Evaluating Scientific Experiments: Has the Standard of Proof Shifted?

[apeiron]

I would not touch "mind science" with a 10-foot sofa.

But you would also like to see mind science done right?

BTW, how is the concept of "wavelength" more "abstract" than the concept of color? Wavelength is well-defined. Color isn't.

Wavelength is based on the concept of a wave, or a resonance. It is a mathematical concept made precise by sine and other quantifying tricks. It is abstract in that we can apply it to many more things than actual waves on the sea.

But this is obvious to you.

Colour is clearly not a very objective concept. When we talk of the colour of quarks, it is the vaguest of analogies - a reminder of threeness - not meant as a physically generally resemblance.

So my point was that comparing colours is a subjective exercise - though if you were doing psychophysics experiments in the laboratory, there are ways of making measurements that are relatively well controlled.

But wavelength is a physical idea. It has two parts. There is the qualitative concept of "a wave" and then the quantitative machinery that can be used to measure the "waviness" of many aspects of reality.

In fact, the correlation between wavelength and colour experience is not one-to-one. Google Land color constancy if you are interested.

 

[ZapperZ]

I see you added to your post.Even theories I think we could both agree are science are known to quantitatively be in error. That was the point I tried to make with Newton's laws. Newton's laws are quantitatively in error. They were never shown to exactly predict experiments. We now know that Newton's laws are not fundamental at all, except as approximations. Was Newton not doing science?

This is totally irrelevant to my point. Newton's laws are PERFECTLY VALID in its realm of applications. A structural engineer will look at your funny if you insist on using QM or SR to build a house. My point has nothing to do with something being an "approximation". It has everything to do with the "First Principle" aspect of the description. Your casual observation of the description of the sun's rise is faulty IN PRINCIPLE.

Furthermore, this misses the way in which such a description is done in science, and especially in physics. We don't simply say "The electric field at a point r way from a source charge is E V/m". This says nothing, the very same way that saying the sun rises every 24 hours says nothing. However, writing that

$$E = \frac{kq}{r^2}$$

provides the useful description of the phenomenon, which is why physics is done this way. What you did was merely "stamp-collecting". It is not the same type of experiment that is done in science. It is void of any study of the relationships between two or more quantities being studied, i.e. how does A behave with B? This is what Newton laws have. It had nothing to do with it being "exact" or an "approximation".

I guess it's unfortunate that you aren't interested in the issue beyond posting your personal opinion. I thought it certainly was adding to the discussion. It sounds like we're actually in agreement on how normal experimental science is done.

But I thought this whole thread (and generally, this forum) is filled with "personal opinion". My personal opinion here is that there are misconception in what is deemed as experimental science and how it fits into how science is practiced. And that opinion comes from a practicing experimentalist. If you think that you and everyone involved already have a good grasp of what it is that you are talking about, then I'm sorry to have attempted to correct the error. So carry on.

Zz.

 

[JoeDawg]

mere numerology.
There are many examples of this like the five chinese elements, or the 12 astrological signs.

And these are not useful because they don't actually, regardless of claims to the contrary, represent anything concrete. It is mere numberology, if it doesn't map to something more concrete.

Trichotomies are actually hierarchies

If you like, fine. But it doesn't really matter to what I'm saying if they are. Hierarchies are constructs, they don't actually exist concretely, they are abstract representations. Taking an example from biology... biologists used to refer to 'food chains', the implication being that a vertical hierarchy exists, but now they refer to 'food webs'. Similarly the 'north' and 'south' poles of a magnet are just labels. There is no reason, not to call the south pole 'north'. Its just an arbitrary standard. Its based on something concrete, so you can't just arbitarily change it, the pole called north does have certain properties the pole called south doesn't, but the label itself doesn't matter. The abstract is arbitary, the concrete is not.

Even colours don't compute unless there is A and not-A.

That's because colors are artificial. There are no colors, there is only a spectrum of wavelengths interpreted by your brain. Colors are arbitary. Some human languages don't distinguish between green an blue.

Not blue would be yellow. Not red would be green.

The ones we select will depend on which ones are concretely useful, that is the litmus test. Pigment color wheels are different from 'direct light' color wheels. Print color is normally CMYK, video RGB.

And yes, you can dichotomize... if its useful to do so. It may not be. Dichotomies are just one way of respresenting information.

Taking stasis~flux for example, can you think of a third or even fourth possibility here?

That would depend on what concrete thing you were talking about. Let's look at water for example. When water is frozen its in a form of stasis(there are other forms obviously). When it melts it changes, when it evaporates it changes again.

Solid/Liquid/Gas

One could argue these are the 'fundamental' states of water. Saying its either solid or not, is accurate, but not always useful. What is fundamental then depends on the concrete, but as soon as you start talking about concrete things, the line between states gets less precise.

when alternatives become mutually exclusive, they must be fundamental.

If you're talking purely abstractly, it is definitional, and purely arbitrary(numerology as you say). If you are talking concretely, then it depends on what is useful. In the latter sense, what is useful is not arbitrary, but it does depend on context.

