Frank Sinatra is not a poached egg

[Davy_Jones]

18 minutes ago, studiot said:

And who might the you be in the 'your'  ?

 For example  . . .

"The reason science doesn't deal with "reality" and "truth" is precisely because those terms are subjective to each person, and can't be trusted as the foundation for an explanation." - Phi for All (bottom of page 1, emphasis added)

 

Other members have said similar things.

14 minutes ago, Davy_Jones said:

quote mistake -- sorry, dunno how to remove this - Davy

 

Edit: I just did a search through your (science!) forums for the keywords "theory true reality".

The number of hits I received is 99230.

Seems fairly obvious that scientists (there must be a few among them) do use these terms.

Edited September 11, 2021 by Davy_Jones

[zapatos]

1 hour ago, Davy_Jones said:

Or perhaps she's describing things that exist only in her mind as the result of having her brain envatted by some evil scientist.

...

I honestly cannot see any other way to interpret your comments about science having no dealings with reality, though.

Yes, that's the problem here. Your inability to understand what so many others here readily grasp leads you to propose  ludicrous scenarios that even a child would find ridiculous.

While you are pretending to try to understand, in reality you just seem obstinate and childish. 

Try to get past the word and make an attempt to understand the concept people are explaining.

[MigL]

23 hours ago, Davy_Jones said:

How do we know the Sun really exists? Because we can see it!

I had to chuckle when I read this.

Do you understand the process of 'seeing' Davy_Jones ?
Do you understand the process of 'touching, hearing, smelling or even tasting ?
Tell us how you think they indicate 'reality'.

I am reminded of Morpheus to Neo, during the Kung Fu training simulation in the Matrix
"Do you think that's air you're breathing ?"

Physics has learned to live beyond the 5 senses.
There is 'something' 93 million miles away that emits the whole spectrum of Electromagnetic radiation, from gamma/X rays ( less than 10^-12 m )to very long radio ( more than 10⁵ m ), and you see but a small fraction of that radiation ( 0.4 to 0.7 um ) and are certain as to what it is, and how 'real' it is.
We ( Physicists ) describe it, and its effects,  using math.
And that is about as real as it gets.

[beecee]

1 hour ago, Davy_Jones said:

Now, if Ms. Goodall is indeed a scientist, and science does not describe, or does not "deal with" reality, as certain members have been claiming or implying, what are we supposed to say about her work?

You keep missing the point. The object of a scientific model is to assist and add knowledge to how the world operates based on what we observe. It isn't necessarily looking for any underlying truth and/or reality.

A rock exists,chimps exist, yes they are real. They are real concrete examples of life and geology...why do they exist? That's another question. Just  part of the evolutionary process of life and the universe.

The evolution of life happens and is real...why does it happen via natural selction? and why does life pass on some of its advantagious traits? Why did the rock as we see it, evolve from the BB 13.83 billion years ago. We know Abiogenesis happened as it is the only scientific answer to how life arose somewhere in the universe? Why?

Why does mass/energy warp/curve spacetime? Why do we feel that warping and curving as gravity?

Why? why? Science doesn't  give a stuff, at least not in the first instant and prime objective. It's prime objective is telling it like it is. Scientific models do not NECESSARILY search for any SUPPOSED truth and/or reality.

I accept most of the above as reasonably factual, based on the evidence supporting them. Why they happened is another question. Is there more to it then what we see on face value? 

As poorly as I have probably explained that, I'm sure most will understand.

 

 

Edited September 11, 2021 by beecee

[Davy_Jones]

18 minutes ago, MigL said:

I had to chuckle when I read this.

Do you understand the process of 'seeing' Davy_Jones ?
Do you understand the process of 'touching, hearing, smelling or even tasting ?
Tell us how you think they indicate 'reality'.

Well, go ahead, punk. Tell me about it.

I have the day off anyway

 

17 minutes ago, beecee said:

A rock exists,chimps exist, yes they are real. They are real concrete examples of life and geology, why do they exist? 

