Carnap’s statement is false, humans find all sorts of non-verifiable beliefs and experiences cognitively meaningful. Dreams, religions, ancestor worship, coincidences, hypothesises, potentials, the future, stories…
Carnap is falling into the fallacy of scientism, in neglect of anthropology, sociology, fiction writing, and any number of other humanities subjects and activities.
Humanity being interested in unknowns and unverifiable understandings and forms of belief is vital to having a broad human experience which is vital to having a good life, and a good understanding of humanity.
We are not a solely rational species.
Carnap’s statement is false, humans find all sorts of non-verifiable beliefs and experiences cognitively meaningful.
I think Carnap’s conception of “meaningful” differs from the “cognitively meaningful” term you use here. Which from context, I gather means something like “personally fulfilling” or “socially important”. Carnap along with the other logical positivists were trying to develop a philosophy of science that didn’t depend on metaphysical claims and was ultimately grounded in empiricism. Carnap’s use of the term “meaningful” is more akin to saying that a concept can be connected to the empirical world. Meaningless claims, then are the opposite, they cannot be connected to the empirical world.
Imagine for example that you and a friend were the victims of an attempted mugging turned violent, but to you and the mugger’s surprise you discovered that you were impervious to attacks with lead pipes and laser guns. As you are searching for an explanation for these newfound powers your friend suggests that the reason you have these powers is that you both, without your knowledge, are wearing magical rings that give you super powers, but the rings are invisible and cannot be felt by the wearers. Carnap would say that is meaningless because the ring explanation cannot be connected to the empirical world. The explanation requires an imperceptible entity.
Trying to draw a bright line between empiricism and metaphysics is not scientism, in the pejorative sense that you mean here. I think to qualify as such Carnap would need to dismiss all meaningless (in Carnap’s sense of the term) propositions as totally lacking in personal value. I don’t know his writing well enough to say whether or not he holds that view, ( a brief reading of his entry in the Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy suggests, no he did not hold those views) but I don’t think that conclusion is a particularly charitable reading of Carnap’s criticisms of metaphysics.
I didn’t introduce the term “cognitively meaningful” - it’s in the comic we’re all replying to.
This pretense that myself and others don’t understand what’s trying to be said is faulty. The comic would have worked had it said “substantively meaningful” instead…
…but my point (fuck Carnap, he’s not here, and people need to think for themselves and present their own opinions from time to time) is that in human collective societies, truth claims themselves are as meaningful as they are broadly believed - or at least discussed.
That is dealing in some sense of human social meaning (and is also a statement on how hard it is to avoid each other these days). Where as logical positivists are trying to approximate some statement about the validity of perceptions of the universe, perceptions which which themselves can’t escape our human contexts for understanding them.
So the logical positivists are discussing tools for gathering meanings the universe immediately cooperates with, where as I’m discussing what humans will co-operate with (and hence what is cognitively meaningful to our social brains). Which I find more interesting… As logical positivism is a boring, old, basic, and unavoidable premise for any reasonable person.
I’m superior, because I found an errant word in the comic and made a bunch of commenters online actually have an interesting discussion. :P j/k
YOU NEED TO BELIEVE IN THINGS THAT AREN’T TRUE. HOW ELSE CAN THEY BECOME?
- Death, Hogfather
Eh just because an individual or a group finds something “meaningful” doesn’t mean, well, anything
Personal beliefs expressed en masse seem to have shaped huge chunks of history and our planet, so…
Agree to disagree.
So has slavery and war but I am not advocating for either. We don’t need any more moral ought from and is. What we need is to demand that critical decision be based on the science not based on someone having a dream of a witch turning them into a newt.
I’m not advocating for them either, but they all definitely mean something.
Ok? Not sure what to do with that. You assert your feelings and I am supposed to what exactly?
Humans can be wrong. Humans in large numbers can be wrong. Humans for thousands of years in large numbers can be wrong. This is why we don’t determine what is true and what is false by polling.
Eh just because an individual or a group finds something “meaningful” doesn’t mean, well, anything
This is the comment from a different user I was originally replying to. I’m not asserting anything other than that widespread belief has “meaning” through its impact on the world. I’m not asserting that those beliefs are factually correct or morally good.