 

[apeiron]

If you're talking purely abstractly, it is definitional, and purely arbitrary(numerology as you say). If you are talking concretely, then it depends on what is useful. In the latter sense, what is useful is not arbitrary, but it does depend on context.

First, the definition of "arbitrary" is: determined by chance, whim, or impulse, and not by necessity, reason, or principle.

The series of dichotomies I list are distinguished by their non-arbitrary nature. The point is that the existence of one as a concept then demands its other as a matter of necessary logic.

So if you have stasis as one kind of extreme, then the opposite would be flux. It couldn't be anything else. It couldn't be two or three other kinds of things. That is as far from arbitrary as you can get.

 

[JoeDawg]

The "standard" impression of how science works that has been mentioned here is grossly outdated. I can cite many new physics, for example, that came out of nowhere other than simply an expected experimental observation that no existing theory at that time had predicted

How science is done has changed since 'the method' was first defined, and can be very different depending on the field one is in. Physics and astronomy (I'm not speaking professionally here, so feel free to judge and insult me) are almost entirely data driven, largely because of technology. We have developed recording devices that allow us to accumulate/analyse large amounts of data. More primitive physics and astronomy is more dependent on theories and hypotheses, because you have to choose your experiments wisely or you won't get the data you need.

Which is why everyone is theorizing like crazy leading up to the LHC turning on. They are looking for a headstart on analysing the data... when they finally get it. But this situation is similar to how science used to be done, almost uniformly, which is why the method was strictly defined the way it was.

The process of knowledge doesn't follow one single path, and it would be quite naive to think that one can easily make clean summarization of how things are done in science.

I would agree, but that is also very problematic for science, because it makes distingishing pseudo-science difficult. You can always argue 'common sense' but that's rarely convincing.

 

[JoeDawg]

You can also prove that to me by publishing what you observe casually in a science journal.

You mean, like those cold fusion, and cloning, experiments that got published. :)

 

[WaveJumper]

Is it possible in practice to win an argument with an experienced philosopher? An experienced philosopher will argue anything and everything, while staying within the wide limits of generalisations.

 

[JoeDawg]

First, the definition of "arbitrary" is: determined by chance, whim, or impulse, and not by necessity, reason, or principle.

Sounds good.

The series of dichotomies I list are distinguished by their non-arbitrary nature.

Due to the fact that they correspond to concrete observation, and only to the extent that they correspond.

Try these binaries:

Finite/Infinite
Something/Nothing

In both cases the first part of the pairing is non-arbitrary, we can find a concrete example of those. However, the second state of each pairing is more problematic, largely because we don't have a concrete example. The second are pure negation of the first, purely abstract.

Then try:
Justice/Injustice
Perfection/Imperfection.

These are certainly dichotomies, and if you have one then you don't have the other, but the more abstract they are the more arbitrary they are. Logic won't save you. You need a foundation on which to build premises about justice, something concrete, or you can't distinguish that there is any difference at all.

The point is that the existence of one as a concept then demands its other as a matter of necessary logic.

Fine:

Fliddidle/Baddidle

Its a dichotomy. A completely arbitary one. I've really only replaced A and not-A with nonsense words. Where does the meaning come from?? I could create a whole series of dependent binaries based on this one. No, I'm not going to.

So if you have stasis as one kind of extreme, then the opposite would be flux. It couldn't be anything else. It couldn't be two or three other kinds of things. That is as far from arbitrary as you can get.

But only because you have defined them as opposites... Unless you have something concrete to base them on... which you do... and quite a lot.

 

[apeiron]

Finite/Infinite
Something/Nothing

Finite and infinite are not a dichotomy. But if we generalise further, we get discrete~continuous. You understand the difference?

Is the not-finite the infinite? Well, no because it could be the infinitesimal. But is the not-discrete the continuous? Well we can't think of some other intelligible alternative?

Something and nothing are also not really general enough to be dichotomies. The fact we can think of a third thing as a natural part of this group (everything) should tell you this.

I would generalise nothing and something to the vague~crisp.

Then try:
Justice/Injustice
Perfection/Imperfection.

These are simple negations not the real thing, an asymmetric dichotomy. You can't do much philosophical heavy-lifting with simple negations.

If something is not just, is it necessarily unjust? If something is not perfect, is it imperfect? It seems we need more information here as the answer is not contained within the dichotomy itself.

If something is perfect, well that sounds pretty absolute. But is something that is merely OK also imperfect in that absolute sense, or just a relative sense? Both halves of the dichotomy have to be equally developed, equally crisp, equally absolute.

Fliddidle/Baddidle

Its a dichotomy. A completely arbitary one. I've really only replaced A and not-A with nonsense words. Where does the meaning come from?? I could create a whole series of dependent binaries based on this one. No, I'm not going to.

Correct. This is indeed nonsense. How could you see this as constituting an argument?

You still seem to miss the essential point about dichotomies...as they relate to philosophy. There are not an infinite number. They arise from the search for what is most basic, most general, about reality.

