My BCC Thoughts: On Faith and Choice

Posted on by

There is an interesting post at BCC today called “On Faith and Choice.” The thing I find most interesting about it is that I feel like I wrote it in another life or something. It just sounds too much like me.

Though the post doesn’t really make any specific point (the author notes this), let me see if I can make a related point.

I do believe that faith and choice are universal. We all do both — and we all do both in large measures, though not necessarily in the same way or even in the same amounts over the same things.

I seem to be a very natural skeptic. I joke that even legitimate prescription drugs won’t work on me because of the nocebo effect. Luckily I am not a cynic, however (though after this post you’ll wonder if that’s true or not!)

Not all of us have the same capacity for spirituality nor the same capacity for belief in a spiritual world. Sam (the posts author) points to the very same D&C passage I use to talk about this. We don’t come to earth with the same spiritual strengths and gifts.

We do, however, all have a capacity to improve our spirituality — that is to say, we are all spiritual to some degree.

Ever since joining Mormon blogs I’ve heard numerous people claim that they really had no choice but to disbelieve based on looking at the evidence. I think I understand what they mean here and I don’t want to downplay their pain of loss of faith — having gone through that myself — but I really honestly don’t believe that they could possibly be literally correct when they say this. I think what they really mean is something more like “I’ve lost so much faith that there isn’t much here for me any more” or “I don’t really want to chose belief given what I know believe.” Or perhaps even “I don’t know how to go about rebuilding my lost faith.” (Or maybe even “I’m more comfortable having faith in X rather than Y.”)

The reason I believe they can’t be literally correct is because I’m convinced that all human beings are positively wired for faith in certain ways that are deeply meaningful to us — despite the fact that our current best science seems to undermine all of them. A few examples:

  1. Belief in objective morality that we are all subject to and have a duty to submit our own personal preferences to. [1]
  2. Belief in the possibility of real (and permanent) moral progress and a better future.
  3. Belief in “free will” that makes a “personal choice” different from one’s “nature.”
  4. Belief in “immortality” through being remembered for making that better future (or perhaps “immortality” through your work persisting in that better future.)
  5. Belief in the special moral value of “Truth” — and that the acceptance of truth is always preferable to a falsehood.Belief
  6. Life has meaning and purpose

The above items are very nearly universally believed yet none of them have — as far as I can tell — even the slightest scientific support within our current best scientific theories.

I always get a bit of a giggle when people start talking about Gould’s “non-overlapping magisterial” that some intellectuals so strongly hold to. The idea is supposed to be that science is about the physical world and tells us nothing about important human concerns like morality, spirituality, and ethics while religion tells us nothing about the physical world (per se) but is how we develop our morality, spirituality, and ethics.

Now don’t get me wrong — I like Gould’s idea from a utilitarian standpoint. But it is just obviously not true, unfortunately. Our current science does tell us all sorts of things about morality, spirituality, and ethics. For example, our current best scientific theories claim:

  1. Objective morality has no place in the physical world (i.e. you can’t get “ought” from “is.”) But that is a good thing that evolution built this little delusion of the existence of moral facts and objective morality into our heads or we’d have been unable to build societies.
  2. The second law of thermodynamics tells us that our future is bleak beyond comprehension. The only reason we can build a better future right now — very temporarily– is because the second law hasn’t truly reared its ugly head yet. But when it does, the greater our civilization becomes, the harder it will fall and the more lives it will destroy. In fact, given the exponential growth of life, the best assumption is that far more people will live horribly unthinkable lives than those of us lucky ones that live so early on in the history of the universe. (See the Michael Shemer quote in this post.)
  3. We are all just chemicals that quite literally just follow the laws of physics. We may be a mixture of laws and randomness at best. So there is, in fact, no difference at all between “one’s nature” and “choosing.” If someone doesn’t change by the time they die, there is a very real sense in which they quite literally couldn’t change.
  4. Because of #2 above, there is no such thing as “immortality” period. Even if you are remembered directly for a trillion years, a trillion is infinitely more approximately zero than it is approximately infinity.
  5. Truth has no special moral value. There is a good reason why evolution endowed us with all sorts of false intuitions and beliefs, like all of the above items — it’s because there are many cases where falsehoods are better than truths. In fact, if a human being is wired to see things too realistically we stamp various labels of mental illness on them. Therefore, belief in the special moral value of “Truth” — and that the acceptance of truth is always preferable to a falsehood — is simply not true at all. The best we can say is that statistically truth is better than error. But there are numerous exceptions.
  6. The purpose of life is to replicate genes. There is no purpose of replicating genes. It’s just a funny side effect of the laws of physics mixed with a great deal of chance.

Now believe me, I don’t believe a single one of the above. But they are all cases of taking science to its logical conclusions. This is the truth about how our current best science describes our reality. So the problem isn’t that science says nothing about things like morality, spirituality, and ethics, it’s that the answers it gives us are so completely unacceptable that no healthy human being could ever accept them. We are right to buck the scientific worldview on these matters!

I confess, I have yet to meet even a single human being that actually takes science to its (current) logical conclusions. And those that claim they do are simply being delusional. But if science is in fact the final description of reality, then that’s a good thing that they are delusional!

We all have chosen to make various sorts of leaps of faith that create a view of reality that is in part at odds with our current wholly materialistic scientific theories. We ALL have already done so many many times.

Science — as much as I love it — does not draw a positive world picture just yet. I believe science eventually will draw a more positive picture of reality, but I believe that as a faith-based choice, not because science in any way currently insists on that.

So, yes, we are all capable of making belief and faith as a choice — because everyone you have met this side of asylum walls already has done so more than once throughout their lives.

Notes

[1] Objective morality. Yes, “objective.” Perhaps, in a nod to Jeff G, morality is in fact not “objective” but rather “universal.” But the way we experience it psychologically is without a doubt “objective.” Studies show, for example, that unless someone has been specially trained religiously otherwise, if asked if God can decide what is right and wrong even children don’t believe that he can. In other words, we seem to be genetically wired to see morality as literally an object outside ourselves. We feel that “moral facts” exist objectively. Of course, that ‘wiring’ could easily be wrong and there is no particularly reason to believe it is correct. Evolution endowed us with all sorts of false intuitions. So Jeff G’s views on morality might well be the correct ones. (I admit I do find them sort of appealing.) But that is my point — human intuitions about morality are not necessarily the same as true morality.

32 thoughts on “My BCC Thoughts: On Faith and Choice”

  2. “All truth is independent in that sphere in which God has placed it, to act for itself, as all intelligence also; otherwise there is no existence.”

    Does this scripture apply to the discussion on objective/universal moralily? If so, how so?

  4. Though immorality may fit, I think he meant immortality in the places he put it, i.e., according to science the universe will collapse on itself ending all life.

  6. Joel, that scripture is why I feel science and religion must eventually meet up.

    Pat, “best scientific theories” means the theories we currently use that haven’t been superseded yet. The classic example is general relativity vs. Newtonian physics. Newtonian physics is still used, but its well known that it’s been superseded. Social science theories are much shakier than this and don’t as often ‘supersede’ each other in such a clean fashion. But even science like psychology has done much that falls into such categories — such as studies of the brain and its chemistry, for example. There is a blurry line between soft and hard sciences.

    But in any case, the concept that at least some of our theories are demonstrably better than others is certainly true. And scientific theories die out on a regular basis throughout history because of that.

  7. There are a couple of places that I get off the boat here…. or at least want to push back a bit.

    Regarding objective morality, I don’t necessarily want to nitpick the definition of objectivity again. Rather, I want to ask what the difference is between objective morality and simply not having evolved or established limitations to a set of rules? There are two sets of cognitive tools that have to be put and kept in place here: the rule and the boundaries to the rule.

    Speaking of evolution, the whole point is that no rules are really universal at the level you are discussing. All of the rules you insist are universal had to come about bit by bit within some particular context until they (possibly) became universal…. but becoming universal isn’t really universal is it? This may seem like nitpicking, but it isn’t, since in many cases the interpretation that we literate, 21st century thinkers bring to those rules did not evolve until three or four hundred years ago.

    I also strongly object to the claim that science says any of the things that you say it does. There is no way that empirical science could ever say that we are “just” anything, let alone chemicals. All science does is come up with useful models by which we might accomplish certain tasks and nothing more.

    Your vision of science is very much the one attacked by John Dewey who accused us modern of treating scientists as modern priests – the guardians of Truth with a capital T which we are under some deep obligation to accept in our lives. This model holds that scientists discover Truth, and then, as a matter of separate and independent fact, we ought to believe Truth. Thus, we ought to believe scientists to the exclusion of all naysayers since it is they that are the true guardians of Truth. Bullocks.

    Truth just is what we ought to believe is the same sense that Moral Goodness just is what we ought to do. There is nothing deeper to it. Thus, if would only take scientists off the pedestal that we tend to place them on, we can realize that they are nothing but the R&D department for ways in which we live our lives. They offer us new conceptual tools which may, at times, be useful to accomplishing certain things and coping with the world in new and exciting ways, but nothing deeper or more religiously binding than that.

  8. Jeff, I so wish I had more free time to delve into your very interesting point of view (even if I don’t agree with it.) So thank you for commenting.

    I think we might be talking past each other on some of the point this time.

    For example, your three paragraphs, would a fair summary be: “How can it be possible for evolution to come up with any sort of universal morality and isn’t that a contradiction then?” If so, that’s what I’m saying too. We are agreeing.

    “I also strongly object to the claim that science says any of the things that you say it does”

    Honestly, this is the one I wish I could spend more time on. I feel that my point of view handles this far more elegantly than you realize. HOWEVER, the difficulty here is that I have to take this two ways holding two different points of view in my mind at one time:

    First, consider this: “Your vision of science is very much the one attacked by John Dewey who accused us modern of treating scientists as modern priests – the guardians of Truth with a capital T which we are under some deep obligation to accept in our lives.”

