Misconceiving Truth

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Ginkgo
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Re: Misconceiving Truth

Post by Ginkgo »

cladking wrote:
Ginkgo wrote:cladking

Science does not function through metaphysics, it functions through the scientific method. So yes you are correct when you say you are looking at science through a perspective out side of science. That perspective is a metaphysical perspective.

Metaphysics can use observation to explain the way the world is (metaphysical ontological conclusion) but it can't do experiments to prove these conclusions. Can you come up with an experiment to test the essences of being? Can you come up with an experiment to test a final cause? Can you come up with an experiment to test substance dualism?
Science is founded on metaphysics by definition. It is a very simple metaphysics but it is the way science works and it doesn't work (or at least has not been shown to work) outside of this metaphysics. Science is euclidean geometry and observation > experiment. It is the results of previous experiment. "Scientific method" is certainly an important part of the metaphysics.

Observation and natural logic is most probably a perfectly viable metaphysics. It is the vantage from which I'm trying to see modern science. There is no "experiment" per se at this vantage but I can still step out and perform an experiment at will. I can still apply any knowledge gained to better use this vantage point.

Science was founded on metaphysics, it was called natural science up until about the time of Newton.

Science was once based on Euclidean geometry; modern scientific theories now deal in a variety of non-Euclidean geometries.



Yes, you can do metaphysics as many people do.
Wyman
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Re: Misconceiving Truth

Post by Wyman »

Scientific claims are about posited entities that may or may not exist in the world. The validity of these entities will be confirmed or rejected based on the scientific method. Absolute truths are like any other universal claim to reality. They can never be proved or disproved.
Well put. I would like to assign certain people - a la Bart Simpson's school teacher - to write this 100 times on the blackboard.
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henry quirk
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Post by henry quirk »

Again: not seein' the conundrum.

Again: truth = what is true = what is real = what 'is'.

Facts, facts, and facts.

We arrive at 'fact', at a recognition of what is 'real', at what is 'true', through the on-going exercise of ourselves (we apprehend the world by way of our senses, we interrogate what we apprehend by way of a reasoning brain). We guess at, then winnow down, then conclude, always with the door left open for new apprehensions (leading to new guesses, new winnowings, new conclusions). We extend our senses and our reason by way of machines and keep on with guessing, winnowing, and concluding.

It's in our nature, all this groping around, searching for patterns as we impose our own.

Of course truth will be misidentified, misunderstood, 'misconceived'. This is only a danger if we rest on the falsities.

The larger danger is the step backward: the willful descent into the world of weighing ghost farts and classifying angels into a hierarchy.

Willful stupidity is as large a crime as communitarianism.
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HexHammer
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Re:

Post by HexHammer »

henry quirk wrote:Again: truth = what is true = what is real = what 'is'.

Facts, facts, and facts.
Sometimes truth is very relative and subjective.

What is the name of a city? In danish our capital is København, but that name changes it's spelling in other languages like Copenhagen in english, thus now the truth is bended a bit.

Can a triangle have 3x 90 degree conors? Ordinary people would say no, IDIOT! But they can!

Truth is delusive!
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henry quirk
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Post by henry quirk »

Well, the name of a city is a consensual placeholder ('we agree to call this conglomeration of buildings, and what supports those buildings, a city...and we'll call that city, Cleveland).

The placeholder is just a placeholder, a symbol, for the truth (fact).

And: math is a language, geometry is a language...language describes, stands in for, but is never, the phenomena (fact) observed.

I do agree, "Truth is *delusive!" but only because folks mistake the descriptors for the 'thing' described.









*deluding and elusive...Walt Kelly would be proud
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WanderingLands
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Re: Re:

Post by WanderingLands »

HexHammer wrote:Sometimes truth is very relative and subjective.

What is the name of a city? In danish our capital is København, but that name changes it's spelling in other languages like Copenhagen in english, thus now the truth is bended a bit.

Can a triangle have 3x 90 degree conors? Ordinary people would say no, IDIOT! But they can!

Truth is delusive!
Those two examples you have shown mainly have to do with denying things, and not so much do do with subjectivity. Real "subjectivity" may be with music, or with sometimes dealing with metaphysical questions; however, even that can be curtailed with the use of critical thinking and use of logic, as well as patience in trying to make since of things in the universe. Certainly many people do have different views, but that wouldn't mean that truth is subjective to individuals, as there are many who are indeed simply curious about the world that we live in and are not satisfied with the proposed explanations fed to us by society.
cladking
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Re: Misconceiving Truth

Post by cladking »

Ginkgo wrote:

Science was founded on metaphysics, it was called natural science up until about the time of Newton.

Science was once based on Euclidean geometry; modern scientific theories now deal in a variety of non-Euclidean geometries.
Very little changed except the name from "natural science" to "physics". It did seem that early on there was more emphasis on "applied science"; adapting new knowledge to existing belief and infrastructure.

There are many different geometries used now days but these are invaribly reconverted to euclidean geometry before being implemented or published, I believe. This is primarily for ease of use but all true maths simply reflect natural logic. 2 + 2 = 2 X 2 for all practical purposes in all practical maths.

