Is R real?

[Speakpigeon]

Right, but way more work than necessary -- just write in past tense. Fast was sitting in a truck when he wrote that post. Booth shot Lincoln. Mammals evolved from reptiles. Newtonian mechanics mispredicted Mercury's orbit enough for people to detect the error. Enduring truths all, regardless of future refinements to our understanding of physics.

(Or just skip to the end and pick analytic truths. Bachelors are unmarried. P and (if P then Q) imply Q. 1 + 2 = 3.)

Yes, and the truth that if there is no God, it's not true that if I pray my prayer will be answered by a God, and I don't pray, therefore God exists.

So, not all statements that look like analytical truths will be truths.

Still, I agree that mammals evolved from reptiles mispredicted Mercury's orbit.
EB

 

[fast]

Ann says, Pluto used to be a planet. Bob says, no, you mean we used to consider Pluto a planet.

Ann explains her position in that she agrees we used to consider Pluto a planet, but she maintains that it was a planet when we considered it to be a planet and later no longer considered it to be a planet precisely because it stopped being a planet.

Bob says, no no no, that’s not how it was at all. The truth is that Pluto was never a planet at all. We thought we knew, but we were mistaken.

Was Pluto a planet? Not, did we consider it to be; rather, was it?

We consider Mercury to be a planet, and given what we think we know so far, that makes sense, but should Bob’s logic be the better, I smirk in joy for the evening that might come when we learn we so happened to be right all along about Pluto in fact being a planet like we once considered it to be.

No, truth isn’t fleeting, but what we consider to be true does seem to sometimes slip around. Speakpigeon used the word “still” when he questioned whether Mercury was still a planet, and how can saying such a thing not bring back past Pluto conversations? What we consider to be true might change later—and so much for those such enduring truths.

Was Pluto a planet? Oh and by the way, it kills me that even if it should eternally be true that Pluto is a dwarf planet, it’s still not a type of planet, even if that too should also be eternally true ... which goes to show that although “dwarf” has an adjective feel to it, the word isn’t an adjective in the term, “dwarf planet” because it’s a technical term and in its entirety serves as a noun. Our language is so screwy.

 

[fast]

If I say that I am sitting at a desk, that would be a statement about an objective fact and that's the kind of statement we don't really know whether they are true. To make it something we know, you just have to turn it into a statement of subjective fact.

You’re never gonna waver on this, are you? I can perhaps understand having more confidence in what you’re referring to subjective facts, but to me, you appear to have a conception of knowledge that is way too restricting. I know damn well I was in a truck when I made that before-mentioned post, and the simple fact that I could have (logically speaking) been mistaken doesn’t change anything about the truth of my highly justified and highly confident belief.

 

[steve_bank]

Pointing at an object and saying it is a desk can be true or false. I may be pointing at a rock.

Pointing at a number on a piece of paper and saying it is a real number can be true or false. It may be a complex number.

In a general sense R is an object which manifests in our reality, albeit created by humans. If you look up the dictionary definition of object it does not just refer to physical objects like rocks. It is a focal point of attention, and that can be thoughts and numbers.

Segway 9into another thread on whether or not thoughts are real....

 

[fromderinside]

...if we don't have any truths about the physical world, this means we don't know that we won't have any in the future, though to see that happen would require a profound change in our situation, I don't know, something as significant as God coming down to visit us. Rather unlikely.
EB

Just teasing the hoi polloi with that chirp. Sorry it got your attention. I trust it won't be an enduring attention though.

I mean there are so many other knowings falling by the wayside. As to enduring, wasn't it about 100 years ago we began to get the idea that the universe we now live in might be more than our galaxy. And a bit later we began to understand it was expanding and still later we got the idea that maybe it had been expanding more rapidly over the past four or so billion years. Now we're faced with the concept that dark matter and energy might be driving how our universe operates .... Hell it's only been about 30 years since empathy cells were discovered. We still can't agree about whether they are limited to mammals or found beyond that group.

