated in detail, these kind of less demanding views will callapse into relativism.

Where does Tal assert knowledge must be proven indubitibly? Please quote. Gad, if philosophers want to assume the word "knowledge" is that about which we can not be wrong, that which we are certain of, they may do so. But science doesn't make claim to universal certainties. What science claims it has knowledge of is , experiences and actualities which I explained previously. It doesn't need to claim certainty, in order to claim knowledge of nature, in order to claim knowledge which is less than absolute universal certainty for operational purposes but used as if certain operationally. Of course we can not have knowledge of universals if we don't have access to universals in time and space. We can not say with certainty that there will never be white crows in the future or even that no white crow lives or has lived, unless we have access to every single crow (that's an actuality) currently living or which lived previously. However if need be, if it serves a purpose we can operate under a theory or model that no white crows exist or existed because that is what the evidence (inductively) indicates.

However, science isn't offering theories which are certain or of reality and so the assumption appears useful and until shown otherwise is used.

Well, that seems to be true, but if science can never have certainty, then the problem of demonstrating we know more now then we did a thousand years ago, the problem Tal is inquiring into, is an impossible riddle to solve even if we rightfully assume it away in real life.

Yes we do know more. We know more about the workings of scientific things of nature. We have better tools with which to experience those things. Better tools of reasoning with which to reason about them. Better evidence with which to reach tentative operational conclusions. We operate given the evidence and reasoning that "evolutionary theory" is fact even that it is not assumed absolute fact. But the evidence is extremely strong and hence it has a high level of consensus with those scientist for whom the theory is relevant. Other scientific theory may currently be highly speculative and have little consensus but in the future with added reasoning and/or evidence may gain consensus.

Perhaps the concept of knowledge is a riddle in philosophy, but if we look at science as a game with assumptions/axioms as you have noted then within those rules/assumptions there is knowledge and it has been increasing over time. And part of the proof of that is seen operationally. Computers work, surgeons know what they are doing, drugs work, etc etc.

Philosophers have not destroyed science.

You might have some scientists who disagree. Do some web searches sometime on the "science wars" where a few outspoken scientists decided that philosophy, specifically 'postmodernism', will destroy science if we don't put a stop to it. Obviously my statement is a matter of speaking, the fact that someone in France publishes a paper doesn't affect the volume of liquid in my test tube. It's in this same manner of speaking that Tal is arguing "the Gang" has wreaked havoc on science.

by the way given our conversation from a while back you may remember I'm a big fan of the Teaching Company courses. One of the courses I have is called "Science Wars by Prof Steven L. Goldman. So I hope you don't mind if I quote from there in the future. I'm not getting the sense that that is Tal's argument. I believe he is saying that apologists are clinging to outdated philosophies or carrying a philosophy to absurd unrealistic extremes in order to anhiliate conceptually the possibility that mankind can access any knowledge whatsoever. But they are using "knowledge" in the strict philosophical sense of universal, necessary and certain. It suits their purpose to anhiliate "knowledge" conceptually because then they can argue their beliefs are as realistic, good, relevant to the natural world as any other belief. And hence they can justify their irrational beliefs. It doesn't matter they may have no evidence or no good reasoning to warrant their beliefs.

Science does not use the term "knowledge" in the same way philosophy does. It doesn't assume scientific knowledge is certain, necessary and universal. Today no theory is ever offered as certain. Science offers truths about experience and rather than reality it offers truths about "actualities". Actualities being scientific objects, Earth, genes, atoms, etc.

So the earth exists as an actuality, but not as reality?

How can we be certain of what is "real"? What is the definition of reality? It's obvious that we are limited by our sense abilities. We experience reality only by what we are capable of experiencing. So science is not a claim to reality. It creates models which hopefully are consistent with reality but it's not necessary for models to represent reality. Science describes things, those things are actualities within science or the game of science.

by the way, yes I got the notion of actualities from "Science Wars" course.

Let me quote a section from this course for you:

It's part of the guidebook, part 2 p 52.