My own opinion is that the number of truly universal dichotomies can in fact be reduced to just two. There is the dichotomy of development - vague~crisp, and the dichotomy of existence - local~global.

But you can still get the principle of dichotomies just from considering the classical ones like substance~form, discrete~continuous, stasis~flux, chance~necessity, etc. There was a reason Plato, Aristotle and the rest spent so much time working up these dichotomies and why the persist even into modern scientific theory as they basic dualities.

Is there some reason why you always make up other "dichotomies" and don't address the ones I say at actually dichotomies?

 

[Grimble]

If I did not perform a systematic analysis on my observation of the sun rising each morning, I would never come to expect that it will rise regularly.

When you wrote that were you saying: "If I did not perform a systematic analysis on my observation of the sun rising each morning...", did you mean:
" perform a systematic analysis... each morning",
"... my observation of the sun rising each morning...", or
"... the sun rising each morning..."?

Which ever, I am not sure what you are getting at for I am sure that there must be many, like myself, who do none of that yet expect that the sun will rise each morning. (And, what do you know... it does!)

Zz is quite right in his observations, I (OP) was querying the way some experiments were reported, I suppose, as I stated in my last post, where I corrected a mistake in my first one.
Perhaps someone would be good enough to reply to that...

Thank you, one and all, Gimble

 

[JoeDawg]

You still seem to miss the essential point about dichotomies...as they relate to philosophy. There are not an infinite number.

Yes there is, some are just more useful than others.

They arise from the search for what is most basic, most general, about reality.

Exactly, we use the one's that reflect our experience. Experience is the foundation, like I have been saying, its not dichotomies that are fundamental or axioms, those are just generalizations from experience.

We take particulars and generalize, then use those generalizations to predict future(or unobserved) particulars. What is fundamental is experience however, because it is where we get logic and data.

 

[JoeDawg]

Zz is quite right in his observations, I (OP) was querying the way some experiments were reported, I suppose, as I stated in my last post, where I corrected a mistake in my first one.
Perhaps someone would be good enough to reply to that...

Not sure I understand what either of you is getting at...but one of the problems in science, and this may relate to the theory of phlogiston is as follows...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirming_the_consequent#Use_of_the_fallacy_in_science

 

[apeiron]

We take particulars and generalize, then use those generalizations to predict future(or unobserved) particulars. What is fundamental is experience however, because it is where we get logic and data.

Phew, it's taken a while but you're very nearly there.

Particulars and generals are the modelling dichotomy - the subject of this thread. And in happy fashion, the modelling dichotomy is the way to model fundamental experience. So it all fits nicely together.

So it is not some arbitrary choice. The way our minds work is also the way our scientific modelling works.

The mind is an anticipatory system that predicts the world. It develops general ideas that frame the particular impressions. And in dichotomous fashion, the parade of general impressions is generalised to form those general ideas.

A child at first sees cats and dogs in a vague way because it lacks the developed ideas that allow more precise impressions. Later, learning through unsuccessful predictions (hey that cat barked!), the child will develop more crisp ideas of "the general dog" and the "general cat" that allow more definite particular experiences of these animals. Still later, it may learn to tell persians and maine coons apart. The long term memories and the short term memories develop hand in hand.

So fundamental experience is in fact fundamentally dichotomised into generals and particulars - the framing ideas and the moment to moment states of anticipation and comprehension we would call our impressions.

Then science is the same process writ larger and more systematic. Hypothesis and test, formal model and informal measurement, theory and prediction, concept and quantification, universals and specifics, generals and particulars. There are many ways of saying the same thing. But dichotomisation is the way rather than merely a way.

 

[JoeDawg]

So it is not some arbitrary choice.

I have not changed my position. Dichotomies are not fundamental to epistemology.

If they are purely abstract, dichotomies are arbitrary.
If they are purely abstract, axioms are arbitrary.

If they are based on experience, then they have a foundation.
The problem is, experience is not precise, nor is it universal, and experience doesn't prove anything.

The only way you can have proof, is if you define things purely abstractly, but then where you start is arbitrary. You can choose to start anywhere, you can choose any initial premise, any form of logic.

It is experience that puts limits on the type of logic you use, and the premises you choose. Experience however, is wholey subjective; it is descriptive, not definitional.

So fundamental experience is in fact fundamentally dichotomised into generals and particulars - the framing ideas and the moment to moment states of anticipation and comprehension we would call our impressions.

No, that is the way we frame experience, it is the way we generalize experience. Experience is overflowing and messy, its too much for us to digest, so we create an artifical structure in order to make sense of it.

Dichotomies are artifical, constructed, created... and unless they are based on experience, they are arbitrary.

 

[apeiron]

I have not changed my position. Dichotomies are not fundamental to epistemology.

If they are purely abstract, dichotomies are arbitrary.
If they are purely abstract, axioms are arbitrary.

Again, to remind you, the definition of "arbitrary" is: determined by chance, whim, or impulse, and not by necessity, reason, or principle.

So you really want to say that abstractions are a matter of chance, whim or impulse?

Do you think you could flesh this surprising claim out with some further argument or references for others who have taken this view.