 

If what you say is true, and assuming geologists and Jane Goodall are doing science, then we have a case, or two cases, of science describing real things, describing reality.

 

Don't we?

 

17 minutes ago, beecee said:

The evolution of life happens and is real...why does it happen via natural selction? and why does life pass on some of its advantagious traits? Why did the rock as we see it, evolve from the BB 13.83 billion years ago. We know Abiogenesis happened as it is the only scientific answer to how life arose somewhere in the universe? Why?

 

This is what I've been trying to drive home. Suppose we were to ask Richard Dawkins or Stephen Jay Gould:

Do you take the theory of evolution to be merely a model, useful for predictive and explanatory purposes, but not a literal description of the way things really are? In other words, we should not believe it to be true?

Do you think natural selection is a mere theoretical posit, not a real force active in the world?

 

Do you really think they'd say yes? 

The Creationists might explode with ecstasy: "The theory of evolution isn't true!!!! Natural selection is not real!!!".

 

 

Edited September 11, 2021 by Davy_Jones

[MigL]

You 'see' by that vast amount of radiation emitted by the fun, and somewhat filtered by our atmosphere, being partially absorbed and re-emitted, partially reflected and partially passing right through a structure which is almost 100% empty space.
A miniscule fraction ( 0.4 to 0.7 um ) of the reflected light causes a chemical reaction in the receptors of your retina, which generates an electrical signal that our brain has learned to decipher as the structure in question.

That is the only 'reality'; a description of effects.

And don't get me started on how you actually touch and feel 'nothing'.

[Davy_Jones]

31 minutes ago, MigL said:

You 'see' by that vast amount of radiation emitted by the fun, and somewhat filtered by our atmosphere, being partially absorbed and re-emitted, partially reflected and partially passing right through a structure which is almost 100% empty space.
A miniscule fraction ( 0.4 to 0.7 um ) of the reflected light causes a chemical reaction in the receptors of your retina, which generates an electrical signal that our brain has learned to decipher as the structure in question.

That is the only 'reality'; a description of effects.

And don't get me started on how you actually touch and feel 'nothing'.

 

What you've just done is give me a scientific causal account of how I am able to see the Sun (or whatever).

It might even be true for all I know.

(Of course, your forebears--Newton et al--would have told me quite a different story . . .  corpuscles, transverse waves, and all that).

Now, nothing of what you've said does anything to deny that I see the Sun; all is does is explain (perhaps even a true explanation) how I see the Sun.

 

31 minutes ago, MigL said:

That is the only 'reality'; a description of effects.

Are these effects real?

If they are, and science is describing them for us, then science is describing reality. Right?

 

49 minutes ago, beecee said:

The evolution of life happens and is real...why does it happen via natural selction? 

Chalk up another case of science describing reality then. Yay!

Edited September 12, 2021 by Davy_Jones

[TheVat]

When science and philosophy talk to each other,  there's way too much semantic confidence placed in "reality."   Davy,  iirc,  said something about how everyone uses the term the same way,  but this heated discussion suggests not. 

Science defers to observables and only renders patterns and predictions about them.   Dragging in Jane and the tool-using chimps only underscores that.   Even ghostly neutrinos have to trigger a phototube that's picking up Cerenkov radiation from an enormous tank of water.   So reality, for science,  equates to some sort of observable.   Something happened that's not just in my head (so to speak).

The deeper existential implications of all these observables, whether they are substances or property bundles or algorithms in a vast brain (Philip Dick says hello) or shadows on a cavern wall is something that philosophers can thrash around with, using various epistemological tools and intersubjective workarounds.  Mushrooms optional.  

 

Edited September 12, 2021 by TheVat
Nothing is ever finished

[Davy_Jones]

Ah, Mr Vat . . .

With all due respect, my good sir and fellow Sinatra aficionado, it's hard to see how your remarks above (deferring to observables, etc.) can be reconciled with statements such as the following (copied from another thread). And I suggest such statements are not at all atypical.