III The relationship between sceintific actualities and ordinary experience is less contentious than the relationship between actualities and reality and that can clarify science's role in public policy debates.

A) Discovering "the truth" about experience, discovering truths about what has not yet been experienced, is what science is all about, but is scient the only source of truth about experience?

1) The short answer must be no, if only because there is no single natural definition of truth.
2) Science is a source of truth about experience, and it is the only source of truth about actualities that become "real" within a process of inquiry that defines "rationality" for science.
3) For scientist, the relationship between ordinary experience and their displacing explanations of it via actualities is not problematic because actualities are more real to scientists than ordinary experience.
4) For nonscientists, however the relationship is opaque and can only be clarified by taking the scientists' word for it or by learning the science involved, in effect by joining "them".

B. As with knowledge, the truths arrived at by scientists are also a function of the assumptions and principles they adopt and the mode of data analysis and interpretation they employ.

1) Like scientific knowledge, then scientific truths have a hypothetical, contingent and corrigible character. Truth claims, too, are fallible and temporal.
2) These characteristics of scientific knowledge and truth are belief by the deductive logical form in which theories are formulated, taking as givens the assumptions and principles they incorporate.
3) As a result, prediction about experience appear as logically necessary consequences of a theory as if the theory corresponded to reality rather than to internal-to-science actualities.

C. What scientific knowledge is knowledge of becomes of practical concern to the general public when it turn to scientific knowledge to resolve public policy issues "objectively."

1) Scientific knowledge can never achieve certainty about "reality" and so scientists cannot tell us with certainty why the present is as it is and how the future will be.

2) Faced with decision we must choose without the kind of knowledge that would allow us to deduce the one "correct" choice."

I'll stop quoting. So science may not offer deductive universal knowledge but it does offer knowlege within its limitations which justify most probable theories, explanations, decisions etc.

Well again, math is a game and within the rules of arithmatic 2 + 3 does =5 with certainty.

To grasp the context of what I wrote see Descartes first mediation.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/desca ... stemology/

I don't think I'm having difficulty grasping concepts here. I think it possible you may not have a good grasp of just what science offers. The reason I think this is mainly because of your statement to me earlier on in this thread when you said you didn't mind if science let in religion a little. I believe if you truly understood science you'd not make such a statement.

But reality of nature, mankind can not know with certainty, because our reality is a function of the restrictions of our senses and tools.

So we play a part in constructing reality? While I don't have a problem with that, you're headed right for washing the boat with acid, as Tal puts it.

Where do I say we construct reality? A reality conceptually exists independently of whatever we think it is.

I'm not sure I understand your last part "it begs the question against any philosopher" When one refers to something which is "universal" but there is no way one can have observations of that "universal" then there is no way one can have strict philosophical knowledge or predict with absolute certainty with regards to that universal, in this case "nature".

Yes, the problem of induction remains. And it even remains when we lower the bar and try to take a pragmatic approach unfortunately, hence Popper continually backing himself further into a corner.

Philosophers may have a problem with induction because "knowledge" in the strict philosophical sense of what is real and universally certain can not be achieved. But we can have knowledge of the world we experience and consensually describe. We can make better more reasoned predictions based on past experiences because it works practically. We can make models and describe things of the universe and describe how they are relative to one another.

But science and people in their reasoning are not hung up on demanding absolute certainty before making assumptions, reaching conclusions, etc.

Yes, but my comment had a context, Tal's dice example, which has the appearance of showing Popper was a fool because we can so readily make those assumptions you talk about. But to take Popper on we have to shift gears from frome real life and into philosopher mode and not make those assumptions. Giving arguments that implicitly rely on those assumptions simply beg the question against Popper or anyone else trying to solve the problem of induction or representation.

I may be mistaken but I think Tal was arguuing that Popper had shifted gears. That it was Popper who was not clear that his argument assumed absolute universal certainty for the concept of knowledge and in such a system or model one can not have knowledge obtained inductively. I think you too are arguing against mankind knowing more now scientifically than in the past. And I think what you may not be appreciating is what scientific knowledge entails. Within the game of science we know more than we did in the past, overall.