You seem to think I’m advocating for religion, but I have not been doing that.
I get what you’re saying, but to me it seems to be conflating anthropological constructs for intrinsic properties.
Another way to look at it is, what would be the nature of something if someone is not human, or if a human didn’t exist?
You’re ultimately just re-expressing the fallacy of scientism though, because in your example you’re just going to end up with aliens who have religions, or stories, or ideas about the future, or ideals, or dreams, or other unverifiable yet alien versions of everything we’ve already discussed.
Hell, there’s already suggestions out there that animals have such beliefs.
It’s a natural product of information systems when they get complex enough, there will be confusion, false commitments, compressions, duplications, signs without signifiers, and errant beliefs.
I get what you’re saying, you’re saying physically A = A, and that “all is all” is all that should concern us, and there is nothing else… But that’s not true for information systems theory.
You just have to accept that information systems are a factor of what is, even though information isn’t technically physical… It’s more, trans physical. My brain fats are currently typing some information, and it may be stored in another couple of computer languages before it gets to you … but it’s still information, as it willbe inthose other forms and places… In terms of information systems, a container can hold more than it’s capacity… Because there’s information about the information… And that’s difficult to comprehend. But there’s information about the bible that isn’t contained by the bible for instance… Information about someone’s brain that isn’t necessary within that person’s brain… It’s heady stuff.
So what you’re claiming (A = A = all that matters) shows your beliefs off as a rationalist belief-minimalist realist and logical positivist. It shows you value science and the scientific method …but that’s not the whole of what is, or what can be thought… That’s why philosophy outranks science in its capacity for defining the world…
…and why sciencism is still a limiting beliefs, regardless of its metaphysical ideals of obtaining total one to one accuracy (yep, science has its own metaphysical ideals).
Science is one of the most powerful tools humanity has, but you should hold the tool, not the other way around.
There’s a lot to unpack in your response, but ultimately it reminds me of idealism (in the metaphysical sense) vs empiricism. People will firmly believe one way or another as suits them, but if even if we didn’t exist to have this conversation (and our beliefs didn’t exist) there would be indisputable and fundamental aspects to reality and existence. What are those, and how do we probe them? I don’t think we can answer this without abandoning the metaphysical to some extent. To me it seems like non-materialist povs just muddy the waters and give a lot of voices to things that sound nice and interesting, but are ultimately just nothing 🤷♀️
Also I think it’s necessarily idealism that lends itself to relativism (your point about the aliens and animals) and not materialism. I think for me the crux of the matter is that systems and information contained therein exist with some fundamental properties, and none of that has to do with what we necessarily think of them
Edit to your point about brains: not sure if this is what you were eluding to, but even if you recreate someone’s brain outside their body to the point that both entities can affect each other, it doesn’t change the reality of the original brain and it doesn’t diminish the existence of the replicant. I think there’s enough stochasticity in physical systems that the original and replicant essentially become distinct entities over time despite having some degree of effect on each other. It’s not unlike being with another person, we all affect each other in some way.
I see no evidence that metaphysics is even a thing. Where is it located? What units does it have?
Science works on the verifiable. It doesn’t work on things we don’t have to tools to measure, or things which choose not to be measured.
Correct. It has no power to deal with the fictional. Skydaddy and unicorns for example. Which is why we need to turn to logic to defeat those
Your biases are showing. There are non-fictional things that science can’t solve. What makes a person good? What is the purpose of this universe and our lives within it? This isn’t even touching on the testing of an unwilling subject. How much can you bench press? If you refuse to take the test, I can only guess.
There is a place in the world for philosophy, just as there is for science. Using the wrong tool for the job leads to poor results.
Which is why we need to turn to logic to defeat those
Literally acknowledged it and you are arguing with me. What’s the point? I admitted it. We use philosophy to deal with the fictional. You mention meaning and I agree, meaning is a fiction. The only thing we are “supposed” to do is be vehicles of selfish genes, fucking until the sun explodes.