    BUT WAIT! You need to make a separation between my point of view and the fact that I’m arguing that people that DO take that point of view that you just summarized actually must come to grips with that point of view’s failures that I just summarized. A point of view that treats science as Truth with a capital T must explain why — given that that view, when taken to its logical conclusions as per my second list — should be considered Truth with a capital T at all! Science, when treated as Truth! is NOT a very friendly or awe inspiring worldview at all. My whole point is that people that treat it that way are delusional because they only think they treat it that way. They really don’t. They are secretly adding in various non-scientific beliefs to supplement the failures of a view of science as Truth.

    Having said that, my own point of view, being Popperian does NOT take “truth” to be “Truth.” And yet it still accepts the idea that scientific theories can be taken to logical conclusions. In short, I’m claiming that Dewey’s attacks were NOT on my point of view at all and you are simply confusing two points of view that have only surface similarities.

    I realize you’ve said you really struggle with how I can say that and I just don’t have time right now to explain it as its basically to explain all of Karl Popper’s theories in depth. But I do think this is something your point of view must somehow deal with. For example, your evolution argument above is a perfect example of how we CAN take scientific theories to logical conclusions. And, as you are arguing (I believe anyhow), evolution, when taken to its logical conclusions, undermines the idea of universal or objective morality. And you’re right, it does.

    Bear in mind that even from within *your* point of view “science” is just one possible source of truth. You (even within your point of view) can thus take my argument as saying “okay, so let’s take that point of view seriously and see what happens.” And the conclusion is NOT good at all. This means that the view of and science as being truth with a capital T is a self undermining position right now. And it very much is.

    Okay, two points:

    “There is no way that empirical science could ever say that we are “just” anything, let alone chemicals.”

    Okay, but that isn’t the case. Our current science DOES posit that we are just chemicals and studies us as if we are. That’s what science (i.e. our current scientific theories) currently are. Now I admit that science can’t prove that to be the case, is making assumptions it can’t prove, and I admit that I believe that ultimately it will not be true. But the idea that science does not start with that assumption as a fundamental part of its theories (at least right now) is simply not true. Period. You are mistaken here. I think what you really meant to say here was that you feel science is wrong on this point (I agree) and that there is no reason to only look at science’s point of view on this subject (I agree.) In other words, I think you really mean “there is no reason to take science seriously on their current theoretical assumptions that our bodies are just a bunch of chemicals.” But *certainly* that is the current theoretical assumption on which all our biological sciences are built.

    “All science does is come up with useful models by which we might accomplish certain tasks and nothing more.”

    Ah… the point we keep disagreeing on.

    Let me tackle this a different way. I am not convinced of that. You haven’t really made an attempt as of yet to explain to me why you believe that. And I would hope you can see why I’d be naturally skeptical of that position.

    I mean honestly how many people have you met in your life, Jeff, that honestly believe that science is not finding a true correspondence — to some degree, however approximately — to reality? Your putting that statement out there, but I think you’ve vastly underestimated how difficult it is to believe that.

    Now maybe you’re right. I suppose I haven’t entirely thrown your idea out here. I have to confess, if you are right, it would sort of give me a little thrill to find something that is so widely believed to be true turn out to be false.

    But you’re WAY off from actually convincing me of that position and frankly I feel that you should be able to see (especially given your background) why it would be so difficult for me to accept that.

    You have, in the past, sent me links to read. i.e. your position probably requires considerable argument. And I confess, I haven’t always read your links (not because I’m not interested… just life gets in the way sometimes.) So you’ve got a long way to go to even just help me understand how it is even POSSIBLE for science to not be finding some approximation of reality.

    At a minimum — never mind that I’m actually studied on this subject, aka I’ve read a lot of Popper — you’re asking me to believe something that is wholly counter intuitive. (Granted, there are all sorts of intuitions that are wrong… My only point here is that my skepticism is totally completely natural here.)

    So you shouldn’t be just saying a line like that. You should be pointing me to towards how you are deriving that idea.

  9. Whew! Long response. I’m busy at work, so I’ll do my best to keep things short (actually the short and succinct posts take more time for me).

    “For example, your three paragraphs, would a fair summary be: “How can it be possible for evolution to come up with any sort of universal morality and isn’t that a contradiction then?” If so, that’s what I’m saying too. We are agreeing.”

    That’s not what I meant. My point is that is the rule and the boundaries to that rule are two different things that need to evolve, and especially if the boundaries to the rule are built into the environment rather than the society, then the evolution of rules that appear objective and without boundaries (in the relevant sense) is actually quite easy…. too easy. This is why all societies believe their rules to be universal: they’ve never had a good use for boundaries to those rules.

    “Our current science DOES posit that we are just chemicals and studies us as if we are.”

    If that were the case, then they would be flat out wrong. And I’m not talking about proof or not-yet falsified or some such nonsense. Let’s just say that they did have proof for their models and that it is never falsified. It is true that we CAN approach human beings with a model that says that are nothing but chemicals in motion. We absolutely can do this and it works well for various purposes within various contexts. But science has not and cannot show that we could not approach human beings with some other model, nor has it shown that we MUST approach them with their “proven” chemical model. (This is why falsificationism is totally bogus, as is any supposed distinction between hard and soft sciences.)

    Indeed, our entire jurisprudence system insists that we do not take human beings as nothing more than chemicals and science doesn’t claim to refute it. Yes, natural science embraces naturalistic assumptions within all their models, but so what? That does nothing to establish that we are under any obligation to use their models to the exclusion of all others when interacting with people.

    “And I would hope you can see why I’d be naturally skeptical of that position.”

    Not really, no. If we accept that our beliefs and theories are simply mental tools for coping with our social environment, fully continuous with the behavior of any other non-human animal, then we have no alternative. The only way in which the correspondence theory of truth makes any sense is if “correspondence to” simply means “isomorphic with”… but there are lot’s of things that might be isomorphic with some parts of the world. If anything were perfectly isomorphic with something else, then it wouldn’t be correspondence at all – it would be one and the same thing that is isomorphic with itself. Thus, out of the infinite isomorphisms that we have to choose from, we, just like every animals, embrace those which best serve our purposes. Science is no different, if only because there is no alternative. The idea that we are trying to discover the categories and definitions correspond to those that are already somehow pre-built into nature is, especially from a naturalistic/scientific perspective, metaphysically exotic to say the least. Indeed, since my pragmatic model of science is empirically indistinguishable from a correspondence model (and it most definitely is), and if mine is more parsimonious than theirs (and it is), then by what reason could a scientist ever reject my view of what they’re doing? (My model would say that they are using a model of science that serves their interests, but this is the very model that they’re arguing against!)

    “I mean honestly how many people have you met in your life, Jeff, that honestly believe that science is not finding a true correspondence — to some degree, however approximately — to reality?”

    Several, actually. The fact is that 95% of people don’t think anything about it, and simply use the language that the scientists themselves have taught them to use in school. Scientists, you’re right, do tend overwhelmingly toward the correspondence model, if only because they have an incentive to do so. To be honest, however, 90% of scientists think too much on the subject either. After all, normal science is almost defined by its lack of reflexivity. There are, however, a significant number of non-natural-science intellectuals who – having been influenced by Wittgenstein, Kuhn, Pragmatists, etc. – reject the correspondence model.

    “So you’ve got a long way to go to even just help me understand how it is even POSSIBLE for science to not be finding some approximation of reality.”

    What is the difference between being able to accurately predict outcomes at a really small, fine-tuned levels and approximating reality? I fully endorse the former (as, I assume, do you), but I simply deny that going even further to insisting on the latter is 1) scientifically unjustifiable and 2) pointless. Why would we ever believe that there is one uniquely right way of categorizing, defining and measuring the world – a way that we could call “reality as it ‘really’ is”? This extra move is exactly the way in which we treat scientists as priests of the modern age.

    To summarize: Of course there is a world out there and scientists are constantly carving out new ways for us to approach, cope with, construe, measure and predict our interactions with the world. But to think that they actually do more than this, that they are in some sense in touch with or have access to some unique and exclusive way in which the world must be approached, coped with, construed, measured and predicted – a way of seeing not just the world but Truth or “reality as it really is” – is totally unsupported. That self-conception of science began as natural scientists (such as Galileo) fought to come out from under the control of the church and it continues today in the form of the science wars and culture wars. In other words, that totally unsupported model of science has nothing but social effects – effects that we ought to be somewhat suspicious of.

  10. My blogging has slowed down as of late precisely because I am trying to put together a book that explains my views regarding truth, science and evolution. I hope to have a first draft done by the end of the year at which point I will definitely want you to take a look at it and rip it to shreds. Hopefully it will be a nice distillation of all those books I’ve recommended so you won’t have to waste your time with them. 😉

  11. Well, I was trying to help you understand why your belief of a non-correspondence between science theories and reality needs more explanation for me by helping you see that my confusion is probably extremely common and completely normal. And certainly that is the case. Even if you know ‘several’ people that feel they can make sense of it, even you admit that the vast majority of people would feel otherwise. Even if the reason that is the case is due to the psychological explanation you suggest – that they are merely believing scientists uncritically – that doesn’t change the fact that the vast majority of people would be just like me – perplexed and confused at your point of view.

    You said you couldn’t understand why this wasn’t obvious to me. Well, it isn’t. I am not sure what else to tell you. I honestly can’t make sense of your position at all. I can’t begin to figure out how to wrap my head around a non-correspondence view of explanations of any kind – scientific or not.

    To me, this is pretty simple. Science is an attempt to explain. It starts with pure conjecture then tests itself against reality in some way. That is true not just of science but of ALL types of theories and explanations. So science is not a privileged type of explanation compared to other types of explanation (justice in courts, history, scholarship, religious explanations, etc.) Science is just a type of explanation, nothing more. (In fact, I don’t buy into the idea that there are hard clear boundaries between science and those other types of explanations, though for the sake of utility, there are fuzzy boundaries between them that generally work quite well. Most of us can easily tell the difference between a scientific theory and a theory about whether or not OJ murdered his wife.)