[_A Light in the Darkness]

but appreciates theories are models and models are useful but not necessarily tied to reality.

Are you aware you are asserting pragmatism here? If so, are you aware that this is precisely a view that Tal is attacking in this thread? I ask because you seem to be unaware of this.

[_Tarski]

I am going to skip the arguments for/against God and stick to the issue of relevance or applicability of science to the question.

We have both implicitly agreed that by "evidence" we mean physical evidence that can be recorded by some measuring device; be it a camera, an oscilloscope, or what have you. I think another way of saying it (help me here… I may be saying this wrong) is that it consists of particles and/or waves. (Footnote 1)

The evidence might be the way things hang together in structure so to speak but to a first approximation I would say, yes, a connection has to be made to something that can be detected or measured in a way available to a community of epistemic peers.

To remain in the realm of science we have to eliminate “experiential” evidence; the evidence of thought, emotion, feelings, etc. (The “burning in my heart” of the LDS.) If we cannot build a device to measure it, then any evidence is indirect. We may know something is happening, but we do not know what or why.

I see the whole notion of subjective inner experential evidence as problematic. It is the realization of the failure of such so called evidence that allows science to take us beyond dreams and fantasies. What is entirely interior or subjective, a feeling, a sense, etc. is in danger of being nothing but an internally generated signal.

For example, we can posit a large body in orbit based on its gravitational effects on other bodies, but until we get a picture, it is just a guess. The actual “what and why” could be something that cannot yet be measured directly… like dark matter. We have indirect evidence and go in search of the direct evidence.

Indirect evidence is fine. We must have an already established minimal theoretical structure from within which we can make inference to be further tested.

But what if we posit the existence of something which, by definition, cannot be recorded by any technology either known or imagined or even imaginable?

…
A recipe for disaster. What would be the motivation for positing such entities? Suppose I posit the existence of "quagles" and declare that although they are abundant and surround us they are forever beyond detection. What am I left with?

It seems to me if they can not interact with us they are useless and if they can, then some instrument should be able to detect them (since brains which become aware of them are physical). Of course, the human body itself could be used as a kind of detector but the complexity of the brain and its potential hallucinations makes it problematic--especially when those bodies that produce speak acts concerning supposed contact with such "supernatural entities" tend to be all over the map. Too many religious views all claiming support from some transempirical or inner experential "evidence". We also have no theoretical structure within which we can situate these concepts. Just what is a sprit for example and how does it interact with matter? We have nothing and so how can we test the evidence for inferences etc?

MY contention, the sum of my argument, is not that this “something” exists, but that if we do posit such a thing, it is outside the realm of science to comment.

Like my quagles are outside the realm of science?

Science is no more capable of commenting on God than it is capable of commenting on the aesthetic merits of Picasso or Shakespeare.

Aesthetic merit is understood to be relative to an observer and does not refer to a question of what entities actually exist or don't exist. God is a being that is posited to exist so this is exactly where scientific though is supposed to be appropriate.

And I would contend the corollary – that religion is not capable of commenting on science, The subjects simply do not intersect.

May I suggest Dennett's book "Breaking the Spell"?

I believe we can say this while also recognizing that science can and should comment on any claims that have to do with the physical realm.

I would say that science can comment on anything that it can get an objective rational handle on.

There may be entites that we haven't detected. Maybe "spiritrons" or something. But without evidence there is no reason to think so.

The way I see it, inner experiences are no more evidence for gods and angels than are hallucinations or dreams.

[_marg]

but appreciates theories are models and models are useful but not necessarily tied to reality.

Are you aware you are asserting pragmatism here? If so, are you aware that this is precisely a view that Tal is attacking in this thread? I ask because you seem to be unaware of this.