You see where I'm going? Right?

Seems that truths are dying in droves as we 'understand' more about things from our pinpoint view here on the outer parts of the milky way as a life form about midway up the abstraction ladder from quarks. I wonder if these things aren't the result of us having very little access to the information of the world in which we find ourselves at this point in time.

Knowing seems to be an unattainable goal to me.

 

[Speakpigeon]

...if we don't have any truths about the physical world, this means we don't know that we won't have any in the future, though to see that happen would require a profound change in our situation, I don't know, something as significant as God coming down to visit us. Rather unlikely.
EB

Just teasing the hoi polloi with that chirp. Sorry it got your attention. I trust it won't be an enduring attention though.

I mean there are so many other knowings falling by the wayside. As to enduring, wasn't it about 100 years ago we began to get the idea that the universe we now live in might be more than our galaxy. And a bit later we began to understand it was expanding and still later we got the idea that maybe it had been expanding more rapidly over the past four or so billion years. Now we're faced with the concept that dark matter and energy might be driving how our universe operates .... Hell it's only been about 30 years since empathy cells were discovered. We still can't agree about whether they are limited to mammals or found beyond that group.

You see where I'm going? Right?

Seems that truths are dying in droves as we 'understand' more about things from our pinpoint view here on the outer parts of the milky way as a life form about midway up the abstraction ladder from quarks. I wonder if these things aren't the result of us having very little access to the information of the world in which we find ourselves at this point in time.

Knowing seems to be an unattainable goal to me.

Talking to you is like trying to fill a bucket with a big hole at the bottom.

All I need to say is that I already explained. Move you butt, man!
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

If I say that I am sitting at a desk, that would be a statement about an objective fact and that's the kind of statement we don't really know whether they are true. To make it something we know, you just have to turn it into a statement of subjective fact.

You’re never gonna waver on this, are you? I can perhaps understand having more confidence in what you’re referring to subjective facts, but to me, you appear to have a conception of knowledge that is way too restricting.

I'm absolutely open to being convinced but I'm afraid only a logical argument will do.

As to what people mean by "knowledge", I'm in no doubt that they mean the same as me except for a few philosophers who tried to salvage the possibility that we should know some things about the physical world despite evidence to the contrary. This is essentially ideology and this is really bad. Me, I haven't changed anything to the ordinary concept of knowledge. I don't have "a conception of knowledge that is way too restricting", as you put it. I just accept science as our best belief system, and take both science and our ordinary concept of knowledge at face value. And we can't logically one day know a fact and later know we didn't know it. That's really bad logic and contrary to our ordinary concept of knowledge. But I'm open to being convinced. Just explain to me how science could be our best belief and how we could know something about the physical world. It just happens that for a very long time we believed we knew the physical world. It's only recently, with science, that we have now more reasons to believe we now nothing about it. It's no coincidence that Descartes came up with the Cogito and his notion of systematic doubt at the time of Copernic and Galileo. We've grown up.

Being a logical person, I can only believe that I know nothing about the physical world. So, I'm entirely open to the idea that I'm wrong. And I do know things, so I can't deny the possibility of knowledge. I just believe for good reasons it's limited to our subjective experience. It's been my position for the last 14 years or so and I haven't seen any cogent argument showing I was wrong. So, go on, convince me. But, please, not with anything so shamelessly illogical and ideological as JTB.

I know damn well I was in a truck when I made that before-mentioned post, and the simple fact that I could have (logically speaking) been mistaken doesn’t change anything about the truth of my highly justified and highly confident belief.

