What is this thing called science?

[bullwinkle]

Is anyone up for discussing the problems with existing philosophies of science? I have recently read Alan Chalmers book 'What is this thing called science?' which gives an overview of the different attempts at a philosophy of science along with their strengths and weaknesses. The first half of the book is quiet good, covering inductive accounts of science, Popper's falsificationism and Kuhn. The latter half of the book which covers Lakatos, Feyerabend, subjective Bayesianism and other theories seems quite superficial.

The arguments always seem to come to an impasse when they get to the question of whether science makes progress and in what sense. None of the theories seem to be able to deal with this point convincingly and in the end none of them really seem to work as a realistic philosophy of science. They all seem to fall down because they are looking for objective criteria to measure science against and this doesn't seem to work. The only approach I've seen that I think works is Michael Polanyi's idea of personal knowledge which claims to be neither subjective nor objective but stresses the personal participation of the knower in an 'art of knowing'.

I have a number of questions arising from what I've read and a few proto-answers that I would like to subject to scrutiny.

1) What characterises science as science?

Chalmers concluded that there was no general account of science and scientific method but if this is true then on what grounds can we say that something is science and something else isn't. I feel comfortable claiming that astrology isn't a science so I must be making a judgement. I feel qualified to make this judgement but I don't think I could reduce it to stated criteria.

2) Is science based on anything?

My thinking behind this question is that science is an articulate system of knowledge which originates and is tested in our experience of the world. I feel more comfortable with this description of science than I do with an idea that science is based on facts or even that science is based on accumulating observations. The reasons being that I see the idea of a 'fact' as being a human assertion of the belief that 'something represents reality'. I also take observation as being guided by theory - there are so many observations that can be made that for us not to be over-whelmed we need to be guided by an idea (or theory) of what is significant.

3) Does Science Make Progress?

I think it does but I don't think it can be shown objectively. I think Polanyi would claim that science was a tool which we develop through a heuristic process in order to gain control of our environment. The tool is improved and refined as it is used in wider contexts. I take the Copernican revolution as an example of scientific progress but what are the appropriate criteria of judgement?

4) Are scientific theories true?

I don't think we can know. I take 'true' to mean a description of the reality that I assume we interact with when we experience things. As our senses are embodied I don't feel that we can assume that our experience equates to reality. In which case how can we know if our theories correspond to reality? Are there different ways to approach this question? Is the question sensible?

5) What is or should be the relationship between scientific and other explanations?

This is a topical question given debates on creationism and evolution. Examples such as the difference between a thought I may have and the recording of electrical activity in my brain are interesting. The electrical activity doesn't contain my thought in a sense in which I would recognise it as such. The two explanations seem to have their place and legitimate use for different things and both would be valid in certain contexts. Does this also go for the creation myths of the established religions?

Does anybody have any thoughts, or perhaps a bus to drive through the holes I've overlooked in my answers?

Bullwinkle

[GabrielDain]

First part: My personal opinion.

Well, Russell (indirectly) describes "science" as the realm of fact ("History of Western Philosophy", Introduction; "All definite knowledge belongs to science").
We then need a definition of "fact". I think "fact" is that which, after all other current theories have been proven wrong, is consistent will all (or in some cases most) of the available/observable evidence.
It follows that "science" is the active search for evidence, the development of evidence-based theories to explain the phenomena observed and the elimination of all theories that are not consistent with the evidence or other theories. Whenever a "fact" is put in question, it reverts to the status of "theory" because a new theory has be developed, and no two opposing "facts" can coexist.
This explanation only scratches the surface, though, and that's assuming everybody accepts it as "fact".

---

Second Part: Isaac Asimov's thoughts.
(You will have to excuse any inaccurate quotes, I am working from a Spanish translation of "New Guide to Science").

Asimov proposes that the very beginning of science was curiosity. Not curiosity as we see it today, however, but biological curiosity; the slow development of the senses in complex life forms as tools to explain our environment. At the same time, the nervous system was developed and began being used to interpret and storage the data collected by the sensory organs.

The next phase was the "need/wish to know". Once the sensory and nervous organs have developed enough that a species doesn't need its further development, any growth in those systems is purely in the name of exploratory curiosity. Unlike the clam, for example, the dog sniffs and smells his environment whenever he has "nothing else to do" (hunt, eat, reproduce, etc.). The chimpanzee dedicates its spare time to playing with sticks and small objects, some of which, through playful experimentation, became hunting tools.
He uses the biblical Eve as an example of early science. Did she need to eat the apple? No. Then why did she do it? She wanted to know what would happen. The snake's task was the easiest in the world - exploiting a human being's curiosity. The same hold true for the myth of Pandora's box (mainly because Eve's and Pandora's story are almost identical).
The initial questions of science are based on sheer curiosity; "Why does a rock fall?", "How high is the sky?". We do not need this knowledge to live, but our inquiring nature urges us to find an answer.
He says that "the best method for facing against such questions consists of elaborating an answer that is aesthetically satisfactory. An answer that has enough analogies to what is already known so as to be comprehensible and plausible. [...] This is how "myth" was born."

