Messages

Shhh...

Let me have my false senses of pride.

I haven't been in the top ten for like 4 years.

I'm in the top ten again in turbo too.

Woo woo.

I'm in the top ten again.

Does my heart good; I always hated scrolling down to find myself on the score page.

Now this is probably going to be short lived - but I just wanted to have a moment of pride.

I guess that what happened to the forums is people kept griping that threads went off topic, thereby killing the discussion.

You should always ask yourself a couple of questions before posting in a topic...

1. Does my post deal with points raised by a previous poster. (Does it answer questions posed?)
2. Does my post encourage others to respond to it? (Does it pose questions to be answered?)
3. Is my spelling and grammar as good as or better than the spelling and grammar of previous posters?

Now...

Exactly what topic is a post saying "Your guys posts are off topic" on? It is neither on the topic of the thread, or the topic being discussed. You two fail.

-Ragefur

Wut?

That was a pointless post...

[Occam's Razor]

Fex: Feel free to continue to stay in the thread, the irony of a one sentence post saying essentially "This is pointless" is delicious.

The earth is going to be pulling me and everything else toward it at 9.8 m/s^2 whether I believe it does or not.

Which is again a belief you hold. It is a scientific belief, according to Popper, because to disprove it you could measure something falling faster or slower(everything else being equal). Scientific beliefs can only take the form "In a large percent of cases in the past I have observed that X. I infer that there is therefore a good possibility that in future cases which are similar I will observe X again."

But... it is also the case that even when a scientist DOES observe a result which would falsify a strongly held hypothesis, they do not immediately discard that hypothesis. Anomalous results are usually just ignored. 

I couldn't really find your definition of what an assumption was, only examples. That might just be my bad reading skills though...

Assumptions can be justified

Can you give an example of a justified assumption?

I was under the impression that assumptions were similar to premises in an argument that they are not the sort of thing that you explain or give reasons for - you just assume them.

The Wikipedia link you mentioned before was talking about how in Logic, an assumption is something which is used in a reductio ad-absurdum(RAA) proof, where you assume that the conclusion of an argument is false and then see if you can find some kind of contradiction. This is useful because if it is false that a proposition Q is false, then Q is true...

An RAA proof of modus ponens would look like this(I am trying to show that Q is TRUE, given the premises)

1. If P IS TRUE then Q IS TRUE  PREMISE
2. P IS TRUE               PREMISE
| 3. Q IS FALSE            Assumption for RAA
| 4. P IS FALSE             This follows from 3 and 1 - by a rule called Modus Tollens.   
| 5. P IS FALSE AND P IS TRUE This follows from 2 and 4.
6. Q IS TRUE              3-5 RAA( The assumption has been discharged - that means I can't use it in my proof anymore)

That was a little complicated... But I think you'll be able to get it.

The facts are, the sun is at the center of the solar system, and planets orbit it. Various moons orbit the planets. There is a lot of data that direct and indirectly confirms this. I really don't need to go into it all, do I?

If center means the same thing as orbits, then you are correct. It doesn't though... Center means different things to different people in different situations... Center is an arbitrary point that is picked based on how easy it makes calculations.

Occam's Razor
Occam's Razor actually says "don't multiply entities beyond what is necessary" it just gets misinterpreted to mean "the simplest theory is correct" Which is false. Sometimes simple theories ignore things.

Thus making the cogito an assumption, or a non-justifiable belief.

Justifiable is not the same as scientific though... There are ways to justify things or prove them without needing any observations at all. This is something that happens all the time in physics - some particle or other is predicted by math and then dozens of years later... Think of the Higgs Boson, which is still unobserved.

So...

What you're saying is that you are bad at writing what you mean so that the meaning can be conveyed to other people?

[The Edge Of The Universe]

Assumptions are not known to be true, only thought to be. It is inherently weaker than a belief, you are correct about that.

I got mixed up with trying to make sure we are on the same page with regards to definitions... Earlier you based your knowledge of the real world on assumptions because you were uncomfortable with basing knowledge on beliefs.

It's an acceptance of the real world, where nothing is completely absolute. There's a tiny tiny chance that I all the atoms in my body will spontaneously cease to exist, but I don't worry about it, because the chance that it will happen is so infinitesimal. It's an assumption. You tell me, is an assumption the same as a belief? I don't think it is.

If beliefs are not a stable enough foundation to base knowledge on, then how can assumptions - which are weaker than beliefs - be? If empiricism is based on assumptions I fail to see how that is better than basing it on a belief.

The Edge Of The Universe
Empirically however we observe ourselves at the center of the universe, because we can see the same distance in all directions... This is why it makes sense to say sunrise, and sunset.
http://www.astro.utoronto.ca/~zhu/ast210/both.html

Geocentrism and Heliocentrism are different MODELS of the solar system, neither one is a fact... Geocentrism is just computationally more complicated.