Sure, I could say the same but I don't for the reasons given. You're free to choose illogicality. You're in good company with the Pope that condemned the work of Copernicus. Except he had an excuse that the science of it was all very new at the time. You don't. You seem to accept science. Well, you must be illogical, then. Try to explain logically how I can know something one day and then later know I didn't know it. Oh, yes, I know, you just have a concept of knowledge that's different from what most people understand. Well, your choice but your conception doesn't explain the difference between the knowledge we do have of our subjective experience and the knowledge you say we have of the physical world. Russell made the distinction. Knowledge by acquaintance and propositional knowledge. The thing is, these two notion have nothing to do with each other. The only thing we know by acquaintance in propositional knowledge is the idea we have of propositions. We don't know whether these propositions are true or false. Kind of weird for a kind of knowledge.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

If you look up the dictionary definition

You're on your way, man. It's a start but keep going.
EB

 

[fast]

And we can't logically one day know a fact and later know we didn't know it.

And another one of my arduously long posts bites the dust. That should bring joy, but let me get at least one thing out the way. I agree with you. We cannot know and then later not know, but we can claim to know and not know; that is not a case of knowing then not knowing; that is a case of being mistaken. Knowledge implies truth, so where there is no truth, there is no knowledge.

 

[fromderinside]

...if we don't have any truths about the physical world, this means we don't know that we won't have any in the future, though to see that happen would require a profound change in our situation, I don't know, something as significant as God coming down to visit us. Rather unlikely.
EB

Just teasing the hoi polloi with that chirp. Sorry it got your attention. I trust it won't be an enduring attention though.

....

I wonder if these things aren't the result of us having very little access to the information of the world in which we find ourselves at this point in time.

Knowing seems to be an unattainable goal to me.

Talking to you is like trying to fill a bucket with a big hole at the bottom.

All I need to say is that I already explained. Move you butt, man!
EB

Yes you did. Unfortunately for you it was my point you explained. Positing a God is evidence we don't know we have a future. Doing so only expresses a hope that one exists.

The only reality that exists is the moment one is in. It neither extends temporally nor spatially beyond what is experienced including what one is associating. If one uses that condition. association, as a starting point then science becomes a potential anchor for providing a consistent explanation for more and more phenomena to which one can associate. Ii is limited by the extent of mindful - One need specify every mind's empericiasm can be causally linked - accumulation of evidence.*

*^{_{mishmash of impure thoughts?}}

 

[Speakpigeon]

And we can't logically one day know a fact and later know we didn't know it.

And another one of my arduously long posts bites the dust. That should bring joy, but let me get at least one thing out the way. I agree with you. We cannot know and then later not know, but we can claim to know and not know; that is not a case of knowing then not knowing; that is a case of being mistaken. Knowledge implies truth, so where there is no truth, there is no knowledge.

So, is your theory to dismiss previous claims to knowledge on the ground that they would be contradicted by any new claim? Or is there some subtle difference that would make past claims wrong and new claims true? Or is there someone who somehow knows which claims are wrong and which are true? Or should we dismiss past claims when we have a new claim just because it's a scientific one even though the past claims so dismissed were also scientific? Sorry, I don't get the logic of this thing.

And of course, believing something that happens to be true isn't knowledge. It's luck.

As to justification, you would have to know that the justification is true, and that would only get you a nice regress to infinity.

We don't need the notion of knowledge to understand why some mechanism or process would be successful in a given environment. The physical world doesn't require knowledge to work as it does. If we are to be understood as a part of it, then we better let go of our claims to knowledge (except to make us look good).
EB

 

[fromderinside]

We don't need the notion of knowledge to understand why some mechanism or process would be successful in a given environment. The physical world doesn't require knowledge to work as it does. If we are to be understood as a part of it, then we better let go of our claims to knowledge (except to make us look good).
EB

I agree. Looking good will probably get in the way of extending knowledge at some point, perhaps every point.

 

[fast]

This post ignores Gettier-type issues:

Believing P is half the battle. But, it’s a far cry from winning the war. A lot of people will say they know some things without any justification, yet even if what they say is true, without strong justification for their true beliefs, they don’t actually know what they say they do, for all three necessary conditions haven’t been met.