It was the Greeks who developed the concepts of abstaction and generalization, which were then applied to mathematics and geometry, and today to all sciences. By inventing conceptual straight, endless line that can exist only in the mind, abstraction was created. By developing laws and rules that apply to "all lines", "all triangles", etc., generalization was created.

After centuries of mathematics and geometry, the Greeks developed a "deductive process"; the "development of a doctrical body as the inevitable consequence of a series of axioms (NT: "axiom" is Greek for "deduction")."

[Here I jump many paragraphs and sections in which Asimov explains the application of the newly created "science" to many of humanity's questions throught history; Copernicus', Galileo's, etc.]

Since Newton, an individual's ability to dominate all fields of science has been gradually diminishing to the point were only experts who have dedicated their whole lives to a single topic can truly say they know "everything there is to be known today" about, for example, organic chemistry, astronomical physics, etc. Because of this, science has come to mean also the thorough communication and collaboration of all of its branches to create a comprehensive body of work.

[bullwinkle]

Hi Gabriel,

I haven't read the "History of Western Philosophy". Russell's definition seems too general, specifically there are 2 words that I would question: 'All' and 'definite'. Considering 'All', I think that the knowledge that 'fire can burn you' is known in some form across all of the animal kingdom but it is too banal for me to consider it as part of science. A cat would know this and a cat knows nothing of science so there must be some restricting of science to knowledge that scientists consider interesting.

Your definition of fact is not too dissimilar to my definition of it as being a "human assertion of the belief that something represents reality" except you seem to be saying that something becomes a fact after a process of elimination whereas I think that facts are claimed as such by their adherents before the elimination is completed. I'm basing this on the heated and rancorous nature of some of the arguments which suggests a degree of commitment by the participants to their theories which I don't find compatible with the idea that they aren't already claiming factual status for them.

I agree with your definition of science as:

the active search for evidence, the development of evidence-based theories to explain the phenomena observed and the elimination of all theories that are not consistent with the evidence or other theories

but perhaps in our terminology we're confusing facts and laws here?

If we're talking laws then aren't quantum mechanics and relativity incompatible but co-existent? (I'm way out of my depth on that one but people I trust tell me that this is the case.)

Thanks for the Asimov stuff - I hadn't heard of this book but will take a look at it. Some of what you quote sounds very reminiscent of Polanyi's material about the inarticulate striving for control of the environment made at all levels of life.

Bullwinkle

[GabrielDain]

Russell's definition seems too general

The focus of his introduction was to explain what Philosophy is, not science. For that reason, I think he can get away with a weak definition. I used it only as a preamble to my own definition.

Considering 'All', I think that the knowledge that 'fire can burn you' is known in some form across all of the animal kingdom but it is too banal for me to consider it as part of science. A cat would know this and a cat knows nothing of science so there must be some restricting of science to knowledge that scientists consider interesting.

I would doubt the scientific value of a statement such as "fire can burn you". If anything else than sterile observation, it would be the starting point of a series of questions and their subsequent hypothesis; "Why is fire hot?", "Why do I feel pain when touching something hot?", "What is fire, anyway?". I believe that science is finding an answer to these questions. Notice that, as far as I know, only humans ask themselves this type of question.

Your definition of fact is not too dissimilar to my definition of it as being a "human assertion of the belief that something represents reality" except you seem to be saying that something becomes a fact after a process of elimination whereas I think that facts are claimed as such by their adherents before the elimination is completed. I'm basing this on the heated and rancorous nature of some of the arguments which suggests a degree of commitment by the participants to their theories which I don't find compatible with the idea that they aren't already claiming factual status for them.

This is true. I feel tempted to include "consensus" as a requirement for a theory to become fact, yet I can't help but think of how most humans thought the world was flat and how they have been proven wrong. Maybe we should talk of the "perception of fact" rather than "fact"? Then again, the belief that the world was flat was never based on science, I believe, so I would be inclined to doubt its value in this discussion. Are there any other cases where a scientific theory that had the majority's consensus was proven wrong?

I agree with your definition of science as:

the active search for evidence, the development of evidence-based theories to explain the phenomena observed and the elimination of all theories that are not consistent with the evidence or other theories

but perhaps in our terminology we're confusing facts and laws here?

Personally, I don't see why "facts" and "laws" are mutually exclusive. As I understand it, a generalized and abstract fact is exactly the same thing as a law. An applied law is a fact.
Fact: "Fire can burn you"
Law: "An increase of kinetic energy at a molecular level of gases causes it to change its state of matter to that of Plasma. When nerves are exposed to plasma, they send an electric impulse to the brain, which is translated as the perception of extreme heat." (I am not sure that what I said is right, but it sounds OK).