Did you run this by Clippy? Or at least, by the history of nation states and religious wars?
Because some very unverifiable and in that sense “unreal” beliefs have had some very meaningful and pivotal roles in history and civilization.
Thought-acts and speech acts can make the metaphysical meaningful, and have done so throughout human history.
… remember how I said our species wasn’t soley rational?
Because some very unverifiable and in that sense “unreal” beliefs have had some very meaningful and pivotal roles in history and civilization.
That’s besides the point though, and I think that’s what you’re not getting.
Forget humans exist, what exists then? Rationality has nothing to do with this. Secondly, why is the nature of reality impinged on human rationality or lack there of? Doesn’t make sense, sorry.
Enlighten us on what does mean anything.
One could easily argue that we are all just some vibrating mass and nothing means anything.
If we all got together and built a giant super science rocket and colonized mars would that “mean anything”?
I think we don’t necessarily need to assume anything, but simply keep an open and critical mind towards examining anything. All frameworks are open to revision, but if there is any merit to the metaphysical we are able to discern it somehow (logically, philosophically etc if not empirically).
To clarify, by metaphysical I mean some of the medieval era logic regarding the nature of reality. Other people also use metaphysical to mean mind-independent reality (I am not criticizing this latter definition).
Are you a CEO because I just read an overcomplicated sentence saying absolutely nothing.
I had always heard that Sartre was a great philosopher. I had read his fiction and about existentialism so I thought let me read what everyone says is his great work, Being and Nothingness.
After a few chapters, I wanted to punch Sartre just like the comic. It was nothing but non stop unverified suppositions about the nature of thought.
My approach is that you can learn something from everyone, even if their views on everything may not make sense. For example, the evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould is spot on about his works on evolution, but starts to lose the plot with his “non overlapping magisterium” stuff. So I get what you’re saying
The odd thing is Being and Nothingness is held up as Sartre’s great work when it’s actually utter trash. Like if Linus Pauling was acclaimed for his crackpot idea that Vitamin C cures all cancer and as a footnote it’s noted that he discovered DNA.
I mean . . . yeah
Sometimes you just get into a bitchslappin’ kind of groove.
Kant is right. We only have empirical evidence of the sensory world, which we know is created by the brain. Ideas that the sensory world represents some objective real world are unfounded metaphysical speculation with no sensory world application.
Not really, no. Our sensory experiences are the brain reacting to objectively real things rather than creating them. We know that they are objectively real because too many people experience them, usually in similar if not identical ways that the chance of it being coincidental or a shared delusion is astronomically remote.
The scientific method + Occam’s Razor says the world objectively and verifiably exists outside of our brains, beeyotch! drops mic
The scientific method is a consequence of believing the world around you to be emprically provably real, not the other way around.
Absolute nonsense. That’s like saying that you lose your voice in order to fill out a health insurance card as you wait for treatment. Don’t put des hoarse before des carte.
Well, drole response I suppose, but there’s no way of applying the scientific method without first believing in the non-phenomenal world, so the scientific method can’t act as the horse there.
Prove to me the spiritual world exists.
Not relevant to what they said. Is your sensory input actually telling you what you think was said?
Not really relevant!
I think it is. If you are going to make claims about the spiritual world you should demonstrate existence first.
Yeah, someone arguing that there’s no objective reality WOULD claim that the best method to objectively prove reality depends on already believing in objective reality.
I’ve seen coins less circular than your logic.
It never goes anywhere with them. They keep presenting useless skepticism until finally you admit that in theory you could be brain in a jar. Then they “win” and get to claim God.
I assume you are like me. I take the evidence and see where it goes. What they do is they throw away the evidence so they can get the result that they want.
These things break my theory
Me: my theory must be wrong.
Them: you can’t really know anything.
I didn’t say anything about it being the best method, and just that something helps my case doesn’t make my logic circular. You could say that it’d be circular to say “the scientific method relies on the real world existing, and the real world existing relies on the scientific method”, but that’s exactly what I’m saying is not the case; in fact, my whole point is that you can’t use the scientific method to prove that the real world exists exactly for that reason. I literally typed “not the other way around”. The results of the measurements you make of the non-phenomenal world exist themselves in the non-phenomenal world so they can’t be proof that that world exists. I don’t know how to put it in simpler terms!