(I listen out especially for scientists saying things like this LOL)

 

QUOTE

Well, I'm up to Lecture 20 now in prof. Don Lincoln's (see the "Is Gravity a Force?" thread for details and price) wonderful series "The Evidence for Modern Physics" entitled "How We Search for Dark Matter".

Right off the bat, at the 00:10 min mark, prof Lincoln opens with a no-holds-barred:

"In the last lesson I laid out some of the reasons why scientists believe that dark matter is real."

UNQUOTE

Edited September 12, 2021 by Davy_Jones
typo

[TheVat]

The belief in DM is based on observables.   That's my point with the neutrino example (iirc some even posit certain neutrinos as candidates for DM).  That's still the "real" of science,  deferring to observables and inference from them.   As Dr.  Don said,  don't get too attached to words.  It's the concept underlying, no?  

Am out of time.   Back tomorrow,  which it probably is already where you are.   Will stoke myself with poached eggs named Sinatra.  

[Davy_Jones]

Re above

Let's grant everything you just said is true. If these observables are taken to be real, but not the unobservables (conveniently ignoring what prof Lincoln explicitly states -- cough, cough), science nonetheless "deals with" reality, right?

It deals with these observables that you speak of. It is describing observable reality.

 

Edit: Er, what is "iirc" ?

 

25 minutes ago, TheVat said:

The belief in DM is based on observables. 

Belief, eh? Well, to believe a given proposition is, by definition, to believe that it is true, and to believe in something is to believe that it exists.

If (at least some) scientists do indeed believe in dark matter and similar unobservable creepie-crawlies, then they are not only dealing with observable reality, but (what they take to be) a real unobservable reality (pardon the pleonasm) too. 

And that's known as scientific realism . . . a position that everyone here seems to think exists only in my overactive imagination.

One cannot claim--on pain of inconsistency--that he believes in something, but does not think it is real.

Unless, of course, you're just having fun (cf. "I don't believe in ghosts . . . but they scare me!").

Edited September 12, 2021 by Davy_Jones

[MigL]

3 hours ago, Davy_Jones said:

Are these effects real?

If they are, and science is describing them for us, then science is describing reality. Right?

Wasn't that the point of your other thread, where you were told science describes effects and interactions, but does not so much care if things are 'real' ?

 

56 minutes ago, Davy_Jones said:

Right off the bat, at the 00:10 min mark, prof Lincoln opens with a no-holds-barred:
"In the last lesson I laid out some of the reasons why scientists believe that dark matter is real."

You place too much emphasis on the word 'real'.
He means real in the sense that the oserved effects are due to a grvitational interaction between massive particles, as opposed to an inadequacy of our gravitational model ( see MOND ) or a misunderstanding of the science.

Real and true are not sacred words to scientists, although Philosophers seem to think so. Was that not the thrust of your second thread, the difference between Philosophy and Science ? We have different uses for those two words ( and probably others ), yet instead of being multicultural, and celebrating those differences, you want to make us conform to the Philosophical usage.
( I'm from Canada, we embrace multiculturalism here 😄 )

edit
Frank Sinatra and poached eggs are both overrated.
I prefer Dean Martin and over-easy.

Edited September 12, 2021 by MigL

[Davy_Jones]

16 minutes ago, MigL said:

You place too much emphasis on the word 'real'.
He means real in the sense that the oserved effects are due to a grvitational interaction between massive particles, as opposed to an inadequacy of our gravitational model ( see MOND ) or a misunderstanding of the science.

I got a rap on the knuckles earlier, various accusations of dishonesty, and enough downvotes to sink the Titanic for--supposedly--putting words in other people's mouths. (I don't think I was).

Better watch yer step, Clint. It's a rough town.

 

16 minutes ago, MigL said:

edit
Frank Sinatra and poached eggs are both overrated.
I prefer Dean Martin and over-easy.