Again, believing P is half the battle. If they are highly justified in their belief, it’s at that juncture they may permissibly announce knowledge—this assumes no countervailing evidence that weakens the justification.

Take notice that the person may or may not truly know P is true, but it’s okay to claim knowledge. That doesn’t mean they aren’t mistaken; they might be; when they’re not mistaken, they know. Again, this excludes Gettier issues.

 

[Speakpigeon]

We don't need the notion of knowledge to understand why some mechanism or process would be successful in a given environment. The physical world doesn't require knowledge to work as it does. If we are to be understood as a part of it, then we better let go of our claims to knowledge (except to make us look good).
EB

I agree. Looking good will probably get in the way of extending knowledge at some point, perhaps every point.

I am confortable with the idea that broadly speaking we're doing something which although it isn't knowledge per se does get us enough of whatever we strive to get within whatever real world there is in actual fact that it is reasonable that we call it knowledge on pragmatic grounds. Ideas have to be put into perspective. What's cause for concern, though, and justifies reminding ourselves we are not capable of knowledge of the physical world is when people claim knowledge in support of their ideology. Something sciency types like you do a lot.
EB

 

[fast]

We are capable of knowledge of the physical world. Pointing out that I might be mistaken whenever I purport to know something doesn’t demonstate lack of knowledge; it shows the possibility of mistake. The truth condition of knowledge isn’t a declaration that disallows the possibility of mistake—but rather the actuality of mistake.

bT & jT

A belief that some P is true and good justification that P is true is all it takes to acceptably claim knowledge. It’s in only those instances where our justified belief is true that our claim of knowledge is accurate.

 

[Bomb#20]

So you have an enduring example of a truth? I think we need an example for the construct to survive.

Sorry I got too late to be first to satisfy your thirst for philosophical enlightenment.

I'm not as optimistic about truth as fast and Bomb#20. I wouldn't give the claim that I am sitting at my desk as an example of truth, let alone an "enduring truth". However, what's the fuss about enduring? A truth is no more a truth for being enduring. You just seem to be confused by some ideological motivations that hardcore sciency types have the secret.

A truth is a statement of fact that is true of some fact. There is a class of statements that can do the job. For example, that you feel tired when you feel tired. That you are in pain when you are in pain. These things are really very important to each of us and that's why we tend to favour that kind of truths. These are all subjective truths. If I say that I am sitting at a desk, that would be a statement about an objective fact and that's the kind of statement we don't really know whether they are true.

You seem to have changed the subject there. Fromderinside was asking for an example of a truth, not an example of a truth we know. He and fast and I were talking ontology; you're wandering off into epistemology. Mammals evolved from reptiles even when we don't know it. That mammals evolved from reptiles was already a truth before there were even any mammals smart enough to know the difference between a mammal and a reptile.

To make it something we know, you just have to turn it into a statement of subjective fact. If I say I have the impression I'm sitting at my desk then it will be true regardless of your hardcore sciency type scepticism. But we will stop knowing it to be true immediately, once the event will be in the past, just because we don't know the past, not even whether what we remember of our past subjective impression is true. Yet, you can again make it true: I have the impression that I remember Johnny Halliday. Well, I definitely do so that's a true statement, irrespective of what you think. The bad news is that we don't actually know any truths about the physical world, which is why even scientists have sometimes shamelessly to recant their belief system.

Who you calling "we", Kemosabe? Maybe you really don't know any truths about the physical world (hey, I'm not your psychiatrist.) I do.

Still, if we don't have any truths about the physical world, this means we don't know that we won't have any in the future, though to see that happen would require a profound change in our situation, I don't know, something as significant as God coming down to visit us. Rather unlikely.
EB

Not seeing how God coming for a visit would help you with this. But I suspect you already know quite a few truths about the physical world. I suspect you know enough to get you convicted if you lie to a cop, and you get charged with lying to a cop, and then your only defense is "I didn't know what I said to him was false because it was about the physical world and I don't know anything about the physical world." But you seem to be using "know" to mean metaphysical certainty, 0% probability of error. Normal English speakers don't use "know" that way.

