Metaphysics vs Ontology

[BaalChatzaf]

Well, this is in fact what Peikoff and Harriman are saying, and it is repeated by many Objectivists.

That may very well be true. And there are some who will pay $1195 to hear this nonsense.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[tjohnson]

Yes Baal, I was in fact being sarcastic, I couldn't resist such an incomprehensible statement since maybe 80% of modern physics has been done since 1900 and it seems it was all in vain. Too bad! DF calm down! B) You should have known since I agree with most of what you say.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

On the science stuff: I don't think anyone's saying that Peikoff or whoever aren't ALLOWED to speculate on scientific theories, the debate is over whether this is a proper subject for philosophy.

On another note, I am extremely suspicious of any physics/cosmology done after 1900. I think most of you would agree that when science says that the universe came from nothing or that they have "disproved" the law of identity, then it's time to be skeptical.

Renee,

I have written at length eslewhere on this. I could dig it up if you like. Here are a couple of quick thoughts.

Although both philosophy and science deal with the fundamental nature of reality, the main difference is perspective. It took me a lot of hunting and introsepcting to arrive at this position. Rand stated in the ITOE workshops that an issue is philosophical if it can be analyzed by a normal human being without specialized knowledge or instruments. If instruments or specialized knowledge are needed, it is science.

I agree with this and I filter the entire debate (philosophy versus science) through this lens. One of the implications of using this lens is physical size: if we do not use instruments, then our observations are limited to ones available to our five senses, i.e. our body size. Instruments increase and decrease our field of observation.

Since the purpose of instruments is to bring the macro and micro aspects of existence into our normal size so we can observe them, there is a tendency to believe that philosophy is superior. I think this is a mistake. I think both are valid and must complement each other if our knowledge is to be useful.

There is also the issue of math, which is another discussion. Ditto for epistemology.

Here is how I see the cosmology issue. Observing and reflecting on cosmology from the size-level of humans without instruments is a proper topic for philosophy. Once you add telescopes and higher math, you are into science.

Let's look at time, since higher-math reflections on cosmology caused the overhaul in thinking about it. Every scientist I have ever heard of who has made some kind of issue out of time in a manner that appears contrary to common sense has had a birthday he celebrated once a year. A lot of those non-common sense manners are nothing more than projections of observations made with instruments with higher math applied to them. They get a good train of mathmetical logic rolling and they merely take it to the limit. The problem is that they still hear people singing happy birthday to them once a year. They can't eliminate or morph time in their day-to-day lives. Time is what it is and it remains a constant.

But Dragonfly is correct about QM being the most effective science that has ever existed in terms of produced products. It works and that is the botton line. Yet it works in a manner that has caused unresolved debates by great minds up to the present. Scientists can only take parts of the QM world, measure and study them, then apply what they have observed. They can do this with precision, but it is only in fragments. Big picture-wise, they can only speculate, and some of their speculations (often in a LOUD voice) can make Moses parting the waters seem like a a piker's tale.

So here is how I apply the lens I mentioned to all this conflicting information:

1. I do not accept it when scientists take continuances of mathematical formulas or systems and try to make metaphysical claims that invalidate what I observe with my own eyes and senses. I believe that if a scientific line of thinking invalidates the normal range of human awareness, this is proof that all the answers are not in and proof of nothing else. A correct theory has to have room in it for what we experience and not simply call common experience an illusion and whatnot. (But there certainly is no lack of scientists wanting to be Jesus Christ or Mohammad or whatever. As an aside, one of my favorite phrases in the "our perceptions are corrupt at root" vein is "user illusion," without giving any idea of what a non-illuded user is.)

2. I do not accept it when philosophers take a principle that works at our normal size of observation and extend this in a restrictive manner to sizes like the subatomic level or the billions of galaxies. The only things that can be extended are axiomatic things like we exist, or epistemological things like logical principles, math, etc., because all these are implicit in how we process information. All the rest is fair game, even time as Einstein has demonstrated. This is where the Peikoff people err. They try to deny what exists on the micro or macro level because it reflects principles that conflict with the human level of awareness (and I am referring more to physical size, but I could also include aspects of reality not directly perceivable through our five senses).

The simple truth is that if we can make repeatable results under controlled conditions, we cannot ignore that knowledge and call ourselves rational. We do not impose our size-level of observation on reality, not even with the law of identity. That is a stupid conceit. Reality exists outside of the human context. However, that context does exist and any attempt to explain reality must take that into account to be valid for human beings and that does include the law of identity. So it is really stupid to imagine that you, as a human being, have access to some kind of "perfect scientific information" that is not possible for human beings to have, or that if the identity of a subparticle is really weird and seemingly contradicts bigger structures, that means that the law of identity does not exist for human level experience.