You don’t have to believe in bullets to get shot in the leg.
Science doesn’t involve beliefs. It involves measurement. There is reason why no one likes presups, so maybe stop being one
Try measuring something without believing it exists and see how far you get. Belief is a binary so it’s not like you can neither believe nor disbelieve in the thing you’re measuring. Even besides that, science is very much about belief, because the scientific method implies that every new finding can be falsifiable. The theory of relativity is a very good example of that phenomenon.
Try measuring something without believing it exists and see how far you get.
Ok.
:reads his horoscope, takes an IQ test, speaks to a reiki healer, analysis of the fungi shei of his bedroom, using a dowsing rod, and gets his thetan level checked.
What do I win?
Belief is a binary so it’s not like you can neither believe nor disbelieve in the thing you’re measuring.
Assertion please prove this.
My understanding of Kant isn’t that the world exists outside of our brain, but that what we perceive as the world can never be determined because we perceive things differently. I mean, many of us don’t even see the exact same colors for example. And this can be extended to quantum physics even when you consider that certain things are based on when they are observed.
what we perceive as the world can never be determined because we perceive things differently.
I’d actually argue that that is proof that the world CAN be determined: if several people with different perception and perspectives agree on how something looks, feels, tastes etc, that commonality in spite of differences is proof that the shared experience of something is objectively real.
many of us don’t even see the exact same colors for example
But most of us do, which can’t be a coincidence.
And this can be extended to quantum physics even when you consider that certain things are based on when they are observed.
Hey! No fair bringing physics to a philosophy discussion! How would you like it if I used football to prove that golf is boring? 😉
commonality
That’s a bit of a weak point. It’s proven that with propaganda enough people can be made to be convinced of something that can even be very untrue.
Definitely 5 lights there.
Ok? You don’t need consensus to determine truth. It is about model making and evidence building.
Is it hot?
Touch it, have someone else touch it, use an IR gun on it, smell it, feel the warmth air around it, put a thermometer on it, get a witness account of how it got warm…
Each piece of data builds confidence. Eventually you get a wonder theory about how it got warm and a model from how it returns back to normal.
Yes it’s quite an ok basis for the scientific method, but op was referring to objective truth. Shared subjectivity might be the best approximation, however it’s no basis for objective ontology
That’s ridiculous. 90% of people only perceive others as either men or women. Even if they see a nonbinary person, their occipital lobe would still generate a man schema or a woman schema. Are you gonna use that as evidence that binary gender is objectively real, because billions of people wouldn’t hallucinate it? Cause that’s the same argument you’re making now. And it’s not an empirical argument.
90% of people only perceive others as either men or women.
That sounds ridiculously high. Where’s that study from, Prager U? 😛
Even if they see a nonbinary person, their occipital lobe would still generate a man schema or a woman schema
That’s a learned bias though, not an inherent state of the occipital lobe or any other part of the brain.
Are you gonna use that as evidence that binary gender is objectively real, because billions of people wouldn’t hallucinate it
Nope. I’m gonna use that as an example of learned bias and other outside influences can affect how we experience the world in a very literal sense. In fact, I just did. Twice.
Cause that’s the same argument you’re making now.
Nope, not at all. Please stow away all strawmen before proceeding.
And it’s not an empirical argument.
It is and it isn’t: paradoxically, it’s impossibly to establish the existence of objective reality with 100% certainty.
That being said, what IS possible is logically deducing a conclusion so overwhelmingly likely that there’s no valid counterargument.
To give you an example: the only way to know without a doubt that the sun is hot is to touch it yourself. Given that it’s impossible to get to it and touch it, we rely on more indirect measuring which are still reliable to the point that no well-informed and rational person doubts that the sun is indeed very, very hot.
That’s how both logic and science works: in the absence of the possibility to positively prove or disprove something, you rely on what’s most likely.
Plase stop doing science in the field of phylosophy, we are not looking for “whatever works” here.