I'm absolutely open to being convinced but I'm afraid only a logical argument will do.

As to what people mean by "knowledge", I'm in no doubt that they mean the same as me except for a few philosophers

Why are you in no doubt about this? Whether other people mean what you mean is a fact about the physical world. According to you you can't know such things. So what accounts for your lack of doubt?

who tried to salvage the possibility that we should know some things about the physical world despite evidence to the contrary.

What evidence is there that it's impossible for us to know some things about the physical world? You haven't offered us any.

This is essentially ideology and this is really bad.

That's an invective, not evidence.

Me, I haven't changed anything to the ordinary concept of knowledge. I don't have "a conception of knowledge that is way too restricting", as you put it. I just accept science as our best belief system, and take both science and our ordinary concept of knowledge at face value. And we can't logically one day know a fact and later know we didn't know it. That's really bad logic and contrary to our ordinary concept of knowledge.

True, but our knowing some things about the physical world in no way entails any such sequence of events.

But I'm open to being convinced. Just explain to me how science could be our best belief and how we could know something about the physical world.

Piece of cake. I know for a fact that the physical world contains (metaphorical) vats. (Even going by your extreme 0% chance of error standard.) I've seen vats. Of course, my perception of them might have been an illusion artificially implanted by Descartes' evil genius, feeding carefully constructed vat impressions into my neurons, trapped in his Evil Overlord lair, where he's storing me as a brain in a vat.

Or to put it in non-metaphorical terms, I know the physical universe contains a simulation. Either a simulation I think I've experienced -- for instance, one I think I've personally written and executed -- or else a simulation of them.

Finding certain knowledge of the physical world requires nothing more than considering possible scenarios where what we're experiencing is illusory, and identifying propositions that remain true even if one of those scenarios is really going on.

It just happens that for a very long time we believed we knew the physical world. It's only recently, with science, that we have now more reasons to believe we now nothing about it.

Such as?

It's no coincidence that Descartes came up with the Cogito and his notion of systematic doubt at the time of Copernic and Galileo. We've grown up.

If you recall, the cogito was not "I think, therefore I know nothing about the physical world." It was "I think, therefore I am." Systematic doubt leads to the conclusion that I do know something about the physical world. Specifically, "I am". The physical world contains me.

Being a logical person, I can only believe that I know nothing about the physical world. So, I'm entirely open to the idea that I'm wrong. And I do know things, so I can't deny the possibility of knowledge. I just believe for good reasons it's limited to our subjective experience. It's been my position for the last 14 years or so and I haven't seen any cogent argument showing I was wrong. So, go on, convince me.

You stipulate that you do know things, in your subjective experience. Therefore you think. Therefore you are. Being a logical person, by all means, please propose some hypothetical scenario, some possible world, that's consistent with you thinking and that does not involve a physical world containing you. If you exist in all possible worlds in which you think, that is sufficient for you to know that regardless of which one is the real world, the real world contains you.

But, please, not with anything so shamelessly illogical and ideological as JTB.

That's invective again. JTB isn't perfect, but it's a decent effort at coming up with an approximation of what normal English speakers typically mean by "know". Its failings are no reason to abuse it -- practically all definitions are approximations. A (non-stipulative) definition of a word is a scientific theory in the field of linguistics. It's a model of a physical phenomenon, in this case the psychology of some subset of humans. Scientific theories are rarely exactly correct -- they're usually simplifications of a more complex reality. We generally take that into account and "grade on the curve". To be a decent theory a theory doesn't need to be exactly correct; it just needs to be closer to the truth than competing theories. And empirically, JTB appears to be a more accurate theory of the psychology of typical English speakers than the competing theory that "know" means "believe with a zero percent probability of being mistaken".

Try to explain logically how I can know something one day and then later know I didn't know it.