    Now explanation are always conjectures, at least at first, and so do not prove anything ever. There is nothing in science that suggests it should be THE source of truth and there is nothing in anything I’ve ever written that suggests that either.

    But we often are able to test explanations and thereby determine which are better and which are worse. The reason this works is because reality is something specific and therefore explanations that are a close match to reality fare better when tested against reality (via, say observational facts, perhaps, though there are many many ways in which we can test explanations).

    Notice the parsimony of my view. It treats science the same as any other type of explanation. Completely parsimonious, in fact.
    So I try to make sense of any concept of “non-correspondence” at all in, say, history. Let’s take the idea that George Washington is a great non-corresponding explanation for why the United States exists, but that we shouldn’t really seriously consider that he’s a real person. Poppycock and balderdash!

    Now maybe you’re going to tell me that for some reason you feel scientific explanations should be treated *differently* than historical explanations and theories — like the theory of the existence of George Washington, say. Maybe you believe historical explanations *do* correspond to reality but scientific ones do not. But you have yet to even start to explain why that would be the case. So you should not yet be expecting me to understand your point of view yet until you either
    a) explain why you think historical explanations and theories (or any sort of explanation that is non-scientific) are all correspondence based and yet science isn’t, or
    b) you need to help me understand how the theory of George Washington is itself non-correspondence based when it seems to me that its precisely correspondence based.

    We believe in the theory of the existence of George Washington precisely because that theory fits the historical evidence available the best right now. We can never be completely sure George Washington did exist, but an alternative explanation really doesn’t exist right now that allows us to explain the historical evidence without first positing the existence of George Washington as an actual historical person that used to live. So the “theory of George Washington being a real person” is the “winning” theory right now precisely because it explains reality the best compared to all other competing theories. And presumably the reason (though it’s impossible to ever know this with certainty) that this theory fits the observable facts the best is probably because George Washington did in fact exist. In other words, the theory is the best because it fits reality the best. That is to say, it corresponds to reality.

    How would I even begin to start to make sense of a non-correspondence view of the theory of George Washington? What does “a non-correspondence view of the theory of George Washington” even mean? I haven’t the foggiest idea.

    In short, I have no idea whatsoever how to make sense of the idea of a non-correspondence based explanation of any sort and your arguments for parsimony and isomorphism — however accurate they may be — seem to me to be completely irrelevant points at the moment until you address more basic things with me like how there could *ever* be a non-correspondence understanding of explanations in the first place.

    Now maybe there is some way. I’m not ruling that possibility out. But you are a long ways of from explaining it to me so that I can make sense of what you are even suggesting.

  13. “the vast majority of people would be just like me – perplexed and confused at your point of view.”

    I think you’d be surprised. Most people who have never read any kind of philosophy of science (an area overwhelmingly influenced by Austrian thinkers) find my pragmatic views “obviously” true. Surprisingly, even practicing scientists think it sounds about right. It seems instead that those who are most well read regarding the interactions among philosophy, science and religion (a subject very far removed from practicing science) that think my views are bizarre in some sense.

    “tests itself against reality in some way”

    But what in the world could this possibly mean, other than having our practical predictions fulfilled? Why in the world would a person dedicate their life, let alone expect the rest of us to give billions of tax dollars for the sake of totally disinterested “explanations”? Unless, of course, an explanation is simply a conceptual tool to be practically applied within some range of contexts. But you want explanations to be more than that. You want them to be more than “merely” good or bad explanations – explanations that are measured by how well they can be practically wielded within various contexts. You want explanation to be true or false in some deeper sense. I simply see no reason (other than the social effects) of holding out for this. In Popperian language, you want don’t want to reject a theory because it’s bad; you want to reject it because it’s false.

    ” There is nothing in science that suggests it should be THE source of truth and there is nothing in anything I’ve ever written that suggests that either.”

    I haven’t been clear. Yes, I have been accusing of that, but my criticism is actually much deeper. Instead, I saying that you accept the scientific idea, definition and conceptualization of truth as being paradigmatic of truth in general. Thus, even if you don’t accept science to be the unique and exclusive source of truth, you still accept (at least your language suggests that you do) that science and its (roughly) hypothetico-deductive method is the best source of truth that we have available. I reject anything like this.

    This, in fact, is where I part company with most of the pragmatists. They insist that truth is a belief which amount to a good habit of action. I do not believe this at all. I fully grant that a good belief is a good habit of action, but truth does not reduce to “a lot of goodness”. My view is that truth is not the absence of limitations on our beliefs (and I definitely think you believe it is), but is instead the absence of manipulation in communication. Thus, while you think that science’s ability to clear up the mirror of nature, as it were, is the best source of truth, I think that such an enterprise has nothing whatsoever to do with truth. Science’s ability to overcome the limitations on our beliefs and make them better is fantastic. But no amount of bettering our beliefs will make them truer. Truth is the morality of communications, not the efficacy of beliefs.

    I don’t expect you to accept this, or necessarily be less confused overall. I do hope, however, that you’re confused in a different way at least. I hope you can see why I could never accept the idea that science discovers truth in any correspondence sense. I also hope it is clear that I do not see this as being anti-science in anyway at all. After all, I fully accept the goodness of science and what is produces, but I also insist that no amount of goodness will ever equal truth just as no amount of badness will ever equal false.

    “But we often are able to test explanations and thereby determine which are better and which are worse. ”

    I fully agree.

    “The reason this works is because reality is something specific and therefore explanations that are a close match to reality fare better when tested against reality.”

    Says who? What does this explanation for the goodness of theories accomplish? What evidence could ever be marshaled in its favor since piling on better and better theories only begs the question at hand? How in the world could we ever get out of our own skin to observe the reason behind the goodness of our theories? What is it, exactly, that is being matched up, if not our expectations and the goodness with which they are met? What experiment could we ever possibly come up with? Isn’t this really just non-scientific and metaphysical baggage that we would probably do better without, given the political and cultural ends to which this metaphysical picture has been put?

    “Notice the parsimony of my view. It treats science the same as any other type of explanation. Completely parsimonious, in fact.”

    I hope you see why your view is NOT parsimonious at all. It insists on going beyond the goodness/badness of our theories that we both accept, by further and unnecessarily insisting on some metaphysical reason behind this goodness/badness. You insist, independent of all empirical experience, that reality is “very specific” by which I assume you mean pre-categorized regardless of how any person conceptualizes, construes or approaches it. But since nobody ever could see what reality is like independent of such things, you are thus multiplying entities beyond what is necessary. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not necessarily against this, so long as there is a good (social) reason for doing so.

    “Let’s take the idea that George Washington is a great non-corresponding explanation for why the United States exists, but that we shouldn’t really seriously consider that he’s a real person. Poppycock and balderdash!”

    I agree, but who ever said anything like that? (As a side note, why couldn’t somebody insist that there was no George Washington, or Jeff G for that matter, since all we “really” are is just chemical reactions?) My point is that language is a causal affair and at no point does it move beyond causation into the realm of correspondence. It is also futile for us to try and get outside of our language, concepts and categories to see what reality “really” looks like. The best we can ever hope for is the creation of other concepts, categories and language that allow us to predict and causally interact with the world better.

    As for your dilemma, I reject the correspondence theory at all levels (I hope that’s clear by now). By this, I reject the idea that our language is able to magically reach back into the past and somehow correspond with anything at all. Language is causal in nature, and causation doesn’t work that way. Instead, we in our present inter-person communications use various names and descriptions in order to construe, categorize and describe the past for our own purposes in the here and now. This in no way entails that Washington or the world did not exist. The worst thing that my view entails is that our understanding and appreciation of the past must always be limited by the ways in which we conceptualize it in the here and now. Thus, 1) you have to show why a rejection of the correspondence theory of truth entails that Washington did not exist, and 2) you have to show how language was able to stop being causal in nature such that it became able to reach back into the past by way of correspondence. (Personally, I think focusing on the present is the best way to argue against my pragmatic theory since if any case would be a clear case of correspondence, is will be in the here and now. A focus on the past only makes the correspondence theory seem strange and metaphysically “geist-y” – which it is.)

    A brief summary of points:
    1) Language never transcends causation in order to correspond (with the past, present or future).
    2) We can never explain why some theories are good/bad. Such would not only go well beyond the verifiable/falsifiable, but would be very unparsimonious.
    3) We can never look at and see what reality is really like when nobody is looking at and seeing it. It’s not clear why we would want to.
    4) No amount of goodness equals truth. No amount of badness equal false.

  14. You make so many assertions about my beliefs that sound not even a little bit like my beliefs. You ‘deep read’ what I say in a way that I am not sure makes good sense.

    However, you did say one thing that I felt either confused or cleared a lot up. Let me rephrase something I said to make myself a bit more clear:

    Bruce: Let’s take the idea that George Washington is a great non-corresponding explanation for why the United States exists, but that we shouldn’t really seriously consider [the idea that he is or is not] a real person. Poppycock and balderdash!”

    Jeff: I agree, but who ever said anything like that?

    Jeff: The worst thing that my view entails is that our understanding and appreciation of the past must always be limited by the ways in which we conceptualize it in the here and now.

    So while I entirely agree with that last statement, I have no idea why this is in any way a “non-correspondence” theory in the slightest.

    Jeff: This in no way entails that Washington or the world did not exist… you have to show why a rejection of the correspondence theory of truth entails that Washington did not exist

    Ah!

    See, here is the problem, Jeff. To me “non-correspondence” means not (as you deep read me) that you are claiming this means the world or George Washington didn’t exist, but rather that you are claiming that it *doesn’t matter* if George Washington existed or not because our explanation (that George Washington existed) is irrelevant to whether or not George Washington was a real person and that instead what we really care about is how useful the theory of George Washington is.

    If that is what you are saying, then I’m calling your views poppycock and balderdash.

    If this is not what you are saying, then frankly I challenge whether you really believe in a “non-correspondence” view of explanations after all.