If we're talking laws then aren't quantum mechanics and relativity incompatible but co-existent? (I'm way out of my depth on that one but people I trust tell me that this is the case.)

Like you, I am not familiar with these particular theories. My understanding of it is that general relativity cannot be explained by quantum mechanics. This doesn't mean they are opposing theories, but that we don't have a complete understanding of either (or both) of them.
If it was the fact that two theories do coexist, then I (in my scientific ignorance) would assume that one of them is incorrect, although we don't have the ability to prove it yet.

[oxymoron]

An applied law is a fact.

I am not yet sure we have reached an agreed definition of 'fact'. Also, I would appreciate clarification on what constitutes scientific 'law', a point upon which I have never been clear.

The example that came to mind upon reading the above quote was simply that of Newtonian dynamics, as derived (I think I am correct in saying) from Newton's laws of motion. Using simple equations to calculate, for example, projectile motion would be an example of applying a law. Would the result be 'fact'? It may be 'true' to the degree to which we can measure the trajectory and compare it to calculation, but I am not sure this makes it fact.

I think for me personally, the word 'fact' carries the weight of immutability and certainty. This is why I struggle to see even the example above as fact. We know that later theories have made subtle corrections to these laws. Do we therefore see them as an approximation to the truth, albeit one that when used appropriately is 'good enough'? But where is the place for 'fact' in this?

[Panos]

It was very interesting to read all of you and it makes it quite hard for me to decide where to begin.

If I am not mistaken, science is characterised by it's methods. The systematic approach which is based on axioms, theorems and proofs is the materialisation of science. An axiom is something you (pre)suppose it's true (it does not need proofing) and then the game of chess starts: by combining axiom with axiom, axiom with theorem and theorem with theorem, you built a scientific universe.

The only law behind it I suppose is logic. If every theorem is generated by previously proven theorems or axioms (that hold true by definition) and if the theorem is proven by logical steps, then the procedure is scientific and therefore "true".

When it comes to less theoretical areas like phusics or chemistry (I suppose all of you suspect by now what my background is), then theorems and definitions are derived by experiments.

Why would you need to define what a "fact" is? If an experiment is performed in a systematic way or a proof is logical, isn't that all you need to care about?

As to whether a fact is a "fact", in the sense it holds true, then I guess a fact is a fact in the realm of it's existence. The Newton laws of motion explain everything within their Universe i.e. the 3 dimensions on the surface of our planet. If you go outside where the gravitational forces of stars and galaxies are much greater, then you need Einstein (this statement is not completely correct but it will do, I think, for my argument).

Anyway, It has been a pleasure reflecting on these topics, I hope I have added rather than "subtracted" to the discussion

Greetings

[GabrielDain]

Why would you need to define what a "fact" is? If an experiment is performed in a systematic way or a proof is logical, isn't that all you need to care about?

Well, yes, but I am unsure we can call something "fact" when we know it can be disproved in the future. What is logical and systematic today - our methods - will likely be proved obsolete at some point in the future.

[bullwinkle]

Gabriel,

You ask:

Are there any other cases where a scientific theory that had a majority’s consensus was proven wrong?

The Ptolemaic system must count as an example. I think that until the sixteenth century it was generally accepted in Europe that the earth was stationary at the centre of a finite universe with sun, planets and stars orbiting around it. This seems perfectly reasonable, every day I see the sun and stars travel east to west across the sky yet when I stand still my senses tell me I’m not moving. It seems sensible to theorise that the heavens orbit a stationary earth. I can’t see why you’d question it until you start to meticulously collect a lot of astronomical measurements which you then try to fit into a simple system. Bearing in mind this was being done by naked-eye observation I don’t think there can have been many people at all with the time, skill, eyesight or inclination to even put themselves in a position to doubt the Ptolemaic system.

Agreeing definitions of observations, facts and laws may be quite difficult.

You say:

Personally, I don’t see why “facts” and “laws” are mutually exclusive.

I have just gone back to Hume’s “Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding”, in Probability, section 6.4 he says “there are some causes, which are entirely uniform and constant in producing a particular effect; and no instance has ever yet been found of any failure or irregularity in their operation.” He talks about fire burning, water drowning and the production of motion by impulse and gravity and the latter at least, he refers to as a universal law. This is footnoted as meaning that it is causal, known by induction from experience and “therefore rests on a proof, not on a demonstration”.

I agree that “facts” and “laws” aren’t mutually exclusive; I see them as overlapping categories. I wanted to bring out the sense that a law has more to say than a fact, as you did with your generalisation of my fire example.

You say that:

a generalised and abstract fact is exactly the same thing as a law. An applied law is a fact.

I think this generally expresses the difference in meaning I was seeking but if I try it with a very basic example. I can see a pen on my desk (trust me). This is a fact in the sense of me believing it to be a representation of reality. I see it as a fact that is not both a fact and a law, just a fact. One ramification of my nomenclature which I considered today was “what is an observation”. For me it would have to be something that I didn’t believe was a representation of reality. Seeing as I generally trust my senses I wondered what an example would be. I think the Ptolemaic system is again relevant. Every day my senses tell me that the earth is stationary but due to my education I don’t consider this to be a fact, just an observation.