Making up bogus implications of the other person's position and demanding that he prove them is not a logical way to resolve disagreements. Where the bejesus did fast ever claim you can know something one day and then later know you didn't know it?

Oh, yes, I know, you just have a concept of knowledge that's different from what most people understand.

Don't put words in his mouth. Fast appears to be making a more serious effort to conform his usage to most people's understanding than you are.

 

[Speakpigeon]

We are capable of knowledge of the physical world. Pointing out that I might be mistaken whenever I purport to know something doesn’t demonstate lack of knowledge; it shows the possibility of mistake. The truth condition of knowledge isn’t a declaration that disallows the possibility of mistake—but rather the actuality of mistake.

bT & jT

A belief that some P is true and good justification that P is true is all it takes to acceptably claim knowledge. It’s in only those instances where our justified belief is true that our claim of knowledge is accurate.

I guess you can always assert this for all its worth. Seems to me that's all you can do and that's al you ever did. Something else would be to justify properly that it is more than just a metaphysical pie in our epistemological sky. There is nothing necessary in this theory of knowledge. You believe that P, you believe that Q, and you believe that R, which says Q is a good justification of why you would know that P, therefore you feel entitled to claim you know that P. You haven't explained how you would know that Q, or why that would be enough of a justification. As I said earlier, this would only get you a regress to infinity. You have your metaphysical pie in the sky and all you can do still is claim you know that P, that Q and whatever else, and i still see no good reason to believe you because I also believe things myself that contradict your Ps and Qs. Who would be right? What's the use of saying you know something if it's anybody's guess whether this is true or not. What kind of knowledge is it that you only believe what you're suppose to know and where what you know would remain for ever a metaphysical truth? You still haven't explained why you would know more than Newton did. Come to think of it, you have always only repeated the same JTB mantra. You can't disprove it and it's soothing to believe it's true, so you go for it. Feels good?
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

You seem to have changed the subject there.

I never changed the story. I have made my semantic of truth clear enough here in response to BWE earlier in this thread:

The question of whether models are true or false is distinct from and independent from (the reverse is not true) the question of whether mathematical abstractions are real. You are effectively conflating, as indeed many people do, the epistemological question of the truth of an abstract model with the ontological question whether the model is real, i.e. whether whatever is represented by the model has somehow the same essence as the model. A model need not be real in this sense, or "essentially true", i.e. true in essence, or "fully equivalent" as you put it, in order to be true simpliciter.

On the other hand, you sure are taking your own assumptions as self-evident truths.

Fromderinside was asking for an example of a truth, not an example of a truth we know. He and fast and I were talking ontology; you're wandering off into epistemology. Mammals evolved from reptiles even when we don't know it. That mammals evolved from reptiles was already a truth before there were even any mammals smart enough to know the difference between a mammal and a reptile.

Sorry, I'm not interested in using the word "true" in lieu of the perfectly good word "real". What's wrong with the word "real"? Is it too cheap for your standing? Truth in the sense you suggest is typical of metaphysical musing. I don't do metaphysical truth.

I'm only using the word 'truth" according to this definition:

a. Conformity to fact or actuality: Does this story have any truth?

Oh, and this one, too. See? I didn't change the subject.

true
adj. 1. a. Consistent with fact or reality

The way you are suggesting we use the word "truth", I don't see how our debate here about whether there are truths could possibly make sense. It would be like asking whether there is a reality. Sorry, not for me.
EB

 

[fast]

Although I haven’t spoke on this, I’ve been wondering about something.

In short, P is “Newton models are true.” or some such otherwise worded.

You’ve offered “true” as meaning consistent with fact or reality.

Given that, I’m inclined to say P is true.

There is not an exact match in every possible instance, but in many possible instances there are exact matches.

 

[fromderinside]

If we are right about energy and matter, particles and waves, as we seem to be demonstrating with our current understanding of physics does it matter that we don't know whether those are true and valid universally for us to claim knowledge?