I'm not aware that anything I've said contradicts what Tal has said, that doesn't mean I haven't contradicted him. I'm not arguuing in an attempt to support what Tal says. I've presented what scientific knowledge means as opposed to philosophic knowledge when it is assume certain and universal. And I do agree with Tal that knowledge, certainty knowledge within science, within the parameters of what man experiences has improved, grown, increased over time. And if his argument is that individuals on the net have used philosophers or philosphies to justify that no one can have knowledge at all, have used post modernism philosophy for example to claim everyone's claims are as good as another's, I'm in agreement with him that that position is absurd. Inductively reached decisions, theories, conclusions while not certain can produce more reliable results than claims absent or not warranted by evidence or evidence from which to infer. And there are various criteria which can be used to help improve the odds for reliance on a conclusion.

[_Gadianton]

What can not be demonstrated? That a God doesn't exist?

No Marg. Read Descartes First meditation or at least a synopsis on it to see why I brought up God or the supernatural at all.

One can not physically prove a universal negative but it is very easy to prove a positive.

Two in one day (Mercury in the Terrestrial forum)? What is this? Does Copi make that claim? I highly doubt it. We won't go into confirmation holism here, but suffice it to say that you can't prove a universal negative or a universal positive but you can prove individual instances of both "negatives" and "positives". See Carnaps struggle with the positive (universal) statement "All ducks are white". The problem is with the universal, not the "negative".

One example is all that is necessary.

Then again...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_holism

But science doesn't make claim to universal certainties. What science claims it has knowledge of is , experiences and actualities which I explained previously. It doesn't need to claim certainty, in order to claim knowledge of nature

Yes it does! In the end, it does! That's why it's an irritating problem. If we could just take your word for it, and Tal's word for it that we can have his proposition K and accept it on everyday grounds - which we all do offline - then life is easy. But Popper, Kuhn, and the rest fail because they run up against the implications of failing to establish absolute knowledge. It's as if one crack in the framework of absolute truth leads directly to solipsism without any middle ground. And unfortunately, no one has found a way around this problem. Most scientists I'd think would be happy to establish a pragmatic middle ground that doesn't callapse into solipsism when pushed to its logical extremes, but no one has ever done so. If Tal can show us how to rigorously demonstrate K, he will have solved the problem of induction and will also be able to give us absolute certainty.

Read this little exerpt on Rudolf Carnap. The Vienna circle logical positivists were very skeptical of the heritage left by traditional philosophy and emphasized a complete distrust in metaphysics and "philosophical problems", hoping to understand science with a new, modern foothold.

Carnap devoted himself to giving an account of the probability as a degree of confirmation. The philosophically most significant consequences of his research arise from his assertion that the probability of a statement, with respect to a given body of evidence, is a logical relation between the statement and the evidence. Thus it is necessary to build an inductive logic; that is, a logic which studies the logical relations between statements and evidence. Inductive logic would give us a mathematical method of evaluating the reliability of an hypothesis. In this way inductive logic would answer the problem raised by David Hume's analysis of induction.

Of course, we cannot be sure that an hypothesis is true; but we can evaluate its degree of confirmation and we can thus compare alternative theories

.

In spite of the abundance of logical and mathematical methods Carnap used in his own research on the inductive logic, he was not able to formulate a theory of the inductive confirmation of scientific laws.

http://www.iep.utm.edu/c/carnap.htm#H1

Note the bolded sections so we can be clear on what Carnap failed to do. Carnap did not seek to put science on the grounds of absolute certainty, but merely assess a degree of confirmation and compare theories e.g. which one is better? AND HE FAILED. In other words, Carnap can not tell us how that any theory is better than another one on inductive grounds, and therefore he would fail to maintain Tal's K. Carnap cannot explain how science works or progresses by induction. You can quote Copi and declare science uses induction, that it doesn't demand absolute knowledge etc. until you're blue in the face, and most people will agree with you, but no one has ever satisfactorily demonstrated that proposition.

Perhaps the concept of knowledge is a riddle in philosophy, but if we look at science as a game with assumptions/axioms as you have noted then within those rules/assumptions there is knowledge and it has been increasing over time. And part of the proof of that is seen operationally. Computers work, surgeons know what they are doing, drugs work, etc etc.