One thing is for certain. No tribe on earth on either side gets to rewrite what reality is. Reality is more fundamental than tribes and I think this vexes them more than anything else. They can't rewrite reality and their tribe can't rewrite reality, but they sure can get nasty with people who point this out.

Michael

[tjohnson]

... or that they have "disproved" the law of identity, then it's time to be skeptical.

One other thing, you can't disprove "A=A", it doesn't assert anything.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

GS,

Please get it right. "A=A" is not the Objectivist catch-phrase. The correct one is "A is A."

These two statements mean different things (especially if we go down to QM level).

Michael

[tjohnson]

GS,

Please get it right. "A=A" is not the Objectivist catch-phrase. The correct one is "A is A."

These two statements mean different things (especially if we go down to QM level).

Michael

Well, IMO " A is A" doesn't assert anything either. Now "F=ma" asserts something.

[Dragonfly]

Sorry GS, I should have realized that you couldn't have been serious. The only excuse that I have is that your post came after a message that was serious, and that, as I said in another post, this is in effect what P&H are saying. See also "Harriman's Top 10 Discoveries in the History of Physics": the most recent physicist therein is Rutherford. None of the giants of 20th century physics is mentioned, such as Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg, Pauli, Dirac, Born, Feynman, Gell-Mann, Weinberg, to mention just a few names. Apparently their discoveries don't belong to the Top 10... I think that Objectivists who know better (there must be many of them) should make a stronger protest against this P&H nonsense. So far I've only heard only some grudging admissions here and there that their claims are not quite correct. (On Solo they seem to swallow it uncritically, but that was of course to be expected; in spite of all the bombastic rhethoric they are slavish Peikoff followers who can't think for themselves.)

[Ellen Stuttle]

I think that Objectivists who know better (there must be many of them) should make a stronger protest against this P&H nonsense.

I question how many there are. Back when I knew a lot of Objectivists, either directly or through indirect reports about O'ist friends of friends, probably no more than about 1 in 200, something like that, knew much about physics. My supposition is that the percentage might be still smaller today, because of a self-selectivity: Persons with a strong physics background (or background in other areas which give them a good basic scientific grounding) who learn of Objectivism today might be turned off early, before they get far in studying Objectivism, because when they start exploring they'll hear of stuff like Peikoff's DIM course and Harriman's lectures and draw negative conclusions. I don't know how this supposition could be tested. I have no access to membership profiles of either ARI or TAS. But consider, e.g., Physicist Dave's outrage on the Dawkins AR thread. My hunch is that his reaction would be representative of persons today who have a strong science background and who encounter Objectivism.

Ellen

[Neil Parille]

Contary to what many Objectivists seem to think, not everyone in "the academy" is raving subjectivist, "pomo wonker" or whatever. I know very little about contemporary physics, but if there is a non-subjectivist interpretation that can be given to modern physics, I'm sure plenty of scholars have done it.

In other words, I seriously doubt that you have to spend $1,200 to purchase Harriman's lectures.

[John Dailey]

MSK:

~ Very good; right on!

NP:

~ I thought it was $1195.95 (plus s&h), and, if you order N-O-W...

GS:

~ "F=ma" IS "F=ma", and, that 'asserts' something...just as much as "F=ma" IS NOT "F=ma"

LLAP

J:D

PS: Btw, are we talking 'ontology' yet?

Edited January 9, 2008 by John Dailey

[tjohnson]

GS:

~ "F=ma" IS "F=ma", and, that 'asserts' something...just as much as "F=ma" IS NOT "F=ma"

LLAP

J:D

PS: Btw, are we talking 'ontology' yet?

What I meant was 'force is approximately equal to mass times acceleration' asserts a relationship which may be tested empirically. Are you telling me that the symbols 'f=ma' are themselves? So what?

[John Dailey]

GS:

~ No, I am NOT ('A is NOT-[Not-A]') telling you that.

~ I am telling you that the expression 'F=ma' implies that it is not a 'fact' (oh dear; that's another thread!) that 'F(not)=ma', ergo the expression 'F(not)=ma' is false.

~ Ergo, 'A is A' implying that 'A is not not-A' is not as empty of factual referencing as it's made out to be by those who don't see it as a necessary limitation on determining what's a proper expression of a 'fact.'

LLAP

J:D