Of course we can all agree that these matters are a matter of subjective choice. But hopefully it is a reasoned and principled choice.

I indeed go further and feel it is a necessary choice. And I can see there is room to debate this claim. But the idea that the choices of axioms and dichotomies have ever been arbitrary in human history - well that's plain nuts.

So you are saying I could model reality with, pears~Heinkel 111s or liquid helium~Paris Hilton just as well as stasis~flux or discrete~continuous?

Perhaps you are misunderstanding the definiton of abstraction too? It comes from the Latin for to draw off. So you question has to be from what? From what else apart from subjective experience? And you can tell this is thought to be a purposeful action. Not an arbitrary matter.

Dichotomies are artifical, constructed, created... and unless they are based on experience, they are arbitrary.

Phew. So we can agree then. Of course dichotomies are constructs. Ideas. Generalisations.

And the only ones of interest here are those derived systematically from experience. Abstracted from it as we would say. It would be arbitrary to chose ones that did not seem justified by experience.

So dichotomies are constructs used to model reality. They derive from experience. And because generalisation proves itself to be such a powerful method, we would want to abstract our way to the most general possible dichotomies. I've supplied a list of those that have been around a good 2300 years now. Perhaps you might want to address your reponses to some particular one.

It is your free choice which. But what about stasis~flux?

How is that not abstracted from experience? In what way is it arbitrary - on the same footing as liquid helium~Paris Hilton?

How is it not deeply reasonable that whatever is not changing is static, and whatever is static is not changing? Except if it is vague of course.

You can see the difference if we were to suggest that whatever is not liquid helium is Paris Hilton and whatever is Paris Hilton is not liquid helium. Immediately the lack of mutal definition is obvious.

Or perhaps you want to try this litmus test with other more clearly abstract dichotomies which are almost plausible.

So what about truth~ugliness? This would be claiming that whatever is not true is ugly, and whatever is ugly is not true.

Well, we might just about get away with the first part but not its inverse I feel.

So here we have an easy test of true dichotomies. They have to pass the A~notA criteria. The inverse statement has to be equally true. Nothing whimsical or random about that, is there? As Bohr realized, it is in fact a remarkably stiff test.

If you would ever just consider the dichotomies which I say are dichotomies - the ones that have been central to metaphysics every since the Miletians - rather than continuing to invent your own non-dichotomies, bogus pairings which merely ape the dichotomy notation, then you would actually understand the point.

And out of curiosity, why do you never cite any references germane to your arguments?

 

[JoeDawg]

Again, to remind you, the definition of "arbitrary" is: determined by chance, whim, or impulse, and not by necessity, reason, or principle.

How nice of you to state the obvious.

So you really want to say that abstractions are a matter of chance, whim or impulse?

I have never said that. I have said that choosing the abstractions one uses is arbitrary, UNLESS one uses experience as a foundation. You seem to be able to quote dictionaries ok, but your reading comprehension needs work.

But hopefully it is a reasoned and principled choice.

Which would be a choice based on experience.

But the idea that the choices of axioms and dichotomies have ever been arbitrary in human history

People choose premises based on whim and impulse all the time. In fact, it is quite common. It is where things like astrology, religion, and even pop-psychology come from. You are either naive or have led a sheltered life.

Perhaps you are misunderstanding the definiton of abstraction too? It comes from the Latin for to draw off. So you question has to be from what? From what else apart from subjective experience? And you can tell this is thought to be a purposeful action. Not an arbitrary matter.

So dichotomies are abstractions, and abstractions are 'draw[n] off' subjective experience.
So subjective experience is fundamental, not dichotomies. Thank you, I agree.

Of course dichotomies are constructs.

And therefore not fundamental.

This returns us to the importance of Descartes Cogito Ergo Sum. When discussing epistemology what is fundamental is subjective experience. Subjective experience, in Descartes case, doubting or thinking, is undeniable, since if you can doubt, then you know at the very least that doubting exists.

Consciousness, as yet undefined, is what is essential, fundamental, or foundational to epistemology. Abstractions are what the mind draws off from these, and they are therefore not fundamental.

And out of curiosity, why do you never cite any references germane to your arguments?

I have used references in this forum many times. I do so when I feel it relevant. I don't put much stock in arguments from authority. But since you seem to need this sort of thing, I base my position largely on Empirical philosophy, people like John Locke, David Hume but also, and more recently Ludwig Wittgenstein and Henri Poincare.

I am not a disciple of any of these people. I disagree with things they have said, and I make my own judgements, casual and layman as they may be.

 

[apeiron]

Consciousness, as yet undefined, is what is essential, fundamental, or foundational to epistemology. Abstractions are what the mind draws off from these, and they are therefore not fundamental.

Err, yes, but abstracting is in fact believed to be fundamental to mental experience. That was why I was citing all that modern stuff about anticipation and neural nets and habits and generalisation, etc.

Remember? Consciousness is actually impressions~ideas. "Consciousness" is just a vague non-technical term that refers to somehow "being aware". But discovering the dichotomies that lurks has been the way to recent models of the mind like Grossberg's ART neural nets.