I really don't care all that much about whether scientific realism or antirealism is the more appropriate stance. I just find it interesting, that's all.

But insult Mr Sinatra and ya better bring a gun, punk.

(just having fun  )

Edited September 12, 2021 by Davy_Jones

[iNow]

14 minutes ago, Davy_Jones said:

I got a rap on the knuckles earlier, various accusations of dishonesty, and enough downvotes to sink the Titanic for--supposedly--putting words in other people's mouths.

You’ve been intellectually dishonest. You argue in bad faith. You evade clear direct questions. You’re a waste of time. 

[Davy_Jones]

24 minutes ago, MigL said:

Wasn't that the point of your other thread, where you were told science describes effects and interactions, but does not so much care if things are 'real' ?

Oh, I'm not sure that's true, sir. These things can be a big deal.

Take, for example, the reification of atoms around the turn of the 20th century.

Prior to then, atoms had been widely regarded as simply a "useful fiction"  . . . much as other members in this thread speak about current theoretical posits.

Then, thanks to the work of Perrin et al, all of a sudden atoms were real. And scientists said so explicitly.

Edited September 12, 2021 by Davy_Jones

[Davy_Jones]

Those members who continue to insist--despite voluminous evidence presented to the contrary--that scientists don't talk about metaphysical nonsense like reality and truth (or if they do, it's not to be taken too seriously), science "doesn't deal" in such things, only philosophers lie awake contemplating such silliness, etc., may wish to examine the following article on physicist Jean Baptiste Perrin, as well as his speech upon acceptance of the Nobel Prize. (see link).

By the way, you may also have noticed that the only person here who has presented any actual substantive evidence, in the form of actual quotes from actual scientists, and not simply personal anecdote (roughly "Scientists don't talk like that!! Coz I say so!!"), is myself. Strange days indeed!

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1926/perrin/facts/

Highlights include:

 

Introduction . . .

1. "Jean Perrin maintained that if molecules were real, particles blended into a liquid should not all sink to the bottom but should distribute themselves throughout the liquid."

 

And now Perrin speaking himself . . .

2. "These brilliant successes tell us, otherwise, nothing about the absolute weights of the atoms. If they all became at the same time a thousand times smaller, a milliard times smaller, infinitesimal in the mathematical sense of the word, with matter becoming again continuous at each reduction, our chemical laws and our formulae would be unchanged, and the idea of the atom, then driven back infinitely far beyond all experimental reach, would lose its interest and its reality."

3. "Such a collection of agreements between the various pieces of evidence according to which the molecular structure is translated to the scale of our observations, creates a certitude at least equal to that which we attribute to the principles of thermodynamics. The objective reality of molecules and atoms which was doubted twenty years ago, can today be accepted as a principle the consequences of which can always be proved."

4. 'Even whilst evidence continued to accumulate on the still disputed atomic reality, a start was made to penetrate the interior structure of these atoms, a research in which Rutherford and Bohr obtained marvellous results, as we know.'

Edited September 12, 2021 by Davy_Jones

[beecee]

6 hours ago, Davy_Jones said:

If what you say is true, and assuming geologists and Jane Goodall are doing science, then we have a case, or two cases, of science describing real things, describing reality.

 

Don't we?

 

 

This is what I've been trying to drive home. Suppose we were to ask Richard Dawkins or Stephen Jay Gould:

Do you take the theory of evolution to be merely a model, useful for predictive and explanatory purposes, but not a literal description of the way things really are? In other words, we should not believe it to be true?

Do you think natural selection is a mere theoretical posit, not a real force active in the world?

 

Do you really think they'd say yes? 

I'm not interested in the unscientific catagory of creationists, so we'll leave that be. On your above, yes, they are real, based on observational and experimental data.

But again that is not the "objective" of scientific models and/or theories. Nice work if we can get it, but not always possible. 