So I suppose my system has:

• Law - factual and also with wide applicability, or as you say generalisable.
  Fact - a representation of reality but without much to say beyond itself.
  Observation - something which I don’t claim to represent reality although it may represent my immediate experience.

Belief is the thing that separates my fact from my observation. Perhaps this is what you were capturing when you said we should talk about “perception of fact” rather than fact. In my system any fact is at risk of being superseded and relegated to an observation and many observations would once have been perceived to be facts.

Interestingly the claim that something represents reality is very close to John Macmurray’s definition of rationality in “Interpreting the Universe”. Macmurray describes something as being rational if it “fits the objective world to which it consciously refers”. This seems to me to be a claim to truth, which I appear to have made for my own statements but denied to scientific theory in Q4 of my first post. Hmmm, think I need to rethink this. Any ideas?

I hadn’t meant to get into so much semantics but I suppose it was inevitable.

You said:

I would doubt the scientific value of a statement such as “fire can burn you”

Yes, so would I. I was hoping that it would fall into my “fact” but not “law” category but Hume seems to disagree with me. Polanyi in “Personal Knowledge” defines scientific value as “the joint outcome of three contributing factors. An affirmation will be acceptable as part of science, and will be the more valuable to science, the more it possesses: (1) certainty (accuracy), (2) systematic relevance (profundity), and (3) intrinsic interest.” He claims that the first 2 are inherently scientific, the third extra-scientific and that they apply jointly so that deficiency in one is largely compensated for by excellence in the others.

Your examples of questions that arise from the “fire can burn you” statement are all why/what questions. Do you think a why/what question is what makes a question scientific? If so I wonder if there are animal learning situations where it is clear that these are being asked even if this is only happening at an inarticulate level?

If it was the fact that two theories do coexist, then I (in my scientific ignorance) would assume that one of them is incorrect, although we don’t have the ability to prove it yet.

I agree.

Bullwinkle

[bullwinkle]

I am not yet sure we have reached an agreed definition of 'fact'. Also, I would appreciate clarification on what constitutes scientific 'law', a point upon which I have never been clear.

I have attempted to state my views in my last post. I thought that Hume's definition of universal law included the degree of belief/certainty. I'm basing that on my hazy recollection of reading it a couple of years ago. Hume discusses it in his chapter on probability. I think probability is very much a formalisation of the degree to which we are surprised by something, this is also related to belief. Sorry - this is a bit vague, if I find a definition of "law" I'll post it.

I think for me personally, the word 'fact' carries the weight of immutability and certainty.

Yes I know what you mean and feel similarly. Presumed facts have been shown to be incorrect by the passage of time. From this I have so far concluded that factual status is given to something by us (and sometimes incorrectly). This illustrates the interesting way in which the shaping of our knowledge is a two-way process in which we personally participate. This is the reason for my stressing of belief and why I find it hard to go along with the suggestion that science is built on the observation of objective facts.

science is characterised by it's methods

Chalmers found no general account of scientific method. Often when people talk about science they seem to talk about physics. You could split the sciences up into 3 categories: descriptive (e.g. zoology), natural (e.g. physics) and deductive (pure maths). These different groups use very different methodologies.

Your description of combining axioms and theorems makes science seem very straight forward.

The only law behind it I suppose is logic. If every theorem is generated by previously proven theorems or axioms (that hold true by definition) and if the theorem is proven by logical steps, then the procedure is scientific and therefore "true".

The problem is that you don't know if your axioms are true. Logic is truth-preserving, it does not establish truth. For instance, consider the axioms: "all cats are pink" and "I have a cat". "My cat is pink" is a logically sound conclusion but it's also wrong because one of the axioms is wrong. I would say that the conclusion is logical but irrational, using Macmurray's definition of rationality that I mentioned in a previous post. (Actually both axioms are wrong - I don't have a cat.)

Given that axioms are unproven and unprovable (otherwise why are they only axioms) it doesn't seem to follow that the conclusion is true, just that the conclusion follows logically.

It is interesting how difficult the concepts are to clarify and I think that much of the difficulty in the discussion is due to different understandings of general terms: fact, law, observation, knowledge, reason, rational, experience and reality. I think this again shows the personal contribution you make to shaping your own knowledge - we have all brought a different understanding to these terms.

Bullwinkle

[Panos]

Bullwinkle wrote

Your description of combining axioms and theorems makes science seem very straight forward.

I suppose it's my background. Because of maths I am used in an abstract theoretical system where deduction prevails. However, as you stated further down in your reply, the weak points are the axioms and to a certain extent, the quality of the axioms dictate the survival and the development of a theoretical system.