Hume and Locke are fine as part of the grounding for discussions of epistemology. But if you want to be taken seriously, you also need to be up to date with what we actually now know about minds, and relational systems generally. You can't base epistemology on a 17th century state of knowledge about the mind, can you?

And I note you still don't seem brave enough to address a dichotomy like stasis~flux directly.

Again, check out Grossberg's many papers on ART (the American Scientist one is a good review).

You will find that Grossberg dubs it the stability~plasticity dilemma. A basic problem in designing artificial minds too!

 

[JoeDawg]

Err, yes, but abstracting is in fact believed to be fundamental to mental experience.

You're confusing neuroscientific explanation with epistemology. You can't even do neuroscience without first having a theory of knowledge. The latter comes first.

Consciousness is fundamental to epistemology, the study of knowledge, because knowledge doesn't exist without it.
Neuroscience details the 'ontological' explanation or 'source of knowledge', not knowledge itself.

And I note you still don't seem brave enough to address a dichotomy like stasis~flux directly.

I don't see anything needs addressing. Its a dichotomy, as you have admitted, it is constructed, derived from, generalized from, experience. And therefore not fundamental. Experience is fundamental to epistemology.

The fact that we use, and find useful, dichotomies that describe experience doesn't mean they are fundamental to anything, it just means they are useful descriptions. And unlike definitions, descriptions are 'by definition' incomplete.

 

[apeiron]

You're confusing neuroscientific explanation with epistemology. You can't even do neuroscience without first having a theory of knowledge. The latter comes first.

No confusion. Just up to date epistemology. The science informs the philosophy just as the philosophy informs the science. There is no chicken and egg problem here once you understand that knowleged develops from vaguer states to crisper states.

I don't see anything needs addressing. Its a dichotomy, as you have admitted, it is constructed, derived from, generalized from, experience. And therefore not fundamental. Experience is fundamental to epistemology.

The claim is precisely that it is "fundamental", to the extent ideas can be fundamental. As discussed, dichotomies are not all equal. Some seem to be maximally general. If you dispute this, you have to show this not to be true of philosophy's foundational dichotomies. Such as stasis~flux. Or any of the other dozen I can supply you with.

It is not I that invented them. They long pre-date 17th C philosophy which seems to be your favoured era. If you feel the history of philosophy is in some kind of deep error, along with modern figures like Bohr, then let's hear your specific argument.

 

[JoeDawg]

No confusion. Just up to date epistemology.

Of course its an update, its a modification, which has nothing to do with fundamentals. If you can modify it, its not fundamental. A fundamental is where you start, where you must, by necessity, start. And human philosophy always starts with experience, not abstraction.

You said it yourself abstractions are drawn from experience. Experience is fundamental.

There is no chicken and egg problem here once you understand that knowleged develops from vaguer states to crisper states.

Dichotomies can be useful, but you've reduced them to dogmatic oversimplification.

It is not I that invented them. They long pre-date 17th C philosophy which seems to be your favoured era.

Really? Wittgenstein and Poincare are 17th century, uhm... you might want to recheck that.

First you argue my ideas are not up to date, now you argue they are not old enough. You will argue anything to protect your dogmatic assumptions.

If you feel the history of philosophy is in some kind of deep error, along with modern figures like Bohr, then let's hear your specific argument.

LOL

You equate your opinion with the history of philosophy?
What specific argument of Bohr's are you even talking about?
Or is this another argument from authority?
Your read that Bohr said this or that, and if he said it, well then, it must be god's own truth.

You are the one making the deep error.

 

[apeiron]

First you argue my ideas are not up to date, now you argue they are not old enough. You will argue anything to protect your dogmatic assumptions.

So still not confident enough to address a dichotomy like stasis~flux directly?

Bring what Wittgenstein and Poincare had to say about this specific matter to the table by all means.

 

[JoeDawg]

So still not confident enough to address a dichotomy like stasis~flux directly?

Address what? Yes this is an example of a dichotomy.
Your claim, which the onus is on you to support, was that dichotomies are fundamental to epistemology. Feel free to support that claim. So far, you haven't.

And I've told you...

Dichotomies are abstractions, and abstractions are derived from experience, therefore dichotomies are not fundamental. Experience is.

Please show how experience is not fundamental. Supplying a quote from your favorite philosopher, can be helpful, but mostly it just shows you can do a google search.

Bring what Wittgenstein and Poincare had to say about this specific matter to the table by all means.

Give me a reason to, and I will. So far, you haven't supplied much in the way of argument. Claiming over and over that dichotomies are fundamental, is not the type of thing that inclines me to look up references. Maybe you have time to reread and look for quotes but unless you provide something more interesting, I feel no need.
Good luck.

 

[apeiron]

Address what? Yes this is an example of a dichotomy.
Your claim, which the onus is on you to support, was that dichotomies are fundamental to epistemology. Feel free to support that claim. So far, you haven't.

No, the actual claim again is that some dichotomies that early philosophy derived from experience are maximally general. Stasis~flux is an example.