    I’m not sure what else “non-correspondence” could possibly mean in this context if it doesn’t meant that you feel our theory/explanation of George Washington is somehow not specifically about whether or not there was a real person named George Washington and that whether or not George Washington existed doesn’t at least in principle determine whether or not the theory/explanation is correct or not.

  15. Grrrrrrrr. I had a nice juicy comment that didn’t go through. Let’s see if I can distill it a bit.

    “Jeff: The worst thing that my view entails is that our understanding and appreciation of the past must always be limited by the ways in which we conceptualize it in the here and now.
    Bruce: So while I entirely agree with that last statement, I have no idea why this is in any way a “non-correspondence” theory in the slightest.”

    This is why the past doesn’t make for a useful test case for pragmatism. My point is that our understanding and appreciation of everything – past, present and future – must always be defined and structured (“limited” misleadingly implies that there is some other standard that we are falling short of) by the ways in which we conceptualize and categorize it. There is no way of getting outside of our categories in order to see how well they correspond to reality. All we can ever do is use these conceptual categories and see how well they work as judged from our insider’s perspective.

    Thus, pragmatists do not necessarily object to a correspondence between predictions and observations that share the same categorical scheme. (This is another reason why the George Washington case isn’t very good.) What they do object to is the idea that any amount of correspondence within one and the same conceptual/categorical frame will ever entail a correspondence between that frame and an uncategorized/unconceptualized reality. There is simply nothing to match up in this latter case for “correspondence” to make any sense.

    Thus, since different groups conceptualize/categorize the world in different ways, and since no group can claim that their own concepts/categories correspond to the unconceptualized/uncategorized world in any exclusive sense, there is simply no role for correspondence to play in adjudicating between these different conceptual frames. (This is very much related to my insistence that objectivity treats Truth as an object which is external to and independent of all persons and their categories.) Pragmatism may not be the only alternative to correspondence as a way of adjudicating such disputes, but I haven’t seen a better option.

    “you are claiming that it *doesn’t matter* if George Washington existed or not because our explanation (that George Washington existed) is irrelevant to whether or not George Washington was a real person and that instead what we really care about is how useful the theory of George Washington is.”

    This really hits the nail on the head. I will answer your question as soon as you explain to me what it would be for something to “matter” even though it made no practical difference. This is exactly the pragmatic maxim in that if something doesn’t make a practical difference (correspondence being a good example), then is does matter. A cog that turns though nothing else in the machine moves can be thrown out. The whole point, though, is that George Washington does make a practical difference to us, which is exactly why we talk about him – why he matters to us at all.

    Correspondence theory, by contrast, insists that beliefs and theories “matter” in some sense beyond the practical differences they makes. Pragmatists have no idea what to make of this extra something that matters, but they are sure that, whatever it’s supposed to be, that extra something that matters is exactly what fuels scientism. This extra something that matters is exactly what allows people like Dawkins to think that scientists are doing more than intellectual R&D, they are seeking Truth and thus deserve more than our tax dollars for the ways in which they help and serve society; they deserve our admiration and intellectual acquiescence as well.

    Perhaps a clearer way of articulating the difference is that correspondence theory is closely associated with empiricism (falsificationism, verificationism, etc.) which almost a sort of non-reflexive pragmatism. Empiricism focuses on practical differences in the empirical data without any regard for the practical differences that the theory itself might make. This model (closely associated with what Kuhn would call “normal science”) gives the illusion of value-free fact-collecting and systematization, processes in which the theorists themselves and their categories are marginally, if at all relevant. Pragmatism, by contrast, focuses on the practical differences that the theorists themselves make along with their categories and theories. Theories and conceptual frames are not falsified or verified in some abstract sense – but are instead rejected and defended by people with real-world interests. They according to not see the world in terms of “empirical data” so much as tasks to be accomplished and problems to be solved.

  16. Okay, that helped a little. And I’m glad to see that at least in the case of the existence or non-existence of George Washington you accept that “correspondence with reality” matters. Whew!

    I sort of have an idea that I understand the difference between our views now, though to try to fully articulate them would be a substantial undertaking. And of course I still might not. But, not surprisingly, I feel mine hew closer to the truth. (And if we have to define “truth” here to mean “my views are more useful to you than yours”, I think even that is true if I could take the time to really help you understand where I am coming from through considerable examples. Again, maybe I’m wrong.)

    There are substantial number of points of agreement also.

    Here is the thing that keeps bothering me about your position. You at times define “usefulness” in terms of “application.” For example, you speak of how science is about doing good engineering and inventing stuff that is useful. But then at other times — as with your George Washington example — you accept instead of “usefulness” something closer to “it matters to us.”

    But those two concepts are not the same and the difference is incredibly important to our views.

    For example, let’s take the invention of the laser. Lasers might just be one of the most ‘useful’ things we’ve invented in the last few decades. You can hardly go 10 seconds without noting a use of lasers.

    But lasers were *not* ‘invented’ because someone was trying to create CDs and laser assisted lipo. Indeed, the invention of the laser had no intended purpose whatsoever. It was people that were doing it purely out of desire to figure out something about reality. And in fact this is common about science. Einstein did not come up with general relatively so that we could invent the GPS and in fact couldn’t have conceived of that use of his theory.

    In fact, can you honestly think of any use at all for Einstein’s theory today in terms of actual application other than GPSs? I’m not so educated that I’m prepared to say there aren’t any, but I can’t think of any right now. So we’re dealing with a theory that is positively better than Newton’s theory in all cases yet has no applications other than GPSs and maybe a few others things. Its not a particularly ‘useful’ theory in terms of applications. Oh, and quantum theory is just now starting to become ‘useful’ in terms of application. (Quantum encryption = awesome!) And those are supposedly our two most significant and deepest scientific theories to date.

    But we do all sorts of science with Einstein’s theory. We do cosmology based on it, for example. It has huge uses in every sort of scientific cosmology.

    In short, Einstein’s theory had no ‘usefulness’ much at all in terms of ‘application’ but held considerable interest in terms of trying to get a deeper understanding about how reality behaves. Now I can see that we can easily (as with the George Washington example) quickly save pragmatism by saying “yes, well, of course we’re interested in how reality behaves… so that’s a case of USEFULNESS”

    But how could that view of pragmatism truly match up with your view that science is really about engineering? And once we admit that we do care about how reality behaves, it’s difficult to not basically throw pragmatism out and just admit that we care about truth — if only because we’re curious.

    Curiosity was the whole basis for Einstein coming up with his theory from a certain point of view. Again, we can save pragmatism by saying “no, he was trying to resolve issues in science that couldn’t be resolved in any other way” which is true, but again, seems to throw us right back to the fact that Einstein wanted to know something about reality because he was curious because we care about things like that. So they are ‘useful’ in some sense all on their own.

    As far as scientism, I agree with you. What we find via science isn’t some ultimate reality or Truth. (Or if it is, there is no way whatsoever to ever know that.)

    It seems to me though that you’re confusing scientism for, frankly, scientific curiosity. The fact that science finds ‘truth’ in some sense — and it does, for understanding how reality behaves is a sort of truth — doesn’t create any sort of logical imperative that therefore there can be no other sources of truth. Dawkin’s errors isn’t that science finds truth, its that he somehow — for reasons wholly unjustified by science itself — believes its the single source of truth. Now how did he derive that? And, for that matter, why does that matter even if its the truth? He doesn’t even attempt to address such questions. He merely appeals to a sort of inner illusion we biologically seem to have that all true is really Truth. But that issue is wholly unrelated to the question of whether or not science finds truth.

  17. “George Washington you accept that “correspondence with reality” matters”

    I can’t tell if you’re only being casual or misunderstanding me. The point that I acknowledge is that observations can correspond to predictions. At no point have I ever granted that anything corresponds with reality.

    “And if we have to define “truth” here to mean “my views are more useful to you than yours””

    While most pragmatists would endorse, I most definitely do not. They have fallen into the conceptual trap laid by the correspondence theory wherein truth is supposed to be an absence of limitations in our beliefs. I think this is totally bogus, since the very definition of a lie is my telling you something that is more useful for me. I think the progressive/socialist tendencies in many of the mainstream pragmatists (Dewey and Rorty) lead them to take cooperation for granted in a way that is totally unjustified within a pragmatic context. Truth is not “whatever is useful” or even “whatever is useful for us”. Again, no amount of goodness will ever equal truth and no amount of badness will ever equal false. Instead, very briefly, truth is to speech as morality is to behavior in that to speak truth is to describe (although I see no reason why truth must be limited to descriptions) in a way that is not to your own advantage and/or at the expense of others. Truth is not the absence of limitations in belief, but an absence of manipulation in speech.

    “It was people that were doing it purely out of desire to figure out something about reality.”

    It doesn’t matter what those people thought they were doing. The division of creative labor does nothing to undermine the pragmatic point, a point which has nothing whatsoever to do with motives. In a sense, however, you’re right in that they did find out something about reality – namely that if you do such and such (a conceptualized/categorized prediction), you can expect so and so results (a conceptualized/categorized observation). In other words, they learned another way of construing, coping and manipulating the world in a way which later lent itself to many unforeseen applications. At no point is there anything unpragmatic about this. At no point did these scientists get outside of their way of looking at the world to see if it “corresponds” to some way that reality “just is” outside of all conceptual schemes and categorical frames. Instead, they simply found another new (and what turned out to be very useful) way of framing the world. Nothing deeper than that.

    “So we’re dealing with a theory that is positively better than Newton’s theory in all cases yet has no applications other than GPSs and maybe a few others things. Its not a particularly ‘useful’ theory in terms of applications.”

    I’m not seeing the point. Einstein’s way of framing the world is more universal than Newton’s, but that does make it any more convenient or costly in a cumbersome sense. This is exactly why we still teach Newton’s theory even though his way of conceptualizing the world was “falsified” by Einstein. The whole point is that neither theory was ever true or false as such. Each theory is better than the other in different contexts, and that’s all any theory can every hope for. Even if we discovered a theory which was the best and most convenient for all tasks within all contexts, its undisputed goodness still does not equal truth nor does it mean that we have finally found a theory that “corresponds” to an uncategorized reality.