I suppose your point stands that "euclidean geometry" might no longer be considered part of the metaphysics of science. However, since science's metaphysics includes experimental results it might be legitimate to consider previous metaphysics as relevant to current science.
Wyman
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Re: Misconceiving Truth

Post by Wyman »

There are many different geometries used now days but these are invaribly reconverted to euclidean geometry before being implemented or published, I believe. This is primarily for ease of use but all true maths simply reflect natural logic. 2 + 2 = 2 X 2 for all practical purposes in all practical maths.
You can't convert nonEuclidean geometry into Euclidean. When Hexhammer said that triangles may have three angles all 90 degrees, he is referring to elliptical geometry, I believe (where three 'straight' lines on the surface of a sphere all meet at right angles). You cannot convert that into Euclidean geometry since the two parallel postulates contradict one another. Einstein used nonEuclidean geometry to describe the universe.
cladking
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Re: Re:

Post by cladking »

HexHammer wrote:
henry quirk wrote:Again: truth = what is true = what is real = what 'is'.

Facts, facts, and facts.
Sometimes truth is very relative and subjective.

What is the name of a city? In danish our capital is København, but that name changes it's spelling in other languages like Copenhagen in english, thus now the truth is bended a bit.

Can a triangle have 3x 90 degree conors? Ordinary people would say no, IDIOT! But they can!

Truth is delusive!
Indeed!

Any angle is 90 degrees if seen from the proper perspective.

It is language confusing the issue and forcing a perspective from an infinite distance. This isn't natural to people. Seeing things from the inside is more natural.

Or to express it poetically; maybe we think we know so much more than we really do because when you look at things from so far away you'll only see what you know. So much work is required to see we don't waste our time seeing that which we don't understand.
cladking
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Re:

Post by cladking »

henry quirk wrote:Well, the name of a city is a consensual placeholder ('we agree to call this conglomeration of buildings, and what supports those buildings, a city...and we'll call that city, Cleveland).

The placeholder is just a placeholder, a symbol, for the truth (fact).
Just as you can't step into the same river twice, you can't step into the same city twice.

There is truth but it's at a far more fundamental level than the concerns of man.
cladking
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Re:

Post by cladking »

henry quirk wrote: And: math is a language, geometry is a language...language describes, stands in for, but is never, the phenomena (fact) observed.

I used to believe this.

Now I believe that just as a computer has more in common with a picture of a computer than it has with transistors, diodes, resistors, etc, that computer language is a sort of metaphysical language that operates it. Where once the computer had to be rewired for each process now the language itself effectively rewires it.

This is very similar to the way animal brains operate which have a natural wiring which gives rise to a natural metaphysical language.

The human metaphysical language collapsed and we've been groping for truth ever since.
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HexHammer
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Re:

Post by HexHammer »

henry quirk wrote:Well, the name of a city is a consensual placeholder ('we agree to call this conglomeration of buildings, and what supports those buildings, a city...and we'll call that city, Cleveland).

The placeholder is just a placeholder, a symbol, for the truth (fact).

And: math is a language, geometry is a language...language describes, stands in for, but is never, the phenomena (fact) observed.

I do agree, "Truth is *delusive!" but only because folks mistake the descriptors for the 'thing' described.
Trying to dodge that you are wrong, nice try..
..but you are wrong non the less.
cladking
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Re: Misconceiving Truth

Post by cladking »

Wyman wrote:
There are many different geometries used now days but these are invaribly reconverted to euclidean geometry before being implemented or published, I believe. This is primarily for ease of use but all true maths simply reflect natural logic. 2 + 2 = 2 X 2 for all practical purposes in all practical maths.
You can't convert nonEuclidean geometry into Euclidean. When Hexhammer said that triangles may have three angles all 90 degrees, he is referring to elliptical geometry, I believe (where three 'straight' lines on the surface of a sphere all meet at right angles). You cannot convert that into Euclidean geometry since the two parallel postulates contradict one another. Einstein used nonEuclidean geometry to describe the universe.
Thanks for the explanation. I misunderstood.

If you design a machine through the usage of a non euclidean geometry then before it is built it must be converted to a form that can be understood by the software and machinists who make it. I would say that a triangle in spherical geometry merely appears to have three 90 degree corners. It still has the defining characteristics of a triangle.
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henry quirk
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Post by henry quirk »

Hex,

You say "(I am) wrong non(e) the less"

Care to explain how or why I'm wrong?

##

cladking,

I don't follow.

Can you explain more simply?
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henry quirk
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Post by henry quirk »

"There is truth but it's at a far more fundamental level than the concerns of man."

Yeah, that's kind of my point in this thread.

A fact is a fact independent of me and you.

In my example drawn from Hex's: folks agree to call a collection of buildings and support systems 'city' and they call that particular 'city' 'Cleveland'.

So: what is real in my scenario?

1-Ordered collections of wood, steel, concrete, etc.

2-Folks who ascribe placeholders (and meaning) to those ordered collections of wood, steel, concrete, etc.

'City', 'Cleveland', even the consensual groupings of individual buildings into 'entity', are just symbols, placeholders for observed phenomena (which is, of course, in my scenario, ordered collections of wood, steel, concrete, etc.).

Unless I mistook Hex, he believes, by way of this "What is the name of a city? In danish our capital is København, but that name changes it's spelling in other languages like Copenhagen in english, thus now the truth is bended a bit." that the name is sumthin' more than symbol and that the name affects what’s real in some way.

Sure, placeholders affect perception (or, assessment of perception) but not the fundamental nature of what is perceived.
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