When one considers a less abstract system, like physics, then I agree it's much harder to establish simple notions like fact or law. The reason for this I believe is because our perception of the physical world is encaged by our 3 dimensional senses. Plato offers a very nice similee of a person chained in a cave, looking straight ahead at the shadows of shapes or creatures that pass in front of a burning fire. We never see the actual creatures, only their shadows and that is our perception of the world.

GabrielDain wrote

What is logical and systematic today - our methods - will likely be proved obsolete at some point in the future

I think we can all agree that there is no universal truth or that there will always be exceptions to the rules. To that extent, science is a fact with two parameters, space and time. Science is a truth within a certain space and for a certain time.

Bullwinkle wrote:

I think this again shows the personal contribution you make to shaping your own knowledge - we have all brought a different understanding to these terms.

I agree. I think a theory takes shape from it's appliance in the real world. Again from Plato, I remember reading that ideas are perfections which we never attain. When we express an idea, we actually refer to an aim which we only partially complete. Bullwinkle is a good person or my pen is red. In reality, my pen is as red as the company who made it managed to do it.

Our theories derive from our observations and therefore are as good as our observations.

[bullwinkle]

our perception of the physical world is encaged by our 3 dimensional senses. Plato offers a very nice similee of a person chained in a cave, looking straight ahead at the shadows of shapes or creatures that pass in front of a burning fire. We never see the actual creatures, only their shadows and that is our perception of the world.

This is very nice. In the way that Archimedes said "give me a place to stand and I will move the earth", I sometimes think, "give me a place to stand and I will understand the universe". Unfortunately that place to stand is outside of my own self. We can never change that frame of reference and see the world from outside ourselves, unmediated. I think Kant had a lot to say on what types of experiences the net of our senses would be able to capture but I have to confess I haven't read him yet.

Again from Plato, I remember reading that ideas are perfections which we never attain. When we express an idea, we actually refer to an aim which we only partially complete.

This is a nice thought, it made me think of crystalography. We have ideas of perfect crystal forms and these seem to be determined by our own aesthetic judgements. I say this because we may never find an example of a perfect crystal but instead we may find specimens which we say have defects when we compare them to our idea of perfection. I suggest that these standards are set to us by our appetites. Atomic theory may explain what they represent at a deeper level but that is more recent and our appreciation of regular crystals dates back much further. The science seems to verify that our appetites capture something real and significant in the world.

I think we can all agree that there is no universal truth or that there will always be exceptions to the rules. To that extent, science is a fact with two parameters, space and time. Science is a truth within a certain space and for a certain time.

I like this sentiment and I was interested in your use of the word truth. By using a term like "universal truth" you must differentiate it from non-universal truth. You go on to do this explicitly in the following sentence but the implication is that there is a form of "truth" that in some scenarios will be false. I got a bit perturbed when I noticed that in my first post I made the statement:

I take 'true' to mean a description of the reality that I assume we interact with when we experience things. As our senses are embodied I don't feel that we can assume that our experience equates to reality.

and I concluded that we couldn't know whether scientific theories are true. Later,

Macmurray describes something as being rational if it “fits the objective world to which it consciously refers”.

and I said that we claim that facts represent reality. There is a contradiction in my denial of scientific truth made on the basis that we can't know if science represents reality and my suggestion that when we claim something to be a fact we claim that it represents reality. I'm suggesting that we make a claim which I also say is unclaimable.

I'll be honest with you, I don't really know how to take this forward but I thought that the confusion probably reflects a lack of understanding of the underlying concepts and that these needed to be considered in more detail. Thus I decided to try and write down a conceptual map:

We have immediate access to our experience. We can make observations which are representative of our experience. We believe our observations represent reality unless we have reason or other knowledge that leads us to doubt this. With no reason to doubt an observation or statement we believe it to represent reality and we call it a fact. Where a fact leads to something with wider applicability we call it a law. Observations are part of our experience, facts and laws may or may not be.

If an observation, fact or law fits the world to which it refers, if it doesn't jar, we consider it to be rational. It doesn't follow that it represents reality, just that it fits the situation to which it refers, as in the case of an observation.

Facts represent reality and laws are real if they are not sterile. If they keep showing us new aspects and giving new information, if they are fertile then they show themselves to be in touch with reality. In touch with the noumenal world we touch through our experience. Fertility of law show us that we have latched on to something beyond experience.

I'm not sure if this is particularly useful, it needs to be practically tested against my use of these terms. Clearly if I use a word I must be judging that it is appropriate and trusting my own judgement so if I see how I use these words then I can learn what I think they mean - a good old fashioned socratic enquiry. I noticed that the word that I didn't use in all this was "truth", you used it above so maybe that's a good place to begin.

So. What is truth?

Bullwinkle

[Panos]

The truth is the Holy Grail for scientists. They know it's out there but they can never find it.

Seriously, I would expect truth to be the factor that stands against every test, whether from nature, man, spacetime etc. At the same time, I believe the way this world is made there can be no truth, only valid arguments or facts that (appear to) represent reality.