It seems like my account wasn't sufficiently good enough, but that's OK...here are two more answers that cover your obsession and semantical games with real and truth.......

2 hours ago, MigL said:

Wasn't that the point of your other thread, where you were told science describes effects and interactions, but does not so much care if things are  'real' 

You place too much emphasis on the word 'real'.
He means real in the sense that the oserved effects are due to a grvitational interaction between massive particles, as opposed to an inadequacy of our gravitational model ( see MOND ) or a misunderstanding of the science.

 

3 hours ago, TheVat said:

When science and philosophy talk to each other,  there's way too much semantic confidence placed in "reality."   Davy,  iirc,  said something about how everyone uses the term the same way,  but this heated discussion suggests not. 

Science defers to observables and only renders patterns and predictions about them.   Dragging in Jane and the tool-using chimps only underscores that.   Even ghostly neutrinos have to trigger a phototube that's picking up Cerenkov radiation from an enormous tank of water.   So reality, for science,  equates to some sort of observable.   Something happened that's not just in my head (so to speak).

The problem the way I saw it, emenating from your very early posts, and the supposedly false "true/reality" of gravity according to your philosophy, is that you seem to think that scientists are inclusively and exclusively  after the truth and/or reality of aspects of science. It isn't an exclusive or a totally inclusive exercise. 

 

 

27 minutes ago, Davy_Jones said:

By the way, you may also have noticed that the only person here who has presented any actual substantive evidence, in the form of actual quotes from actual scientists, and not simply personal anecdote (roughly "Scientists don't talk like that!! Coz I say so!!"), is myself. Strange days indeed!

That's not true. I presented an account from a philosopher, criticising the criticism from some of his own kind....and also other accounts from the likes of Hawking, Weinberg, and Degrasse-Tyson.

I have hear scientists say gravity is real...that doesn't mean we know exactly what the underlying reality of gravity is. They are explaining things to lay people and see no need to go into the deeper understandings of things...The Feynman video illustrates that admirably. 

Edited September 12, 2021 by beecee

[Davy_Jones]

11 minutes ago, beecee said:

I have hear scientists say gravity is real...that doesn't mean we know exactly what the underlying reality of gravity is. They are explaining things to lay people and see no need to go into the deeper understandings of things...The Feynman video illustrates that admirably. 

I've heard Isaac Newton say it.

"Hitherto I have not been able to discover the cause of those properties of gravity from phenomena, and I frame no hypotheses... And to us it is enough that gravity does really exist, and act according to the laws which we have explained, and abundantly serves to account for all the motions of the celestial bodies, and of our sea."

 

Yet another case of a scientist, a fairly accomplished one at that, making existential claims about unobservable reality.

 

[beecee]

2 hours ago, MigL said:

Frank Sinatra and poached eggs are both overrated.
I prefer Dean Martin and over-easy.

I don't believe there was anyone as cool, calm and collected as Deano...Loved him!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lprX0sMEdSM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTZsptKZlbI

 

Just now, Davy_Jones said:

I've heard Isaac Newton say it.

"Hitherto I have not been able to discover the cause of those properties of gravity from phenomena, and I frame no hypotheses... And to us it is enough that gravity does really exist, and act according to the laws which we have explained, and abundantly serves to account for all the motions of the celestial bodies, and of our sea."

 

Yet another case of a scientist, a fairly accomplished one at that, making existential claims about unobservable reality.

 

That does not change the fact that we do not know the underlying nature of gravity. He created a successful and very useful model that we still use today, on Earth and most space endeavours, if not all space endeavours. Of course gravity is real!

[Davy_Jones]

4 minutes ago, beecee said:

That does not change the fact that we do not know the underlying nature of gravity. He created a successful and very useful model that we still use today, on Earth and most space endeavours, if not all space endeavours. Of course gravity is real!

Better keep your voice down. You can get into a lot of trouble for saying things like that around here.

The others will explain to you what "real" really means to a scientist.