Other dichotomies like true~ugly lack this maximal generality which would make them a candidate for what is fundamental. You will remember how the argument went there.

Still other dichotomies are just trivial unrelated pairings lacking dichotomistic content, meaningless like liquid helium~Paris Hilton. You will remember how the argument went there.

So we have a claim. We have examples of tests of what qualify a dichotomy as maximally general. We have the fact that these maximally general dichotomies are basic to philosophical and scientific concepts.

I don't know if I can break it down any further into baby steps for you.

So take stasis~flux and apply the tests I suggest. Can you imagine it not meeting the A~notA criteria?

 

[JoeDawg]

No, the actual claim again is that some dichotomies that early philosophy derived from experience are maximally general. Stasis~flux is an example.

Something can be 'maximally general' with regards to a certain data set.
Please supply the data set you are using.

Other dichotomies like true~ugly lack this maximal generality which would make them a candidate for what is fundamental.

That is a false dichotomy.

Still other dichotomies are just trivial unrelated pairings lacking dichotomistic content, meaningless like liquid helium~Paris Hilton.

Again, false dichotomy, and not even abstract, Paris Hilton and Helium are concrete things, which involves description, not definition, so your argument fails. Are you making this up as you go?

So we have a claim. We have examples of tests of what qualify a dichotomy as maximally general.

No we don't, we have more of your claims... and no data set.

We have the fact that these maximally general dichotomies are basic to philosophical and scientific concepts.

No, that is your claim. What is basic to epistemology is experience... ie the data set.

Can you imagine it not meeting the A~notA criteria?

All you have supplied is a definition, nothing more.

 

[apeiron]

Something can be 'maximally general' with regards to a certain data set.
Please supply the data set you are using.

The data set is the totality of experienced reality as already stated.

So please, quit scrabbling for excuses. Take stasis~flux and tell me in what way it is not a fundamental dichotomy. Where is the free choice, the arbitrariness?

And here are yet another couple of reference that might help ground your response.

http://www.digitalpeirce.fee.unicamp.br/lane/prilan.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical_monism

 

[JoeDawg]

The data set is the totality of experienced reality as already stated.

Exactly, so the data is fundamental. The abstract dichotomy is derived from the data, the data is experience.

Experience is therefore fundamental to epistemology.
As I have said repeatedly.

Take stasis~flux and tell me in what way it is not a fundamental dichotomy.

Its a useful dichotomy, its not 'fundamental to epistemology'. Epistemology is about knowledge, and knowledge comes from experience...

Dichotomies are arbitrary... UNLESS... they are based on experience.
Experience gives us patterns that we can generalize.
Experience is fundamental to knowledge.

Where is the free choice, the arbitrariness?

Ok, I've repeated this many times, so either you aren't reading my posts, you have poor reading comprehension skills, or you're just a cranky old man with tunnel vision.

Dichotomies are arbitrary... UNLESS... they are based on experience.

I have never said your precious little stasis/flux dichotomy is arbitrary.
Please feel free to quote where you claim I said this.

When it comes to abstract systems, we CAN CHOOSE axioms at random.
We generally don't, of course, we choose the ones that represent patterns in experience.

Dichotomies are arbitrary... UNLESS... they are based on experience.

 

[apeiron]

Ok, I've repeated this many times, so either you aren't reading my posts, you have poor reading comprehension skills, or you're just a cranky old man with tunnel vision.

You really need to focus on the issues as they have been raised, not continually responding to your own mis-readings.

The summary of what I said is 1) all metaphysics is based on dichotomies and 2) all knowledge is derived by a process of dichotomisation.

The scientific method inherited both some foundational dichotomies from metaphysics and is also an uber-example of the dichotomising mind. Modelling and measurement made formal.

Given that we sort reality via dichotomisation, and that reality appears to sort itself by dichotomisation, it is worth then having a really good theory about exactly how dichotomisation operates.

This is where we should pay attention to scholars from Anaximander, to Hegel, to Peirce.

Dichotomies are arbitrary... UNLESS... they are based on experience.

So it is the other way round. Experience is based on dichotomisation. And experience that is not the result of dichotomisation would be what was arbitrary.

If you could take the time to study the neuroscience of attention, or Gestalt psychology, this would become very obvious to you. Figure~ground, focus~fringe, etc.

Indeed, take the time to study the brain. Consider how it is architecturally divided into attention~habits, sensory cortex~motor cortex, object processing~relationship processing, etc.

You make the basic mistake of treating "consciousness" and "experience" as simple states with no structure. And a lot of your errors follow from that fundamental misunderstanding.

Mental experience has a structure that reflects the neural structure. And that structure is dichotomous and dichotomising.

Science is a way of taking this basic structure of knowing and making it less subjective, more objective.

 

[JoeDawg]

The summary of what I said is 1) all metaphysics is based on dichotomies and 2) all knowledge is derived by a process of dichotomisation.

Yes, I know, which is why no matter what question anyone posts to this forum, you always bring up dichotomies, like some platonicly inspired energizer bunny... still going.