    “Einstein wanted to know something about reality because he was curious because we care about things like that.”

    Of course, we all want to know lots of thing about the world…. but how is this unpragmatic? We do lot’s of things to see what will happen in practice…. but this in no way entails any ability to get outside of our categories and conceptual frames to see if they “correspond” to the world out there. All we can ever hope for is to carve up the world in some particular way such that our observations will correspond to our expectations which is a practical activity through and through. Newton carved up the world very differently than Einstein who carved it up differently than Aristotle. Each of these ways of doing so were and still are useful in some contexts and we stick with them. In no sense is one theory more true or false than another in the sense of corresponding to how reality just is independent of all concepts, categories and carvings.

    ” it’s difficult to not basically throw pragmatism out and just admit that we care about truth — if only because we’re curious.”

    We care about results from such experiments. We care about truth from those we communicate with. They are not the same.

    “understanding how reality behaves is a sort of truth”

    What, then, is the difference between a really good model and a true model of how the world behaves? At what point does goodness become truth?

    That was the point behind my question (I don’t think you answered it) as to why something should matter beyond the practical differences that it makes? Some theories are really, really good and, other than goodness, what else are we holding out for? Why should we hold out for this something that makes no practical difference?

    As far as Dawkin’ goes, you and I both agree that science is not the only source of truth. But I think Dawkins agrees with us on that. I think(?) we both agree that science is not the final measure of truth. Dawkins definitely does not agree with that. I want to go even further, however, in saying that science doesn’t produce truth at all in any straightforward sense, even though it does produce a lot of really good theories and models. Both you and Dawkins disagree with this assertion.

    The question is “why?” Once we grant all the goodness in the world to a scientific model or theories, in what sense are we robbing it of that something more? The answer, at least from the perspective of scientism, is that truth entails a kind of moral obligation (intellectual acquiescence) that goodness does not.

  18. Here’s another way of looking at it in terms of reductionism (although I hope you don’t confuse my illustration for an argument for or against reductionism per se).

    You said earlier that science shows that we are all just chemicals in actions, so to speak. Thus, is a sense, natural science is tempted to say that bigger designed things and intentional organisms and the like aren’t real in the sense of being the basic stuff that the world is made out of. Thus, hearts, wings, frogs and people are just “useful” categories or patterns by which we track the (ultimately) physical world around us. In a similar sense, we could say that a molecule is “nothing but” a pattern in atoms which (paradoxically) are not the basic units either.

    In all of these cases, science wants us to think that the smaller units out of which the larger units are (supposed to be) made are more “real” in some sense. In all of these cases, the larger units are less real in the sense of being less well-defined, more contingent, more conventional and thus more for the sake of convenience only than the smaller units are. In each case, the larger unit is “really” just a special case of smaller units in action.

    The pragmatic turn that I had to embrace was that we have no reason to think that none of these differences have anything to do with reality itself. The smaller units are also just categories that are simply useful within different contexts and different scopes than the larger units. It may by that the smaller units are more or less defined, but what does this have to do with being more or less real in any fundamental sense.

    Thus, we have the free-will debate, for example. People want to say that since we are really just matter in motion, then freewill can’t exist. This assumes that the description in which we are mere matter in motion is somehow more fundamental or more real than the description in which we are person who makes decisions. But what experiment could we ever perform, what philosophical argument could ever support this metaphysical claim? What practical benefit is derived from such a belief? In other words, what reason do we have for assuming that matter is the stuff out of which mind must be made?

    Why not acknowledge that “atom” is no less a concept/category/model than “frog” is and we use each concept in those situations in which they are best suited. There is nothing deep about this. Thus free persons is one way of carving up and negotiating the social world around us and matter in motion is another (much less useful) way of doing so. There is no reason at all for thinking that one of these sets of concepts corresponds more to reality as it really is independent of all such concepts.

    I hope this also exposes the Platonic values that underlie “naive realism” (as it is very often called) whereby the more well-defined, timeless, universal in scope and less evolving something is the more real it is thought to be. Not only are these metaphysical musings that we have good reason to be suspicious of in general, but they are not at all compatible with a Darwinian view of life.

  19. “At no point is there anything unpragmatic about this.”

    Perhaps not, but it does not seem at all compatible with your previously expressed view that science is really about ‘engineering’ — perhaps that wasn’t quite how you said it. Feel free to restate. But there is no sense at all that I can see that science requires or is about engineering. The idea that engineering is applied science is still correct, at least in the cases just discussed.

    “The point that I acknowledge is that observations can correspond to predictions. At no point have I ever granted that anything corresponds with reality.”

    Okay, maybe I still don’t get it. You do or don’t believe that the theory that George Washington exists can be right or wrong depending on whether or not there really was a man that used to be alive named George Washington, i.e. that he is an actual historical figure. To me “correspondence” means nothing more than this. I think what you are insisting is “not correspondence” is very much “correspondence” to me.

    “At no point did these scientists get outside of their way of looking at the world to see if it “corresponds” to some way that reality “just is” outside of all conceptual schemes and categorical frames”

    This is the problem, Jeff. It DOES correspond. That’s the whole point of science. You want to state this as “they did find out something about reality – namely that if you do such and such…you can expect so and so results…” but that still boils down to “reality behaves in such and such a way and our (physics) theories conceptualizes that via math that *corresponds* to it.” Saying “science corresponds to reality” is precisely what you just said as far as I understand those terms. We’re disagreeing over use of a term, not a fundamental difference in point of view.

    I still struggle with your view that it’s only about prediction.

    In this post,

    https://www.millennialstar.org/computability-and-comprehension-is-science-about-prediction/

    I quote David Deustch’s “oracle” example, which I believe effectively undermines the whole idea that science is only about prediction.

    The thing I see now though, is that “it depends on what you mean by prediction.” I can see that pragmatism can save itself here by claiming “well, yeah, sure its true that scientific theories give us a certain understanding of reality, so that helps us even come up with what sorts of experiments to do in the first place — but that’s still prediction, see, because it is ‘predicting’ the outcome of that experiment as part of the process.”

    And, sure, in this vacuous sense, I can see that we can say “science is about prediction” and its technically now a true statement, if a seemingly useless one.

    More and more it is seeming that maybe the issue I have with pragmatism (as you’re describing it anyhow) is that it’s not a particularly useful way to look at reality. Not technically wrong, I suppose, so long as you understand its terms the way they intend it, but sort of self undermining in that you’re much better off not thinking that way and instead thinking of science as exploring reality and trying to comprehend it — which it DOES by your own admission now at least in the sense that it “if you do such and such…you can expect so and so results…” which is a pretty good description of what it means to learn to comprehend reality through science. And it’s even a positive case of “correspond[ing] to some way that reality [that] ‘just is'”

    In other words, I am making the charge that “pragmatism” is not a particularly “pragmatic” point of view.

    Your biggest issue with science, as you understand it, is that it can’t correspond “outside of all conceptual schemes and categorical frames” but this is the point I have never argued with you against and don’t really care that much about either. Of course you’re right about that. But so? You equate science with scientism and you equate my views (or Popper’s, or Deutsch’s) with that view. But there is not one iota of our views that suggests that somehow we can find a reality that “‘just is’ OUTSIDE of any conceptual framework.” And why would we care? We don’t. It’s not a point we think interesting or worth pursuing. We just care about the idea that science is about comprehending reality, and that is certainly true even by your own admission now (given our understanding of the terms in question). And we care that it’s not specifically about usefulness and predictions — and it isn’t except in the vacuous sense just discussed. Science really is about trying to understand reality. It isn’t trying to do it via some frame outside of our concepts and it needn’t be. (can’t be, just as you say.) But it can help us come up with new concepts and frames that previously never existed.

    “The whole point is that neither theory was ever true or false as such”

    See, that’s exactly the problem. Because Einstein’s theory quite literally “corresponds” to reality better than Newton’s, granted at the cost of additional math. Einstein’s theory has little ‘use’ other than to allow us to understand reality better via this “correspondence” and that’s what its used for and that’s a correct use for it. That’s why it’s quite specifically a “better” theory than Newton’s if what you are after is specifically a deeper understanding of reality. It’s not “better” in any other sense.

    “What, then, is the difference between a really good model and a true model of how the world behaves? At what point does goodness become truth?”

    This is not a question you should be asking a Popperian. From within your view, this matters to you. To us, it doesn’t. All models have various levels of verisimilitude (i.e. *correspondence* between reality and the math and model of the theory in this case) and there is no assumption that they are “true” in some ultimate sense.

    “why something should matter beyond the practical differences that it makes?”
    Why are you putting “practical” on there? It does nothing but make it sound like you’re talking about engineering like applications, which clearly you are not talking about by now.

    Obviously the answer to the question “Why something should matter beyond the differences that it makes?” will always be “it can’t.”

    As a good Popperian, I reject the idea that something can matter that makes no difference. That’s how a good Popperian will reject, say, solipsism or the concept of ‘zombies.’ We are also not reductionists and reject that as well. Why in the world would the things that make something up by “more real” or “more important” than the thing itself?

    I’ve already mentioned that we reject positivism and logical positivism. Those are all false ideas (or to put it into correct Popperian language, they are ideas that have lower verisimilitude. It’s not like there is no truth in them. And by “truth” I mean “correspondence with reality” as per the above. All of those theories do have some correspondence with reality and some places where real life can be shown to differ with them.)

    “however, in saying that science doesn’t produce truth at all in any straightforward sense, even though it does produce a lot of really good theories and models. Both you and Dawkins disagree with this assertion. ”

    You’ve got this wrong. I’d say that science *does* produce truth and in a fairly straightforward sense in the sense that it produces good theories and models that correspond with reality. You apparently see this as “not straightforward” and I see it as “straightforward” but luckily our point of disagreement ended up being an a purely subjective word. I’m not sure there is a substantial disagreement here.