Bullwinkle wrote:

We have immediate access to our experience...to something beyond experience

I like this sequence, it sounds logic-proof, especially if you use it with the example "according to my experience, objects (apples) fall towards the surface of the earth...".

I think every person, according to his experience he makes observations then groups them into laws and believes they represent reality until proven otherwise. Sooner or later he runs into a person or a situation that reverts his deductions and he has to accomodate for this new experience.

However, if we consider the emotional world then, is it that straight forward? Let's take an example: I have experienced love in some occasions. I have observed from the similarities of those cases that being in love is a chaotic situation where logic has gone ...vacations. The reality of being in love is the absence of logic and that is a fact.

My observation fits the world which it refers to because it refers to me. Thus I consider it rational (which is an oxymoron saying that, whilst in love, it is rational to not be rational). Does it make sense?

Going back to what you said in your first post, when you analysed question no 3:

Bullwinkle wrote:

3) Does Science Make Progress?

I like the idea behind it. At the end of the day maybe science is a tool to make our life better and easier. Finding the truth may only give us a psychological relief that we finally stand on firm ground. But why do we need that? Science is a tool indeed and it's purpose has been historically devoted to help mankind into gaining control over life or nature. Statistics were invented because some French Lords wanted to win in games with dice. Geometry was invented to resolve land measurements issues (geometry = geo (earth in greek) and metry (measuring in greek)). Maybe at some point scientific branches picked up the ball and forgot why they were running. Algebra started as a means to solve equations that, if I am not mistaken, started from commerce. In the previous century, algebric fields and groups had very little to do with any appliance in the real world whatsoever. That was just maths for the maths sake.

Anyway, I am not sure I made any sense, but I will have to leave it here.

[bullwinkle]

I believe the way this world is made there can be no truth

And yet the word persists and is frequently heard. So what is it that people are talking about?

I think every person, according to his experience he makes observations then groups them into laws and believes they represent reality until proven otherwise. Sooner or later he runs into a person or a situation that reverts his deductions and he has to accommodate for this new experience.

I broadly agree with this and will develop my recent thinking below. Your comments on the emotional world are interesting. I think logic develops and makes more elaborate a situation that is arrived at through other means. Logic develops things that are discovered but doesn't discover new things, although it can make new things clearer. I don't think logic has a place in the emotional world but I think emotional responses can be rational. For instance it seems like loving one's mother is a rational response to the care she has given you whereas something like a persecution complex may be an irrational emotion when faced with an everyday situation. So I suppose I am saying that whilst in love it is rational not to be logical (a slightly different statement to the one you made).

I like the idea behind it. At the end of the day maybe science is a tool to make our life better and easier. Finding the truth may only give us a psychological relief that we finally stand on firm ground. But why do we need that? Science is a tool indeed and it's purpose has been historically devoted to help mankind into gaining control over life or nature.

I think this quote and the full paragraph it comes from contain the answers to most of the questions you pose. We seek control of our environment and are driven by desire to satisfy our appetites, hence your examples of statistics, geometry and algebra. I don't think scientists forgot this, maths as you say sometimes continues for its own sake but that is because we have an appetite for beauty and maths possesses this. It also forms another system in which problems arise and we seek to solve problems for reasons of intellectual control. Seeking the truth is important because it generates the passion to make the effort needed. The search for truth drives us to solve the problem and the solution when it arrives satisfies the desire for it and provides a relief from the search.

I hope that I have understood your points correctly and that my answers seem reasonable. As I said, the word truth is frequently used so it must mean something. I’ve had a bit of time to think about this and the question that I posed: what is truth? These are my first thoughts.

I can ask myself 2 questions:

• 1) Under what circumstances do I ask if something is true and why do I ask?
  2) Under what circumstances do I claim something is true?

Taking question 1 first. I can ask if a piece of information is true or if an account that somebody gives is true. My questions might be: ‘is that true?’ or ‘are you telling me the truth?’

I seem to be asking whether the thing in question has a certain quality. What is that quality? What difference does the possession of that quality make?

Considering the latter question. If this quality is possessed then the thing possessing it becomes something that I can rely on. If a piece of information, then it becomes part of the way that I see the world; I have a sense of pushing my limits out to include this new truth so that it becomes the place where the unknown begins. In effect I no longer see what I have assimilated, I start to see with it.

But what is the quality itself? True things seem to become part of us in the sense that they are incorporated into our conceptual framework. We use them as tools and extensions of ourselves. The qualities they possess should be dependability and reliability.

Returning to the 2nd of my initial 2 questions. Why do I make statements like ‘x is true’? This is an assertion, an attempt to convince or communicate, a statement of belief or commitment. I have claimed that ‘x’ is something that I think is reliable and dependable.

At this point I feel that I need to put some distance between truth and belief, my thoughts so far seem to make them too synonymous. I don’t like the claim of truth when it is applied to religious belief. I don’t mean that pejoratively; I think that the religious belief that I most respect openly co-exists with doubt. At this point I would introduce the term ‘faith’ to describe religious belief.

