Is R real?

[fast]

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?

No.

 

[Speakpigeon]

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.

Yes, they do. You seem unable to properly make the distinction between what we mean when we say we know something, which is indeed with zero possibility of error, and the fact that we accept we may be mistaken claiming we know something. The concept of knowledge implies absolute certainty and but we can be mistaken or indeed dishonest about our claim to knowledge. We can't know possibly what the facts are and yet be wrong as to the facts. There is zero possibility of that because of the meaning of knowledge. It's the same as a bachelor who can't be married. But you can be wrong as to your claim to knowledge. And if you realise you were wrong as to the fact, you revise any prior belief or claim that you knew the facts. Compare with "belief". You may believe today Trump is a good man. Realising tomorrow he is in fact a bad man won't make you say you never believe he was a good man to begin with (unless you're dishonest).
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

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?

Why should I need to know why I am in no doubt of something? Doubt is just a psychological state and a belief. I may be in no doubt and yet be wrong about it.

That being said, I'm a careful speaker, unlike most of you here, and I feel confident I can rely on being correct as to how the vocabulary is used by most people when they don't tell tales, which they usually do. It's a remarkable fact that we can maintain the meaning of essential words pretty stable even though most people can't make head or tail of what they mean themselves and very seldom even try to speak the truth when they don't choose to lie or dissemble.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

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.

Here you provide me with a good example of how careless people are with words. I didn't say it's impossible to know the physical world. I said we have evidence we can't know it. And that's not even anything particularly original to say. Tell me if you don't have the same evidence as we all do in this respect.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

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.

This is not what Descartes meant with the Cogito and he has been very explicit as to what it meant. He decided he could doubt his own body, and the physical world by implication, but not his own mind. He definitely didn't mean the "I am" of the Cogito with a claim to knowledge about the physical world. By the "I" of the Cogito, he meant the "thinking thing", not Descartes as the human person.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

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?

For example that we believe we are entirely biological organisms and that we can only interact with our environment through a perception system whose processes are entirely unconscious and therefore unknown to us except for the final representations we get within our mind of this environment. We know the representations, not what is represented. That's a fundamental fact about us. And whatever science we can do about our perception system cannot change this fact.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

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.

Believing there's real world containing me is nothing like knowing it.

What we mean by "physical world" isn't just any world out there. It's a specific kind of world. And we don't actually know that such a world exist at all. This is confirmed by the fact that our notion of what the physical world is has evolved really a lot since humanity exists. We've moved from a very naive view of a material world made of earth, water and fire to a very sophisticated scientific representation of the physical world we have today, to the point that many people, not least a few scientists, even dispute the reality of our subjective experience or dismiss it idiotically as "illusion".

I don't need to offer any particular scenario because anything is conceivable as long as it is logical. I can't exclude for example solipsism, the possibility that there would be nothing else but my conscious mind. Or that there are different minds but only minds. I don't even have to try to conceive of a possible world that would be consistent with my subjective experience. There is an infinity of such possible world, and most of them wouldn't even qualify as "physical worlds", i.e. worlds consistently subjected to universal laws.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

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".

Knowledge means zero error, but claiming knowledge may be mistaken, and is mistaken most of the time according to historical record. We all understand that since this is how people speak. People who insists on something else have to be ideological motivated.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

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.

Mercury's orbit says Newton's theory isn't consistent with facts. If a theory isn't consistent with everything we believe beside about reality then we can't exclude anything at all as to future events, which means we know nothing about the physical world.
EB

 

[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?

No.

OK. I claim knowledge. So is what I just did true?

 

[Speakpigeon]

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?

No.

OK. I claim knowledge. So is what I just did true?

Assuming you believe that P and claim knowledge that P, you need to know that Q. Q says that your belief that P is somehow justified. Then you would need to know that P is true. That's where it gets funny. If P happens to be true, you know it's true, and this just because you then have a "justified true belief" and this is deemed to constitute knowledge. But if P is false, then you don't know that P is true and this just because you don't have a justified true belief in this case. The funny thing is that in both cases your belief is the same and your justification is the same whether P is true or not. So, this theory of knowledge requires that the truth of P somehow necessarily aligns with whether your justification for believing P is somehow good enough. However, how do you know that your justification is good enough? Ah, that's the difficult bit because this now requires more knowledge, knowledge that Q, i.e. knowledge that your justification is good enough. So whether you know that P depends on whether you know that Q. Whether you know that Q will in turn inevitably depend on whether you know that R and so on.