    In fact, I’m no longer sure there is a substantial disagreement on anything. I think your language and framing is less useful and a bit more misleading, but with your clarifications, I can see that you aren’t really advocating for what *I* would call a “non-correspondence” view of science.

    “The question is “why?” Once we grant all the goodness in the world to a scientific model or theories…”

    Popperians never would.

    “…at least from the perspective of scientism, is that truth entails a kind of moral obligation (intellectual acquiescence) that goodness does not.”

    Okay, true statement, but I think you’re under-estimating the degree to which this belief is not unique to scientism. In fact I honestly believe you’ve got this all backwards. Human beings in general believe that Truth entails a kind of moral obligation and scientism just incorporated that highly universal belief (I’d even go so far as to say ‘universal’ if we can accept that even people that don’t accept this have impulses toward it) into itself without any logical justification to do so.

  20. “You said earlier that science shows that we are all just chemicals in actions”

    Actually, my point of view wasn’t that “science shows” this but rather that our current theories assume no more than this and don’t currently incorporate, say, spirits, in the picture. This isn’t the same as reductionism, however, because the fact that it’s possible to pull us apart into 100% chemicals in no way implies that those are therefore more important or more real than the concept of a human being.

  21. “This is the problem, Jeff. It DOES correspond. That’s the whole point of science. ”

    There is no way that you or anybody else could ever know that. That’s the whole point. You’ve never seen the world stripped of the categories and concepts that you bring to, nor has anybody else, let alone checked to see if it corresponded to anything.

    “The idea that engineering is applied science is still correct”

    What reason do we have to believe this? More importantly, what reason do we have to rule out alternative views on the subject? What evidence could ever be marshaled in favor of what science “really” is and is not? I’m not saying that scientist see themselves as engineers. But inasmuch as they think they are doing something much more important than, or in some sense “deeper” and more related to truth than engineers, they are simply wrong. What difference is there between discovering an elegant mathematical model that describes physical behavior and discovering an elegant way of cramming a phone, camera and ipod into a single compact device? It’s tempting to say that scientists are “discovering what is already there” while engineers are merely “creating something that wasn’t there”, but the truth is that both scientists and engineers are doing something(s) in between these two.

    “math that *corresponds* to it.”

    Again, this is a case of isomorphism with the world, not correspondence, the difference being that there can be an infinite number of isomorphisms from which we select those most relevant to our interests. Correspondence implies an absence of such pluralities and contingencies. Math is a really useful tool, but what evidence could ever show us that the plurality of isomorphisms that it is able to track are actually indicative of some deeper necessity that is correspondence?

    You’re still failing to draw that distinction between the correspondence between expectation and observation (we both agree here, for the most part) and the explanation for that correspondence. You want to say that our expectations and observations match up *because* the theory corresponds to reality. This, I assume, is the difference between “not having been falsified” and “truth” from a Popperian perspective. This difference, says that pragmatist, makes no practical difference in any sense at all and might as well be abandoned, since we lose nothing by abandoning it. It’s not that that explanation for predictability is false (that would be self-defeating), it’s that it does no work for us whatsoever (other than falsely empower scientists beyond what they deserve).

    “To me “correspondence” means nothing more than this. I think what you are insisting is “not correspondence” is very much “correspondence” to me.”

    In that case you do not accept the correspondence theory of truth, at least not the version that the pragmatists reject. Again, the case of whether George Washington “really” existed or not is irrelevant. A better example would be whether if we went out to lunch that I would accept that the table we are sitting at actually exists or not. My response would be that there are innumerable ways of conceptually carving up and/or describing the cubic meter within which that table is situated and that only some of them would even mention “table”. Thus, in a certain sense the existence of that table *as a table* depends upon us table users and the table-related categories and language that we bring to it. That cubic meter of the world does not come pre-conceptualized such that there is one, true description of it. Once we as users and describers of tables approach that space (notice how contingent this is), then of course we both agree that there is a table there (this is the necessity that follows downstream from that contingency). If ants or bats learned how to speak, it is very doubtful that they would ever describe that space as being inhabited by a table – meaning that for them not that table or any other table will have ever existed. That cubic meter of world will itself not have changed at all, it will just have been conceptually carved up at different joints.

    “In other words, I am making the charge that “pragmatism” is not a particularly “pragmatic” point of view.”

    This is an objection worth considering, especially for practicing scientists. I suggest that a pragmatic view of science will be just as useful to doing good science at any other view… but I could be wrong. It could be that “naive realism” is the most useful way for a practicing scientist to do their job well. While I doubt this is true, I must acknowledge that it is a possibility. If, however, we are not practicing scientists, and we are more concerned about the tensions that we feel between the claims of science and religion, then I think a pragmatic view is very, very useful. The idea that science is good, but not true opens up possibilities. The possibility of pluralism gives hope. Completely shutting down scientism is a good thing. And so on.

    “but this is the point I have never argued with you against and don’t really care that much about either. ”

    I must admit that your not engaging this has been frustrating since this is exactly what the correspondence theory is. It is the idea that reality just is conceptually structured in some way and that our discovering or coming to have these same concepts is how we come to have truth. It is the idea that nature has predetermined and specific joints that science is striving to isolate from all the “false” impostors. Popper’s view is a perfect example in that there is some unique and exclusive truth from which we whittle away – by way of falsification – the impostors. This is a totally bogus fools errand that Socrates and his pupil Plato invented and the theologians and philosophers that inherited his tradition have convinced the rest of us to chase after.

    “You equate science with scientism and you equate my views (or Popper’s, or Deutsch’s) with that view.”

    Not true. Rather, I’m saying that you agree to a false premise which scientism soundly derives their claims to authority even if you do not. There are most definitely some sociological reasons for the authority that the natural sciences came to have over the last 300 years or so. Instead of looking these explanations square in the eye by looking at the sociology of science (which would self-undermining) they have papered over these reasons with metaphysical musings that come down to us from the Greeks (Plato in particular) and were then converted into “common sense” or “naive realism”.

    “But there is not one iota of our views that suggests that somehow we can find a reality that “‘just is’ OUTSIDE of any conceptual framework.” And why would we care?”

    Because that, Popper says, is where truth is supposed to lie. Even if we can never know if or when we’ve found it, he thinks it is important to believe that truth still lies out there and that we should still seek it all the same. Realism and correspondence theory are an intellectual snipe-hunt. I’m sure you don’t care that much about reality outside of all conceptual scheme that people happen to bring to it (note the contingency!). The problem is that this is where you seem to think truth lies, and I think you do care about truth.

    “Science really is about trying to understand reality. It isn’t trying to do it via some frame outside of our concepts and it needn’t be. (can’t be, just as you say.) But it can help us come up with new concepts and frames that previously never existed.”

    I would wholeheartedly agree with this entire passage were it not for the word “understand”, the meaning of which is very much at issue. (This is why I have avoided using it.) Understanding reality, from a pragmatic point of view, is simply being able to better cope with, navigate and negotiate our way through the world…. and nothing more. I’m not sure you agree with this, which is my only reason for withholding my full endorsement.

    “Because Einstein’s theory quite literally “corresponds” to reality better than Newton’s”

    If all your saying is that we can more accurately predict future observations, then we agree. But that isn’t what you are literally saying, is it? What you’re literally saying is that Einstein’s theory is a better or closer correspondence to something other than our own experience, and that is something that we can never know.

    Perhaps another way of drawing the difference is that between necessity and contingency (I think that’s very much the issue). The appeal to reality is an attempt to say that our theories are true in the sense that they are not only the same for everybody who experiences the world the same way we happen to experience it (this is the contingency), they want to say that it’s true for all creatures regardless of how they may or may not experience the world. But science can never get outside of the way that we happen to experience the world and this means that contingency is irredeemably built into all science. This acknowledgement of constrained contingency is pragmatic through and through and it is this constrained contingency that correspondence theory is (wrongly) thought to transcend. Pragmatists have no problem with a localized necessity that lies conceptually downstream from the contingency of our own embodied interests… but this isn’t necessity in the (universal) sense that the correspondence theory seeks.

    “Einstein’s theory has little ‘use’ other than to allow us to understand reality better via this “correspondence” and that’s what its used for and that’s a correct use for it. That’s why it’s quite specifically a “better” theory than Newton’s if what you are after is specifically a deeper understanding of reality.”

    There’s an ambiguity when you say “that’s why it’s better”. I acknowledge that Einstein’s theory allows more accuracy across greater contexts. In this sense – and no more – is it better. You seem to want to explain why its better, and this is exactly where you go into metaphysical speculations that make no practical difference on any kind (other than socially empowering natural scientists). You seem to want to say (correct me if I’m wrong) that Einsteins theory is better in the ways that I mention BECAUSE of some unobservable correspondence with something independent of our collective experience.

    “there is no assumption that they are “true” in some ultimate sense.”

    So in what sense is anything true in any sense then? You reject the traditional pragmatic definition of truth (as do I). You reject my version of inter-subjective ethics. You reject the idea that any scientific theory can be accepted as true. What’s left, if not skepticism – the idea that truth is out there and we should seeks, but we can never know if or when we’ve found it?

    I think what you most object to, the reason for your insisting upon the word “reality” is that you cannot accept that scientists are unable to outside of themselves. You want scientific theories to be more than merely good in “our” experience. You want them to be true is a sense that does not depend upon who or what is looking. But this is the whole point of pragmatism and my reason for using the word “practical”: at no point have any of us been able to say anything for or against what the world is like outside of our collective experience. (Granted the word “experience” belongs more to idealism than pragmatism, but there is a significant overlap between the two.) Pragmatists are fully willing to acknowledge that some experiences correspond to and/or are isomorphic with other experiences. But, they continue, we have no idea – quite literally, no conception whatsoever – of what reality is like outside of our collective experience. This undermines any pretensions to necessity in any grand sense.

    (Certainty is a non-issue for pragmatists. We accept universality, but in a watered-down, non-exclusive sense. Necessity is the big point where we say “no!”)