Faith lacks something that truth possesses. I think that truth claims acceptance from everybody, it has a universal quality demanding universal acceptance. This demand for acceptance by our peers is the sense in which truth is universal. Yet if knowledge comes to light that shakes the reliability of my truth then I may withdraw my belief and look for a new truth. In this sense truth is not lasting.

To clarify the distinction between truth and faith further, the separation lies in the statement ‘truth demands for itself universal acceptance’. Belief is required for both truth and faith but doubt is also part of faith. I think that the claim to truth is a belief with the absence of doubt. I think this makes faith a dynamic, evolving process - something that has to be lived. Truth would be more static but then would occasionally be shaken by a loss of reliability when faced with a novel situation; this may necessitate a new truth, a new static situation. These would be one of Kuhn’s paradigm shifts.

Truth demands universal acceptance because there are no apparent reasons to doubt. Faith shouldn’t make this demand because it works at the junction of belief and doubt.

Truth is a two-way statement. It expresses the belief of the speaker and the absence of reasons to doubt the object. Faith expresses belief in the face of doubt.

Some thoughts on these ideas:

• 1) Belief is inherent in truth. (In what sense do you not believe what you claim is true?)
  2) Belief doesn’t entail truth. (The Achilles heel of fundamentalism.)
  3) Applying scientific concepts to the world is like speaking. As you apply words or concepts to novel situations you learn more about the world but also about the concept. What you are actually talking about becomes clearer. An example of this in science is the discovery of Deuterium. Its discoverer (Urey) described it as a new isotope of hydrogen. Frederic Soddy, the discoverer of isotopy opposed this because he originally defined isotopes of elements as chemically inseparable. This wasn’t the case for hydrogen and deuterium. The Royal Society ignored this and the term ‘isotope’ gained a new meaning. It was decided that chemical inseparability was not definitive of isotopy, nuclear charge was. The application of scientific concepts refines and clarifies them. This is why truth is not lasting.

Are these ideas reasonable? Do they withstand an attempt to incorporate ‘reality’ and ‘rationality’ into this conceptual system? What is reality? Do these ideas help resolve the contradiction between my ‘facts’ and my denial that scientific theories are true? Are scientific theories true?

Bullwinkle

[Panos]

It is very interesting the way you elaborated on the notion of truth. If I was asked to do the same, even though I would result to the same conclusions, I would have taken a slightly different path. Let's examine this a little further:

Bullwinkle wrote:

I seem to be asking whether the thing in question has a certain quality.

I am not sure I would associate truth with quality. I would rather say that I ask myself if something is true because I need to know whether I can rely on it. A non-truth is something I cannot use because I don't know it's validity. It feels to me like crossing a river by stepping on the stones on its surface. If a stone is solid I can step on it, otherwise I might fall in the river.

Bullwinkle wrote:

True things seem to become part of us in the sense that they are incorporated into our conceptual framework.

That's what I mean. In order to incorporate the new information one needs to know its worth, in order to trust it enough so that it can be placed on our personal knowledge base. I would say that, considering your first question, I ask myself whether something is true in any kind of circumstances, given that I haven't examined it or concluded upon it in the past.

Bullwinkle wrote:

At this point I feel that I need to put some distance between truth and belief, my thoughts so far seem to make them too synonymous.

Yes and I think they are far apart actually. Belief is based on the emotional world whereas truth to the logical world. Belief is Platonian, logic is Aristotelian. I believe something for a motive different to its truth or validity. I think seeking truth is part of our progress in the world, we evolve through this methodology of assessing and building truths. On the other hand, belief is the phychological background of self confidence. When I believe something, I feel stronger about it, I act stronger about it.

Bullwinkle wrote:

Some thoughts on these ideas:

1) Belief is inherent in truth. (In what sense do you not believe what you claim is true?)
2) Belief doesn’t entail truth. (The Achilles heel of fundamentalism.)
3) Applying scientific concepts to the world is like speaking.

All 3 conclusions seem reasonably fair to me. Yes I think we have a solid base and reality, in the sense of the actuality of here and now, fits very well, I think. Truth is a universal omnipotent, omnipresent reality and reality is a fraction, a small subset of truth. I am not sure what is the diference of rationality with logic and I am even more unsure whether scientific theories are true.

P.S. It took a lot of effort to sidestep the slightly opened door of "religious belief co-existing with doubt". I thought that is a new topic discussion on its own...

[bullwinkle]

"religious belief co-existing with doubt". I thought that is a new topic discussion on its own...

Well, if you'd like to start another topic on the "Philosophy of Religion" forum then I'd be happy to contribute!

It feels to me like crossing a river by stepping on the stones on its surface. If a stone is solid I can step on it, otherwise I might fall in the river.

I think this is a very nice analogy which essentially captures what I was trying to say and I agree with all your comments on truth.