Yes but you see, operationalism, like pragmatism, instrumentalism, Bayesian confirmation, and other attempts to explain science and knowledge less than absolute all end up running into the same kinds of problems. Operationalism is only mentioned 11 times in the SEP, and if it's the true philosophy of science that we should all espouse, Bridgman's fame would be more widespread.

I believe he is saying that apologists are clinging to outdated philosophies or carrying a philosophy to absurd unrealistic extremes in order to anhiliate conceptually the possibility that mankind can access any knowledge whatsoever. But they are using "knowledge" in the strict philosophical sense of universal, necessary and certain. It suits their purpose to anhiliate "knowledge" conceptually because then they can argue their beliefs are as realistic, good, relevant to the natural world as any other belief. And hence they can justify their irrational beliefs. It doesn't matter they may have no evidence or no good reasoning to warrant their beliefs.

Tal is right that they do that. He is wrong, in my estimation and Tarski's, that DCP has done that. In fact, a while back I entertained the idea of doing a blog here featuring the unsophisticated philosophical skepticism of apologists. Nothing annoys me more than when an unreflective YH8 links to a scientific discovery and then argues mankind doesn't know everything and therefore has no grounds to dismiss the Book of Mormon (as it could be proven in the future). Tal is also arguing that "The Gang", certain famous philosophers, failed to demonstrate knowledge. I don't think any of us disagree with Tal on that. We just have various issues and confusion over the way he's doing it, the implications he sees for it, and how he or anyone has solved the problem "The Gang" failed to solve. And further, my particular issue is that if Tal tries to articulate a detailed theory to support K, he will fail, be forced to backpedel, and will end up with solipsism. If it were possible to give an undisputed and coherent account of how knowledge grows, Tal could merely cite the philosopher responsible. No doubt he'd be famous.

How can we be certain of what is "real"? What is the definition of reality? It's obvious that we are limited by our sense abilities. We experience reality only by what we are capable of experiencing. So science is not a claim to reality. It creates models which hopefully are consistent with reality but it's not necessary for models to represent reality.

The definition of realism:

Generic Realism:
a, b, and c and so on exist, and the fact that they exist and have properties such as F-ness, G-ness, and H-ness is (apart from mundane empirical dependencies of the sort sometimes encountered in everyday life) independent of anyone's beliefs, linguistic practices, conceptual schemes, and so on.

And your "operationalism" is one minor voice in the philosophy of science. Scientific Realists would vigorously reject your claim that models don't represent reality. Tal's two philosophers, Peter Godfrey-Smith and Simon Blackburn who he recommended to us would reject the definition you've given.

see also:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-realism/

I don't think I'm having difficulty grasping concepts here

.

It's great you take online courses. Supplement with an online history of philosophy course. Because you do miss context as you aren't familiar with the history of philosophy at all, which is a large part of the discussion in this thread. If you want to understand my 2+3=5 comment, you need to be basically familiar with Descartes mediatations.

I think it possible you may not have a good grasp of just what science offers. The reason I think this is mainly because of your statement to me earlier on in this thread when you said you didn't mind if science let in religion a little. I believe if you truly understood science you'd not make such a statement.

I never said I didn't mind if science let in religion a little. I never, ever said that.

Philosophers may have a problem with induction because "knowledge" in the strict philosophical sense of what is real and universally certain can not be achieved. But we can have knowledge of the world we experience and consensually describe. We can make better more reasoned predictions based on past experiences because it works practically. We can make models and describe things of the universe and describe how they are relative to one another.

As I pointed out with Carnap, the problem of induction makes even practical knowledge difficult to obtain. There is no undisputed, rigorous framework for science's practical progress.

I may be mistaken but I think Tal was arguuing.....

Tal was trying to show us that we use induction and make statistical inferences.

I think you too are arguing against mankind knowing more now scientifically than in the past. And I think what you may not be appreciating is what scientific knowledge entails.

You're right, since I have not been able to solve the main problems that the philosophy of science grapples with, I can't say I appreciate what scientific knowledge is as I'm not sure what it is. However, as you have taken a couple online courses, you obviously have little to doubt in your own abilities to set the entire philosophical tradition straight.