To elaborate: You have absolutely no empirical evidence to back up your claim that homo sapiens don’t suffer consistent illusions. And you never will. It’s entirely vibes based metaphysics. And even so, we do have empirical evidence that homo sapiens do suffer consistent illusions, and your vibes are wrong. “The chance is astronomically remote” how did you calculate that? Did you go check our perceptions against a magic crystal ball? Or did you check them against themselves, which is a tautological and unscientific endeavour?
As I alluded above, belief in veridical perception directly harms nonbinary people. And other groups too. You’re sitting in an armchair and speculating over metaphysics that you’ll never be able to confirm, while your misconceptions hurt people. Belief in objective reality that aligns with perception is a religion as made up and as harmful as christianity.
“And even so, we do have empirical evidence that homo sapiens”
You’re trying to have it both ways by equating “homo sapiens [at times] don’t suffer consistent illusions”, which is obviously true since we don’t all have the same experiences, and “homo sapiens [never suffer] consistent illusions” which is equally obviously false because of the evidence you alluded to in the second part.
That’s irrelevant to the question of whether perceptions like spacetime are illusory, which was the actual point of the conversation.
If Homo Sapiens don’t always suffer consistent illusions that leaves open the possibility they sometimes perceive reality more or less correctly.
Also, if there were no possibility of some “veridical perception” there would be no way to gather evidence that some perception is illusory. That’s a good place to look. Demonstrations of consistent illusion must include some new mode of perception that reason dictates is closer to reality.
I have plenty of evidence of the real world, I have next to no evidence that you have a sensory world. When your tell me that you think like I do I just have to trust you on that but I can take as many measurements as I want.
Kant was wrong about everything. From his moral code that doesn’t work to his Christian god who doesn’t exist.
May I see this magical evidence of your fantasy “real world”, or is this a “just trust me bro” kind of situation?
No you may not. Go stick your hand in fire since it is all fake anyway.
If the only reason you don’t put your hand in fire is because of the supposed “real world”, you’re a fucking giblethead.
And we went to the personal attacks
Yes, I’m very disappointed you took the conversation there by telling me to self harm. I wanted to have a conversation where neither of us insults the other.
Add Verification Man punching a scientist holding a stack of peer-reviewed studies and that’d describe my weekend trying to get some actual facts onto the Reiki wikipedia page.
Check it out, it’s embarrassingly poorly written and there’s 16 pages of people getting insulted for trying to propose changes
Oh man nothing better than a good old wiki talk page fight.
All you people are so sure that you can’t know anything except your dream logic you call metaphysics.
Nietzsche was right. You can’t stand how temporary everything is so you imagine some world where things are rock solid and unchanging. It’s like math but for the weak children
yes yes, attachments are dukkha, we all know about it
There is some debate about the why of it but Nietzsche didn’t agree with many of the conclusions of Siddhartha.
Hmm did you mean to reply to me?
I meant in general
Cool, forgot I started this thread 😅
How about a kind of Pascal’s wager for science?
Either the axioms of science are correct, or reality isn’t empirically testable. In the latter case, believing in the the truth won’t get you any farther than a false belief in science.
What are the “axioms of science”? List them
I’m not the person you’re replying to, nor an expert but wouldn’t they be things like:
-
There is a reality which behaves according to certain principles within time.
-
Humans experience reality through flawed faculties, but experiences can be aggregated in ways which reduce or eliminate the impact of those flaws.
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The more thoroughly those flaws are eliminated from the aggregate, the more reliably predictions can be made about the principles that govern reality.
Those are really just conclusions we have reached not parts we started with.
I just said that evidence can be collected and interpreted to make predictions. Isn’t that what science is?
-
I guess we need to just adopt the axiom of verification for science to work.
Why not lol
Bro cannot see the inherent dichotomy in the metaphysical speculation
Um, where?
Tbf, I get where the proponents of metaphysical idealism came from, I just don’t want to have any consideration for their perspective because it doesn’t move the needle forward for our collective understanding of reality and existence
Tbf i believe that needle moves without extra work
It’s weird to me that he doesn’t seem to have ever published a collection book of these.