  22. I think this round is probably coming to an end.

    Two questions that I’m hoping you would answer for me:

    1) what is the difference between a bad theory and a false one?

    2) would you agree that our tension is mostly about the necessity vs contingency of science and/or whether the object of scientific knowledge is reality vs experience?

  23. “In that case you do not accept the correspondence theory of truth, at least not the version that the pragmatists reject.”

    Okay, fair enough. I will accept that you do believe in what I consider to be a correspondence theory and you can accept that I do not from what you consider to be a correspondence theory.

    I am not sure I agree with your distinction between correspondence and isomorophism. And that’s where I have an additional question below.

    “If all your saying is that we can more accurately predict future observations”
    No, that’s not what I’m saying unless we first understand “accurately predict future observations” to include understanding reality to a degree that we can actually think up new categories, new ideas, and suddenly understand things that were previously not understandable at all before science helped us come up with the new ideas. My feeling is that this is a really realyl crappy way to define “actually predict future observations” but I don’t own any words, so if you and/or the pragmatists want to define it that way, I guess I can’t stop you.

    The bottom line for me is that if you believe science does correspond with reality by being isomorphic to it, then studying science is about comprehending reality, which I insist it is. And it looks like, other than some significant differences in how we understand certain terms, there isn’t necessarily a fundamental disagreement.

    “acknowledge that Einstein’s theory allows more accuracy across greater contexts. In this sense – and no more – is it better”

    To me this is synonmymous with saying “it gives us a better understanding of reality because we comprehend reality better when we think of it using that theory compared to the next best competitor (i.e. Newtonian physics.) At least for now.

    “You seem to want to explain why its better”

    Well, actually, I believe there is a solid scientific theory that explains this and has no better competitors, yes. Whether or not I want to is irrelevant. But that theory, itself, is just a concept that “corresponds” well to reality. It has the “best” correspondence to reality, but as with all theories, we do not assume it to be some sort of ultimate truth, no.

    “Popper’s view is a perfect example in that there is some unique and exclusive truth from which we whittle away – by way of falsification – the impostors. ”

    This is certainly not Popper’s view. I can’t even imagine Popper using a term like “imposter.” He would, however, buy into the afore mentioned theory that there is a reality out there, yes. I would love to see a pragmatist try to offer an alternative explanation/theory as to why science works in the first place if there isn’t “something out there.” I don’t believe it can be done, but it would be interesting to see how they’d go about addressing such an important question.

    “You want them to be true is a sense that does not depend upon who or what is looking”

    I think there is some room for ambiguity here, so I’m hesitant to say yes or no. Certainly you must believe that there is a sense in which things are true even when no one is looking. Gravity — granted that’s a human concept — still causes things to fall even when no one is looking. I am insisting on nothign more than this. I originally thought you were arguing against that.

    “But, they continue, we have no idea – quite literally, no conception whatsoever – of what reality is like outside of our collective experience”

    I don’t see why this statement is somehow synonymous with “reality isn’t out there.” The fact that we can only experience it through our own natures doesn’t mean there isn’t an underlying reality. Say, for example, maybe God created reality using specific concepts. Why couldn’t there be a specific reality out there? How coudl it be otherwise? There is no logical connection between needing to experience reality through our sense and concepts and reality not being “out there” without us. There is no reason at all to draw those two together like you keep doing.

    “what is the difference between a bad theory and a false one?”

    You’re asking the wrong person. Popperians accept that even ancient myths were legitimate attempts at theories and had truth in them. Popper himself says this many times. We reject “bad” and “false” categories. You are misunderstanding Popper’s “falsification” which was actually, in context, not at all about showing that some theory was “false” but rather that it has been replaced a something that corresponds (or isomorphic) to reality better than any other theory at the time. And will eventualy itself be ‘falsied’ — which to Popper merely meant a new theory encompassed it and coresponds to reality even better. Popper’s falsification is very specifically only related to correspondence to reality.

    “d you agree that our tension is mostly about the necessity vs contingency of science and/or whether the object of scientific knowledge is reality vs experience?”

    Hmm… not sure.. Maybe… Take that up next time we do this. 🙂

    Okay, now my Isomorphic question for you.

    You keep insisting that there are in infinite number of isomorphisms. I suppose this is technically true.

    But when it comes to scientific theories, I honestly can’t think of any good examples. Stephen Hawkings gave two examples. I wrote about one of them:

    https://www.millennialstar.org/why-scientific-realism-wins/

    The problem was that, as I point out, it’s actually a counter example. The two supposedly equally isomorphic theories weren’t equally isomorphic after all.

    His second example with string theory comes a bit closer to what you are describing, but it’s difficult to tell the difference between the 8 various isomorphisms and the fact that they are really just one theory. Much as in the same way X*X = X^2 can be thought of as two equations or a single equation. If all you are saying is that we can come up with an infinite variants of mathematical formula, then, yeah, there are an infinite number of isomorphisms in science.

    But if what you are saying is that there are, for any given scientific theory, an infite number of equally satisfying theories, I’m not so sure that is true. I think time has shown — as with the Hawking example — that eventually a way to separate the two supposedly equivalent theories apart so that they can be tested to see which corresponds to reality better will eventually happen. And then one of the two supposedly isomorphic theories will suddenly be inferior to the other — just as happened with Hawking’s example. It is difficult indeed to be able to truly say that two theories are exactly equivalent. There are usually (?)ramifications that eventually become testable. Or at least all examples I know of have all either eventually become testable and thus separated or merged into a single theory at some point. Perhaps there are more examples I do not know of.

  24. Okay, let me add something, Jeff.

    What I really believe in, I suppose, is the far reaching nature of scientific explanations. You can make up a scientific explanation for one thing and it will suddenly have ramifications for something totally unrelated. I.e. Einstein wanted to explain time (and perhaps “why light behaves the way it does”) and then, having come up with an explanation, he suddenly realizes that if his explanation is “correct” (whatever that means in this context, but that is how he thought of it), then it would also be true that stars in the sky should change positions when they pass a gravity well — something totally unrelated to his original problem he set out to solve. And sure enough, he was right.

    Consider just how far his theory reached beyond his original intentions. He decided he hated the idea that his theory meant that the universe was expanding, so he added a made up variable to account for a static universe. Then they discovered that the universe *was* expanding and he felt really stupid that he didn’t take his own theory more seriously beyond what he had created it for. In embarrassment, he removed that extra factor. But now we are starting to think that factor might be necessary for another reason entirely.

    Yes, I can see how we can save pragmatism by saying “well, the theory ‘predicted’ that stars would move in the sky and that the universe was expanding.” But if we aren’t going to take scientific theories seriously as some sort of correspondence to reality, there is just no reason at all to ever make such a ‘prediction’ so totally unrelated to the theories original concept and intention at all. THIS is where pragmatism fall apart for me other than as a totally vacuous truth. Science is SO much more than one person trying to resolve one problem in one possible way. The explanations it comes up with *are* far reaching in surprising and, at the time, unthinkable ways. As David Deustch point out, there have been very few cases of scientists taking their theories too seriously (he means specifically with physics) but many where they didn’t take them seriously enough. To me, this is a pragmatism breaker. There is something more going on here. Reality exists.

  25. Sorry, one more thing.

    Okay, so given that I don’t believe our scientific theories are some sort of ultimate reality, I realize that means that it should be possible to have more than one explanation that have equal levels of verisimilitude. So my question about examples of multiple isomorphism’s is more about if that actually happens in real life. Not that it isn’t logically possible.

  26. “I can see how we can save pragmatism by saying”

    You act as if there has been a criticisms that I have to save it from! (Other than the idea that pragmatism might not be pragmatic, I don’t think you’ve actually addressed pragmatism except by simply reasserting correspondence theory.)

    Looking back on this back and forth, just like I did in the previous one, I regret endorsing the use of some terms which have only served to muddle up my position and the distinction between the two theories (“understanding” “world” and “reality” are prime examples). Let’s see if I can’t re-approach the issue from a historical perspective of sorts:

    Since its very beginning, natural philosophy (which was renamed “science” about 150 years ago) has been caught between two incompatible perspectives. On the one hand, we have Plato’s gods who thought that the knowledge that natural scientists sought and sometimes found was certain, universal, necessary and about reality itself. On the other hand, we have the earth giants (who were associated in Plato’s writings with the sophists) who said that the best that scientists could ever produce was beliefs and opinions that were probable, context-dependent, contingent and about our experience of the world. This latter group could be identified with the relativists and skeptics that the other side has, for 2500 years, been fighting against.

    The reason why this battle has been going on for so long without reaching any kind of conclusion is because time and time again, it has been shown by the earth giants and acknowledged by gods, that since science is a practice, a craft which language using humans participate in, we could never achieve certainty, universality and necessity. Nevertheless, it has continually been re-asserted that despite these limitations, scientists still, somehow and in some sense are able to seek out and occasionally find certainty, universality and necessity. Scientists, we have been taught, do not teach mere opinion or probable belief: they are in the truth business.

    In other words, the scientific image, if we can call it that, has tried their very best to have it both ways. The way in which they have done this has typically been by repressing or disguising the persons that are doing science – by speaking in the passive voice by way of texts – such that observations happen that all by themselves (dis)confirn theories instead of acknowledging that a particular set of people observed something which made them accept/reject some beliefs or models. This has been their way of disguising the relativity, the value-ladenness, the contingency and probability of scientific theories.

    While I most definitely acknowledge that Popper was very concerned with pushing back against the standard definition of Plato’s gods (he most definitely did not accept certainty, but his views on universality and necessity aren’t clear to me). This was pretty much what defined his resistance against the logical positivists who were basically Plato’s gods come to life.

    The problem, however, with Popper’s attack is that he doesn’t go far enough. He still speaks as if theories were falsified by observation rather than rejected by observers for being bad. He speaks in a way that hides the value-ladenness of all science. He speaks as if science was something more than a craft or a practice in which people were engaged. In other words, while he revels in the mere probability of theories, he’s wishy-washy on the issues of universality and especially contingency.