Given that we sort reality via dichotomisation, and that reality appears to sort itself by dichotomisation

Reality does no such thing, experience is filled with shades of grey, you simply choose to reduce everything to binaries. Black and white thinking is simpleminded.

So it is the other way round. Experience is based on dichotomisation.

Dichotomies are abstractions, abstractions are 'drawn' from experience. You said it yourself, you can't have an abstraction... unless it comes from somewhere. Experience is fundamental.

If you could take the time to study the neuroscience

I'm actually a big fan of neuroscience and science in general. But science is ontology, not epistemology. Neuroscience can inform our understanding of the source of knowledge, it can provide explanation, but you need a theory of knowledge before you can do any science. This is what Descartes was after with Cogito Ergo Sum. A certainty, a foundation. And experience, in this case 'mental experience' is that foundation.

You make the basic mistake of treating "consciousness" and "experience" as simple states with no structure.

Not at all. I simply don't equate the abstract constructions of the mind to the actual patterns that exist in experience. We may be able to define dichotomies that are useful in dealing with experience, but that doesn't mean they are not our invention.
That is the same mistake Plato made with his forms.

Mental experience has a structure that reflects the neural structure.

You are confusing epistemology with ontology.


"Geometry is not true, it is advantageous."
- Henri Poincare

 

[apeiron]

Yes, I know, which is why no matter what question anyone posts to this forum, you always bring up dichotomies, like some platonicly inspired energizer bunny... still going.

...and hierarchies and vagueness too of course. These comprise the Peircean triad of analytic levels that define the systems science and semiotics approach.

And because this is a process metaphysics, thermodynamics and complexity theory are focal when modelling material systems.

So yes, there is indeed a paradigm involved here.

The standard anglo-saxon modelling paradigm involves reductionism, mechanicalism, atomism, monadism, determinism and locality. Although though you might not be able to articulate it, this is the way your own mental processes will have been institutionalised.

Yet still, that does not justify your continuing displays of intellectual xenophobia.

Reality does no such thing, experience is filled with shades of grey, you simply choose to reduce everything to binaries. Black and white thinking is simpleminded.

I realize you will probably never get it. Your thought habits are very inflexible. But I have explained how dichotomies are about separation and mixing, or differentiation~integration (as modeled by the I Ching for example).

So separation creates light and dark, or black and white. Then the mixing of what has been made distinct allows all the shades of grey inbetween. That is how you get distinct shades of grey, by being able to mix pure white and pure black.

I'm actually a big fan of neuroscience and science in general. But science is ontology, not epistemology. Neuroscience can inform our understanding of the source of knowledge, it can provide explanation, but you need a theory of knowledge before you can do any science. This is what Descartes was after with Cogito Ergo Sum. A certainty, a foundation. And experience, in this case 'mental experience' is that foundation.

Again, I am talking about modern day epistemology. Philosophy updated by science. Model and measurement is an interactive process of development. We can't pretend we are still operating with Descartes' level of ignorance.

Not at all. I simply don't equate the abstract constructions of the mind to the actual patterns that exist in experience. We may be able to define dichotomies that are useful in dealing with experience, but that doesn't mean they are not our invention.
That is the same mistake Plato made with his forms.

I am explicitly not a platonist. That is dualism - a broken apart binary - and dichotomies are interacting levels of the same stuff (the same possibility separated to create an asymmetry).

Our concepts are of course our inventions. But they are subject to the same self-consistency requirement that appears to be true of reality also. So they are hardly arbitrary.

You are confusing epistemology with ontology.

Hardly. I'm introducing you to what the modern world has to say on these issues.

 

[Pythagorean]

Reality does no such thing, experience is filled with shades of grey, you simply choose to reduce everything to binaries. Black and white thinking is simpleminded.

This can be a matter of resolution: we only observe gray because we can't see the mixture of tiny black and white pixels, for instance.

Also, while he does use a lot of binary examples, the concepts he's operating under are not restricted to a base 2 system. Just a base n system.

He's brought up ternary systems before, too. Another resolution example is three base colors making up a wide range of different colors to make images on your screen.

This is not so simpleminded once you get into more complex systems.

 

[apeiron]

This can be a matter of resolution: we only observe gray because we can't see the mixture of tiny black and white pixels, for instance.

Black and white are not a perfect analogy of what I mean as they are treated here as essentially a symmetry and antisymmetry, not a symmetry and a broken symmetry, or asymmetry.

So again, the + and - of electric charge are a binary that is symmetrical. Each side is the same scale. Black and white, treated as the on/off of a pixel is also a binary of this kind. We know then the difficulty of getting real black on an LED screen. The global viewing conditions become important.

If you go into the eye's processing habits, you will see that in fact our nervous system relies on local~global asymmetry to create our experience of degrees of illumination (shades of grey). And this fact is necessary to understanding visual illusions like neon colour spreading.

http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/col_neon/index.html (a really good site this)

Also, while he does use a lot of binary examples, the concepts he's operating under are not restricted to a base 2 system. Just a base n system.

But it is also a significant fact that all numbering systems are reducible to binary notation. It is in fact fundamental (you can go no lower). And this is why we are such believers in information theory and the power of the digital approach.