Belief is based on the emotional world whereas truth to the logical world.

This is a very big statement and I have thought a lot about it. My first reaction was that I didn't like it but perhaps at this point I should admit to some of my prejudices. I am pursuing an integrating agenda. I don't like splitting our intellectual faculties up. I like the idea of 'knowing' being an integrated and holistic activity. So because of this I don't like the stark separation of emotional/logical and belief/truth. The next question is: can I back up my prejudice?

You say that truth is based on the logical world. I don't think that this can be correct. Logic is a formal process connecting initial conditions to valid consequences. Logical statements can be traced back to initial premises which are not logically derived and therefore lie outside of the logical system. If logic is also to be true it must be because the initial premises are true and this is not established by logic. I think these axioms are best-guesses, hunches, observations or perhaps 'facts' which must carry a high level of belief in order to have prompted their elaboration into a logical system. So I suppose my first response to your statement is that the truth of the logical world rests on the belief in a set of axioms. It is not logically established.

"Belief is based on the emotional world". Lets take a well known axiom, Euclid's parallel postulate:

Given a line and an external point (a point not on the line), there is exactly one other line (in the same plane) that passes through the external point and is parallel to the given line.

Euclidean geometry was around for a long time as a logical system without us being able to prove that this postulate was true. In the absence of a proof it was believed. Why was this? I think it was unproven and yet believed because it seemed right and it made sense to us. This gives support to your statement that belief is based on the emotional world. If I widen the term 'emotional' to 'feeling' then I think things are believed because they conform to our expectations which are based on an idea of reality that we form through our experience of the world. Because they conform to this idea of reality they 'look' or 'feel' like what we would expect. I suppose we are judging a statement's reality and we are claiming that this is a judgement that we can make. Personally I think we are right to make this claim, I think it is an ability that is required in order for a species to evolve.

I think seeking truth is part of our progress in the world, we evolve through this methodology of assessing and building truths.

This is also part of the reason why I think that we can say that science progresses without measuring it against external criteria.

I seem to be partially agreeing and partially disagreeing with your statement. I think that belief is based on judging things against our idea of what reality is, claiming this ability and following our own judgement. I think this is the point where truth is or isn't claimed. Logic can then build on this ability that we claim for ourselves and show us all the consequences of our claims. If logic shows our claims to be incompatible then we need to think again, work out where we were wrong and discover something new. Logic cannot help us there.

I believe something for a motive different to its truth or validity.

I think we believe something because we think it is real and in so doing we also claim that it is true. I do agree that when you believe something you feel and act more strongly about it but I think that goes back to it becoming part of your interpretative system and as you said, it becomes a safe stepping-stone to stand on. I think this is about commitment. You commit yourself when you believe something. Doubt can be very tiring, possibly because you put a lot of mental effort into finding a satisfactory solution that resolves the doubt.

Truth is a universal omnipotent, omnipresent reality and reality is a fraction, a small subset of truth. I am not sure what is the diference of rationality with logic

I think I see what you mean. Logic would be a subset of rationality I guess. Overall, my system seems to be more hierarchical than yours. Belief underlies my whole system and goes hand in hand with claims of truth. Logic builds from this point and helps to show us the ramifications of our beliefs. Our beliefs do come from feelings but they are not without judgement. Maybe I am saying that our ideas of what is true, and thus science, rely on feeling and judgement in the same way that a coinnoiseur uses their powers of discrimination to choose a good wine. The judgement is real while the standards that the judgements are made against are dictated by our own appetites and sensibilities. I am claiming that these sensibilities are not subjective but are in fact our reliable guides.

I thought again this week about how we've got to this point in our discussion. If you assume that there is a real world beyond our senses, which I do, that world is not directly accessible to us. So if you then want to compare our knowledge with this world to decide if what we know is true then you can't do it and you end up not being able to say that anything is true. I wonder if you can have a binary concept that can only take one value? I don't know. I've never met anybody who doesn't make some claims of truth, so what reality do they claim to be talking about? It must be the world of experience. So by reverting to the world of experience and the common usage of words I can come up with working definitions. Facts represent reality and are true claims, they are representative of reality and are not doubted. They are the things that we believe, depend on and have no reason to doubt. I have claimed that they are universal but not lasting. Reality is the sum total of what we don't doubt and facts are a fraction of this. Rational things are statements that correspond to our concept of reality. So, getting back to the question of whether scientific theories are true. The question changes to one of, are they free from doubt? I think that they rarely are so my answer would be that they aren't true but my reasons for saying this have changed.

The thing about my conceptual scheme is that it works because it is based on the usage of words so it must be based on experience but I still think there is an inaccessible world beyond our senses. So do my definitions talk of the empirical world? Is science then a formal system describing empirical reality? Does its ability to explain the world end at the frontier of living creatures who have the power to initiate chains of consequences? Maybe the scientific world is the world of cause and effect?

Bullwinkle