    He is still, I submit, trying to have it both ways, which is why I think you refuse to acknowledge various distinctions that are crucial to keeping the two views apart. He still speaks of truth, even though it no longer plays any role in practice. He still speaks as if science was about reality rather than merely being about our particular (not universal) experience of reality. He still speaks as if we were getting “closer” to some deep truth that still remains hidden from us. He got really offended when his students (Lakatos and Feyerabend) abandoned his views for something much closer to pragmatism. In other words, he threw out the baby of Plato’s gods, but he still kept the bath-water, and us pragmatists can’t figure out why.

    In some sense, you’re right in that the difference between our two views make no empirical difference to the data and have very little, if any relevance to what is published within academic journals, etc. (This is why I’ve found your examples about Einstein and Washington so totally beside the point.) The difference between our views lies in how we treat scientists more than anything, if only because yours speaks more about what is found in books rather than the people who actually write and read those books. Pragmatists think that sidelining these people along with their interests and reasons for doing what they do is both unprincipled, misleading and all in all not useful, especially for those of us outside of the scientific practice.

    The only difference that I see between a good theory and a true theory is that only the latter entails a kind of moral obligation of sorts, and this, I think, is exactly what motivates one side to repress the existence of the scientists (make it appear that we have obligations to writings rather than to writers) and what motivates the other side to simply give up the idea that there is more than “mere” goodness to theories.

  27. “He speaks in a way that hides the value-ladenness of all science.”

    Had to smile at this one. Popper is famous for claiming that all facts are pregant with values.

    “You act as if there has been a criticisms that I have to save it from!”
    Okay, how about this one.

    You consistently use the language of certainty and absolute throughout. You are not telling me “yes, well, scientists who see reality as Truth have as much claim to truth as I do” but that they are wrong. In short, I believe your theory can’t surivive itself because it has to make itself an exception. I can see that you’ve tried to get around this by saying ‘well, perhaps those other theories are more useful in some circumstances” but that doesn’t go nearly far enough for your view to not self undermine. You must demonstrate to me how those that believe science is Truth have a theory that is quite literally as true as yours. If you can’t do that, then it seems to me that your theory is making an exception for itself and is claiming a set of definite universal reality for itself exactly like it denies exists. Thoughts?

  28. Yet another way of describing the difference would be that scientific realism suggests that there is some un-reached standard (truth) against which our current knowledge and beliefs are measure in terms of how far we have yet to go. Pragmatism, instead, accepts a more Darwinian picture in which total ignorance is the standard against which our knowledge and beliefs are measured in terms of what we are now able to do. One is a teleological model in which all theories are aimed at one final end, while the other is a non-teleogological model in which all theories share the same evolutionary beginning, but then branch out by finding various different ways of construing the world with out any one, final end in sight.

    I think the religious metaphor by which pragmatists rhetorically dismiss realism is built into the idea that science can, in some sense save us from our current ignorance and short comings in our quest for the truth that is in some sense “out there” waiting to be found. Whereas pragmatism simply says that science has already saved us from impotence and the only salvation that we can ever expect from it is simply more of the same ability to do more and different things.

    It is in this sense that I think science is more like engineering than a religious quest.

  29. “Popper is famous for claiming that all facts are pregant with values.”

    Does he say this is a good thing or a bad thing? Is it avoidable? Pragmatists think it an unavoidable and good thing.

    “I believe your theory can’t surivive itself because it has to make itself an exception.”

    Not true. My theory is itself a model which I think is better (not truer) than correspondence to reality.

    “You must demonstrate to me how those that believe science is Truth have a theory that is quite literally as true as yours.”

    This is easy. Neither science nor pragmatism is true in and of itself. If, however, I were defending pragmatism as a way of deceiving or manipulating you (in the everyday sense of these words), then I would most definitely be saying something false.

    I can in fact go a bit deeper with this by saying that scientism, physicis-envy and realism are all ways in which some intellectuals and scientists describe the world to their advantage and at other people’s (especially religious people’s) expense… and as such these people are saying things that are false. They are trying to deceive and manipulate us.

    By contrast, these same intellectuals will accuse pragmatists, post-modernists and other such “anti-realists” as saying something which benefits us in some way (otherwise we wouldn’t be saying it at all), and is also at the expense of the larger audience. In this sense, they are accusing us of saying something false.

    Thus, the only way to adjudicate whether we, they are neither are saying something false is to look at who, if anybody, wins and who, if anybody, loses under each description. In either case, both the pragmatists and the realists are trying to be the protectors of the larger audience against each other. It is in this sense only that one side is true and the other is false.

    Thus, my theory is very much open to empirical falsification of sorts…. but only in a very round-about way, and statistical sense (at most!). As things stand, I’m more worried about scientific realism and its imperialistic tendencies than those of pragmatism. I could imagine a case, however, in which pragmatism also became imperialistic at the expense of others and thus was self-undermining (hypocrisy would probably be a better word).

  30. Jeff,

    “Does he say this is a good thing or a bad thing? Is it avoidable? Pragmatists think it an unavoidable and good thing.”

    I felt like I should at least respond to this as best I can given the problematic nature of how it’s phrased.

    I am now 99% convinced that pragmatism is really less intuitive rewording of what I’m saying anyhow. (Or if you prefer, it’s equivalent to Popper’s views for the most part.) Martin Gardner made a similar claim and I now think he’s probably right.

    Given that, I have to say that it’s difficult to answer your question here at all. Karl Popper didn’t live in the space of “is it good facts come pregnant with value.” And even asking “can it be overcome” is at best a trick question that I don’t feel is very meaningful.

    Yes, it can be overcome in a certain sense because our theories continually model reality better and better. In Pragmatic terms that would be “make better and better predictions and thus become more potent” That’s a fact and its even one you agree on if you can see past my wording that you object to because it brings to your mind other theories that aren’t mine and that I don’t ascribe to.

    No, it can’t be overcome in another sense because even a better theory is built on facts that *now* come pregnant with value.

    Example: Newton’s theory gives us a certain way about how to think of reality based on a certain model built on certain observations that we observed through the filter of our cultural and genetic understandings of reality. (Both exist and I don’t think you’re arguing that they don’t.) The same is true of General Relativity.

    However, the two are not equal. Newton’s way of thinking of things positively *always* models reality worse than Einstein’s. Further, General Relativity requires us to give up on several built in (i.e. genetic or maybe cultural) intuitions about realty (i.e. Euclidean geometry) that actually weren’t entirely correct and replace them with something that models reality better. (i.e. rhenium geometry)

    Reality *forced* this upon us because reality exists and has some level of consistency (i.e. behaves the same way under all circumstances and doesn’t change on a whim) that we can properly call “laws”. (It’s just a word. I will not argue it. Feel free to replace it with whatever pragmatic words is equivalent.) Indeed, reality has forced upon us many things that were highly counter intuitive i.e. violate certain genetic or cultural biases.

    If science was not actually discovering something in some sense true (which I’ll define properly as adequately modeling or approximating reality to a degree that is meaningful to us – I doubt your inner pragmatist would feel uncomfortable with that) then things like this wouldn’t happen. We’d always find some way to pragmatically fit reality into concepts we find intuitive. But we can’t do that because reality and our intuitions are often mutually exclusive. So instead we have to come up with non-Euclidean geometry or we can’t improve our understanding (and by that I mean “model” that approximates reality) better.

    The only time I can recall Popper mentioning if facts coming pregnant with value being “good” or “bad” in some value sense (I honestly find it weird to even try to use those terms in this context, but I can see how pragmatists might insist on it) was when he said that it’s a good thing that we have these biases and prejudices because it means theories will be defended rigorously so that new theories can’t easily topple old ones (which means nothing more than model reality better) without actually being able to improve on the old one (which means model reality better.) This is actually key to Popper’s whole theory of knowledge coming through criticism. In short, Popper probably felt (though he never says this specifically) that without our prejudices science wouldn’t work at all.

    The problem is that then saying “Popper thought it was good that facts are value laden” is still not a true statement in any meaningful sense that I can care about. Because we can still say “Popper thought it was bad that facts are value laden” is also a true statement in some equally meaningful (or meaningful for my sake) sense. For example, the fact that we often have people entirely missing truths about some things for long periods of time — or perhaps until they day they die — does seem “bad” in some legitimate sense. Our prejudices can and do sometimes cause us to find fault that isn’t there in new theories and explanations or to even not observe things that are there. (Loved Kuhn’s examples of this in real life.) Most people would probably call this “bad” and that would be a totally legitimate value laden way of looking at it. (Again, I am intentionally wording this in a way that I hope your inner pragmatist would not object to.)

    In short, Popper never really cared much if it was good or bad. He’s just busy describing reality via the best model currently available. It’s the pragmatists that care if it’s “good” or “bad” and try to (in my view) attach unneeded values to this.

    Jeff, I’ve appealed to you in the past that you really need to study Popper first hand. In all honesty, you speak authoritatively on “what Popper believes” all the time, but as someone that has studied him carefully, I have to say that I don’t think you’ve hit the mark entirely even once.

    On the other hand, you’ve essentially told me the same is true of me about pragmatism. You always tell me I’ve not really caught the full nuance, etc. Which is probably also true. If I *really* wanted to know my stuff about pragmatism I’d need to study it more in depth. Fair enough.

    But then neither have you caught the full nuance of me nor Popper. I feel you consistently miss the mark with both of us because we use terms that you’ve become *so* prejudice about that you can’t even conceive any more that they might have other legitimate meanings. I feel this is why you keep insisting I’m saying things that I’m definitely not saying.

    In other words, we talk past each other, but we’re not so different really in our beliefs. I know that is still hard for you to believe, but I am nearly certain now that it’s the case.

    I think I could probably do a half-way decent job now of explaining pragmatism in a way that you’d accept. I’ll try harder to translate to pragmatic terms in the future for you, even though I find pragmatic wording an unnecessary extra burden when we are trying to discuss reality.

Comments are closed.