You cannot get simpler that 1,0. The plus and minus of a symmetric binary.

However, applying the dichotomistic lens to this, I would return to Shannon's original signal~noise dichotomy. That was the original systems view. That was how the whole information theoretic, digital, bandwagon arose.

And signal~noise follows the local~global template of an asymmetric dichotomy. You locate the signal and, in so doing, discard a global context of noise.

Thus the 1 and the 0 are not actually the same scale. The 1 is as small as possible, the 0 as large as possible. The O stands for everything excluded as noise and so you would want this "everything" to be as large as possible, in fact infinitely large if you want to be certain about the 1 which is the crisp signal dragged out of the vague fog of your initial uncertainty.

Joedawg complains I see dichotomies everywhere. No, I just point out how all good ideas in science arise because some clever person saw through to the dichotomy inherent in nature.

Bohr did it with particle~wave (though he improved on that kinematic~dynamic, or stasis~flux as it was called in Heraclitus's day). Shannon did it with signal~noise.

Yes, technology arose by simplifying the dichotomy further. Once you find your essential asymmetry in nature, you can make life easier by throwing away one half of the dichotomy (the global or holistic half) and just using the local or atomistic half. You do this by creating a symmetric binary relation (the global scale can then be constructed by gluing together digital bits in clumps - though this is patently artificial as natural systems are defined by the fact that they self-assemble).

Anyway, again we can pick any major advance of science at random, I suggest, and find that the breakthrough thought was the asymmetry of dichotomy. Which may have later been reduced to the simplicity of a dualistic binary perhaps.

 

[JoeDawg]

This can be a matter of resolution: we only observe gray because we can't see the mixture of tiny black and white pixels, for instance.

It can be, or it might be. But that doesn't really address the problem of what is fundamental.

All you have really done is compare experiences, which runs full force into the problem of induction.

And that also assumes anyone physical pixel can convey 'pure' black or 'pure' white. If black and white are simply ideals, then everything is a shade of grey. Talking about wavelengths doesn't solve this problem either.

Which brings us back to Descartes, who was looking for a basis of knowledge that was 'certain', not just a matter of resolution or sampling.

 

[Pythagorean]

But that's not the subject, you're just interpreting it that way. We're actually discussing the fundamental structure of the universe. Whether it is continuous or quantized.

The point is that it could very well be of a quantized nature and that continuity is just an illusion based on the inherent resolution of observation.

Depending on your philosophy (whether you think science actually describes reality to a T or whether it just describes a set of interaction with reality), the matter of resolution and sampling become very important to our understanding of reality.

We're not talking about simple technological sampling or resolution (like oh, I bought the cheaper sensor, so my resolution sucks). No, not that.

We're actually talking about our inherit limitations in observation. In quantum mechanics, for instance, we have the uncertainty principle. Does the uncertainty principle say that we can't know a particles position and velocity with precision or does it say the particle doesn't have position or velocity in the way we think of position and velocity?

 

[JoeDawg]

But that's not the subject, you're just interpreting it that way. We're actually discussing the fundamental structure of the universe. Whether it is continuous or quantized.

Then that is not epistemology, that is an ontological question.

The point is that it could very well be of a quantized nature and that continuity is just an illusion based on the inherent resolution of observation.

Well sure, it could be.

If one uses the stasis/flux concept, one could say the universe is either static, ie time is an illusion and the entire universe just is what it is, or that time actually flows and is therefore in flux. It's either/or, but so what? We don't know. The epistemological question would be, can we know, and more in line with the classical understanding of knowledge, can we 'know for certain'? If we can't know for certain, then knowledge becomes indistingishable from belief, which is a central problem in epistemology.

We're actually talking about our inherit limitations in observation.

Again, not epistemology, now you are discussing phenomenology/ontology.

In quantum mechanics, for instance, we have the uncertainty principle.

This is a very narrow band of epistemology, ie what can we know with certainty about the interactions of quantum particles within the scope of physics. The uncertainty principle may be fundamental to physics, but it is not fundamental to knowledge generally.

Does the uncertainty principle say that we can't know a particles position and velocity with precision or does it say the particle doesn't have position or velocity in the way we think of position and velocity?

That would be a question that is fundamental to physics, not to knowledge itself. Its a question of measurement, not knowledge per se.

 

[Pythagorean]

I'm not part of the epistemology vs. ontological argument. I'm not familiar with the terms

The epistemological question would be, can we know, and more in line with the classical understanding of knowledge, can we 'know for certain'?

I don't see how questioning an idea like inherent resolution is removed from this...

That would be a question that is fundamental to physics, not to knowledge itself. Its a question of measurement, not knowledge per se.

But that's the question I'm asking. Is it a limit of our ability to know, or is it simply the case physically. I don't think the two are necessarily mutually exclusive. There could very well be a physical explanation for why we we can or can't know things, such as:

"Does the uncertainty principle say that we can't know a particles position and velocity with precision or does it say the particle doesn't have position or velocity in the way we think of position and velocity?"