[Guest]

TARSKI:
I see the whole notion of subjective inner experential evidence as problematic. It is the realization of the failure of such so called evidence that allows science to take us beyond dreams and fantasies. What is entirely interior or subjective, a feeling, a sense, etc. is in danger of being nothing but an internally generated signal.

Precisely the point. That inner experiential evidence is problematic. We can prove that the individual had an "experience" by measuring brain activity, adrenalin levels, etc., but cannot speak to causes... the whole repeatable and predictable thing is very tough in the area of "divine inspiration" or "enlightenment." It is not a science.

But what if we posit the existence of something which, by definition, cannot be recorded by any technology either known or imagined or even imaginable?

Tarski: A recipe for disaster. What would be the motivation for positing such entities? Suppose I posit the existence of "quagles" and declare that although they are abundant and surround us they are forever beyond detection. What am I left with?

What disaster? I am pretty sure I can't poke my eye out with an idea. Were I mentally instable (which I understand my be your position) fantasies might put my ability to function in society at risk. Hold down a job and all that. The motivation is the same as for many of our greatest efforts... entertainment! Picasso, Shakespeare, Crossword puzzles, most sex, war, etc.

Tarski: It seems to me if they can not interact with us they are useless and if they can, then some instrument should be able to detect them (since brains which become aware of them are physical). Of course, the human body itself could be used as a kind of detector but the complexity of the brain and its potential hallucinations makes it problematic--especially when those bodies that produce speak acts concerning supposed contact with such "supernatural entities" tend to be all over the map. Too many religious views all claiming support from some transempirical or inner experential "evidence". We also have no theoretical structure within which we can situate these concepts. Just what is a sprit for example and how does it interact with matter? We have nothing and so how can we test the evidence for inferences etc?

Again my point exactly; you cannot test for it. It is not scientific nor can it be properly examined by science.

MY contention, the sum of my argument, is not that this “something” exists, but that if we do posit such a thing, it is outside the realm of science to comment.

Tarski:
Like my quagles are outside the realm of science?

Yup. some topics are outside the realm of science.

Science is no more capable of commenting on God than it is capable of commenting on the aesthetic merits of Picasso or Shakespeare.

Tarski: Aesthetic merit is understood to be relative to an observer and does not refer to a question of what entities actually exist or don't exist. God is a being that is posited to exist so this is exactly where scientific though is supposed to be appropriate.

Logic requires that I admit that is a really good argument. (If one ignores the good points and fpcuses on the weak points, that is competetive debate, not logic. Unlike lawyers, I have no interest in winning without being right.) I need to think about it. You are defining the word "exist" as that which can be detected through the use of tools. Anything that can only be detected experientially does not exist. It is a nice, clean definition. It does leave a hole in our vocabulary... how do we label that which can only be experienced? Hallucinations is a perjorative term that comes to mind... we need something better.

However, I believe the crux of your argument is not that the "experiences" don't exist, but that they must be attributed to measurable causes; Drugs, fever, or more serious causes like schizophrenia, etc.

And I would contend the corollary – that religion is not capable of commenting on science, The subjects simply do not intersect.

Tarski: May I suggest Dennett's book "Breaking the Spell"?

Why yes you may, thank you! (Just read the Amazon preface; It sounds delightful. Hopefully he will have something new to say.)

I believe we can say this while also recognizing that science can and should comment on any claims that have to do with the physical realm.

Tarski: I would say that science can comment on anything that it can get an objective rational handle on.

There may be entites that we haven't detected. Maybe "spiritrons" or something. But without evidence there is no reason to think so.

Without evidence there is no scientific reason to think so. There are many, many other reasons to think so. You simply find them scientifically invalid; they are neither objective nor rational. That does not make them "non-existent," merely non-scientific.

[_Tarski]

TARSKI
I s........... You simply find them scientifically invalid; they are neither objective nor rational. That does not make them "non-existent," merely non-scientific.

Hi,
Please try and get a handle on how the quote function works. Otherwise, it is confusing for readers because they can't tell who is saying what. It looks like you are using my words!