I have yet to be explained to me how this could work.

Compare with pain. You know you're pain when you're in pain. You know it's true you're in pain not because of some justification. You just know it. You don't even have to know the word "pain". You don't even have to be human. You don't even have to know you know you're in pain. That's the only kind of knowledge I'm aware that I have.
EB

 

[fast]

[...]because you then have a "justified true belief" and this is deemed to constitute knowledge.

Nope.

 

[Speakpigeon]

[...]because you then have a "justified true belief" and this is deemed to constitute knowledge.

Nope.

Please justify.
EB

 

[Ahab]

Before I go into my beef about Reals, I would like to know what you think of this idea that the set of Real numbers would be a good model for the continuity of space and time.

Thanks.
EB

I would assume not since models can be shown to be wrong. Real numbers can't be shown to be wrong, can they?

Real numbers can and do play an important role in models. However, the failure (or falsity) of a model would in no way affect the real numbers used in it.

 

[steve_bank]

Before I go into my beef about Reals, I would like to know what you think of this idea that the set of Real numbers would be a good model for the continuity of space and time.

Thanks.
EB

I would assume not since models can be shown to be wrong. Real numbers can't be shown to be wrong, can they?

Real numbers can and do play an important role in models. However, the failure (or falsity) of a model would in no way affect the real numbers used in it.

I would agree. Real numbers are a derfinition not subject to falsification.

EB never ending conundrum is trying to reconcile real numbers which are infinite with reality.

 

[untermensche]

Yes, but 1 + 1 = 2 is true sitting in a truck or sanding on the moon...how about that!!!

It's a definitional truth.

"1" and "+" and "=" and "2" are all defined ahead of time.

It is a truth that flows from defining things.

If there are no definitions there are no truths. So you can have human civilizations without mathematics.

It is a truth to something that understands the definitions.

Without the thing that understands there are no truths.

It is not a truth to a fish.

 

[steve_bank]

Yes, but 1 + 1 = 2 is true sitting in a truck or sanding on the moon...how about that!!!

It's a definitional truth.

"1" and "+" and "=" and "2" are all defined ahead of time.

It is a truth that flows from defining things.

If there are no definitions there are no truths. So you can have human civilizations without mathematics.

It is a truth to something that understands the definitions.

Without the thing that understands there are no truths.

It is not a truth to a fish.

True dat. Da whole truth and nuttin' but da truth.

 

[Speakpigeon]

Before I go into my beef about Reals, I would like to know what you think of this idea that the set of Real numbers would be a good model for the continuity of space and time.

Thanks.
EB

I would assume not since models can be shown to be wrong. Real numbers can't be shown to be wrong, can they?

Real numbers can and do play an important role in models. However, the failure (or falsity) of a model would in no way affect the real numbers used in it.

And yet another dude who doesn't speak and/or understand English and/or logic.

Sorry, I'm a very busy guy, so I won't even try to set you right.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

Before I go into my beef about Reals, I would like to know what you think of this idea that the set of Real numbers would be a good model for the continuity of space and time.

Thanks.
EB

I would assume not since models can be shown to be wrong. Real numbers can't be shown to be wrong, can they?

Real numbers can and do play an important role in models. However, the failure (or falsity) of a model would in no way affect the real numbers used in it.

I would agree. Real numbers are a derfinition not subject to falsification.

And that's not the question asked on the OP nor is there any suggestion of that.

EB never ending conundrum is trying to reconcile real numbers which are infinite with reality.

Seems to me it's much too easy for some to say idiotic things not to be tempted.
EB

 

[fast]

[...]because you then have a "justified true belief" and this is deemed to constitute knowledge.

Nope.

Please justify.
EB

The JTB analysis of knowledge does not reveal the sufficient conditions of knowledge.