[beecee]

3 hours ago, Davy_Jones said:

Better keep your voice down. You can get into a lot of trouble for saying things like that around here.

The others will explain to you what "real" really means to a scientist.

Again you have the Bull by the arse end. Of course gravity is real, no one would ever deny it, you know that....further more you are obviously now being obruse and as others have said, arguing in bad faith. You know and understand what I mean by gravity real, or a rock is real. What you obviously are comprehnsively wrong at is believing that we know the true reality or truth of gravity. Our decision on the real nature of gravity is borne out by the effects we see.eg: jump off a 10 story building...what happens?

C'mon Davy, how's about being just a little bit fair dinkyum for a change!!

 

[studiot]

3 hours ago, Davy_Jones said:

Yet another case of a scientist, a fairly accomplished one at that, making existential claims about unobservable reality.

Another case of the conclusion does not follow from the antecedant.

Just because Newton (or anybody else or even everybody else) says that they could not observe something does not make it unobservable.

Not even in Philosophy.

[Davy_Jones]

22 minutes ago, beecee said:

Again you have the Bull by the arse end. Of course gravity is real, no one would ever deny it, you know that....further more you are obviously now being obruse and as others have said, arguing in bad faith. You know and understand what I mean by gravity real, or a rock is real. What you obviously are comprehnsively wrong at is believing that we know the true reality or truth of gravity. Our decision on the real nature of gravity is borne out by the effects we see.eg: jump off a 10 story building...what happens?

C'mon Davy, how's about being just a little bit fair dinkyum for a change!!

 

Obtuse? Bad faith? 

You have no idea how hard I've been biting my tongue here . . . continually being insulted and "corrected" by (certain - some have been very nice) people who clearly haven't the faintest idea what they are talking about.

Call me fat, bald, ugly. I couldn't care less. Please do not insult my integrity, though. I do care about that. Thank you.

Now, is this your proof for the existence of gravity? "People fall to the ground from 10th floor windows. Therefore gravity exists"?

Observe, I will now prove the existence of phlogiston using identical reasoning:

"Stuff burns. Therefore phlogiston exists"

QED

Philosophy of science was never so easy.

 

1 minute ago, studiot said:

Another case of the conclusion does not follow from the antecedant.

Just because Newton (or anybody else or even everybody else) says that they could not observe something does not make it unobservable.

Not even in Philosophy.

Have you seen gravity? What does it look like?

Edited September 12, 2021 by Davy_Jones

[studiot]

2 minutes ago, Davy_Jones said:

Have you seen gravity? What does it look like?

So what ?

I have never seen the bottom of the Pacific Ocean or the Higgs boson.

Does not make either of them unobservable, although until recently no one had seen either of them.

Although I wonder is some philosophers might not argue that since the Pacific Ocean does not drain out onto the turtles beneath it must have a bottom.

[beecee]

22 minutes ago, Davy_Jones said:

Philosophy of science was never so easy.

Yet your posts continue to reflect an obtuse nature, and your claims are wrong to boot.

Again for your information, a scientific model and/or theory, was never meant to reveal any possible truth or reality, or deeply underlying make_up.

Gravity exists...we just do not know its true nature. Phlogiston  has been shown by further observational and experimental evidence to be falsified.

 

22 minutes ago, Davy_Jones said:

Obtuse? Bad faith? 

Yes, and I don't believe I am the first to note such "qualities" of yours..

 

11 hours ago, zapatos said:

.While you are pretending to try to understand, in reality you just seem obstinate and childish.

 

6 hours ago, iNow said:

You’ve been intellectually dishonest. You argue in bad faith. You evade clear direct questions. You’re a waste of time. 

You see, I'm pretty sure evry man and his dog understands that gravity is real. And I'm pretty sure most while knowing it is real, do not know what it is exactly...as in the true nature. That's where obtuse comes in, and intellectually dishonest, and obstinate, and bad faith argument. 

Edited September 12, 2021 by beecee