Are we truly sure that we think? Or more specifically, am I sure that I am not just a highly complicated organic machine that simulates thought?

But there is no way to disprove the cogito. No scientific test that could be devised.

[homosexuality]

I care about what was in his post. :)
Therefore it's not the case that NOBODY cares.

Assumptions are beliefs. Beliefs are any proposition which you have a dispositional state to claim as true.

Well, actually the visible universe, while very large, is not infinite. It has an edge, so therefore must have a center, one that is not relative to the observer. The rest is true though.

But it currently impossible to observe the edge of the universe, so empirically it has no edge. And if we do find the center it will not be the sun or the earth, but some other point. It will still not make much sense to speak about the entire universe revolving around the center...

Planck's Constant

I once read an article about Planck's constant not fitting with some obscure
experiment or calculation...

Popper's point is usually said to be that unless there is a way that a theory can POTENTIALLY be proven wrong. That means that every truly scientific hypothesis is just one that has yet to be disproved. The trouble with Popper is that if there ever were something which was undoubtable(Descarte's Cogito: there is no possible way that if I am thinking that I do not exist) then that is not scientific...

homosexuality
That is not the point. The point is that it is a scientific observation that only began to occur after there was a shift in social values.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_in_animals
It's higher than in humans, and exclusive homosexual pairs are noted in all species. But that's not the point.

Knowledge is a Justified True Belief. Beliefs can be false, or unjustified or some combination of that.

If your facts are based in assumptions, and assumptions are unjustified beliefs, then your facts are basically unjustified.

Gravitational center...

So it's relative to what you are looking for... The observational center of the universe is the observer, the gravitational center of the solar system is the sun, the gravitational center of the galaxy is the great attractor, the gravitational center of the earth-moon system is the earth. None of these things are absolute. Science is based on the observations of observers, but there are no neutral observers.

Are you claiming that our scientific theories are the ultimate, and that science will never again be rewritten? That there will never be a scientific revolution again? That seems like a historical prejudice that is unreasonable. In 1,000 years science will be so different that they will be saying the same things about your theories as we say about phlogiston and geocentrism.

The trouble - as Kuhn would put it, is that you, a scientist, are already committed to the acceptance of a certain scientific paradigm. There's no problem with that, but you shouldn't claim that your assumptions are ultimate truth.

How do you define the opposite of relativism? If relativism states that observers stand in some kind of relation to the world, and that this can differ between observers such that seemingly contradictory statements about the world can both be true. The opposite of relativism is some form of exclusivity of viewpoint claim, wherein you say that there is only one perspective on the world which gives real truth(usually empiricism), and that all other perspectives are false.

[relativism]

HEY...

Firetooth is my illegitimately begotten son. Be nice to him. I do fit his formula. O_o

Kuhn's point was that at different points in history different theoretical models are used or abandoned based on factors other than their empirical validity. Relativism is true if and only if there is an objective truth of some sort which we

Assumptions are weaker than beliefs. >.<

You should use the word KNOWLEDGE instead of fact, I think.  Facts are an issue of ontology(the way the world is) rather than issues of epistemology(Beliefs, Truth, and Knowledge). The whole area is really complicated.

In philosophy maybe it did. I don't think that's the case in the scientific community. But I could be wrong.

Exactly right. Scientists use things that are metaphysically and logically invalid... Which is my point...

The unification of those two theoretical models is the much sought after Theory of Everything

The is the Hegelian model of the scientific process, where you have two seemingly contradictory theories which are contained in a synthesis of the two, until everything is pure being... It gets complicated.

relativism
TRUE is a propositional statement which relates two things. A statement is true if and only if it corresponds to some fact about the way things actually are.

If you are committed to an objective external reality then you are committed to some form or relativism. Think of it this way:

Let's pretend there is a universe(called a possible world) in which two things exist. YOU and a BEACH BALL.

If you do not know every fact intrinsically about the Beach Ball(the idea of the beach ball wasn't placed in your mind by God), and must gather information about it through your  then you only know how it appears to you through your five senses.

This beach ball is entirely green, but you are colour blind and see it as red.

What colour is the beach ball? It seems that whenever you blog about your experiences with the beach ball's colour, then you would report that it is a red beach ball. This is true, because you are the only person who exists, so in a sense the truth of the beach ball's colour, shape, existence, etc. depends on certain aspects of the way you are. The truths about the beach ball are relative to you.

Here is an example from Science, before homosexuality was considered something that occurred in nature, scientists recorded few to no homosexual interactions when studying other species. Since societal attitudes towards homosexuality have changed, scient
ists have documented the occurrence of homosexuality in thousands of animal species at rates around the same as it occurs in human beings. The scientific measurements were influenced by societal beliefs. Relativism.

The center of the solar system is neither the earth nor the sun. The empirical center of an infinite space is wherever the observer is; this is simplistically because you can see the same distance in all directions. That is to say, we place the center of the solar system at the sun because it makes it easier to calculate planetary motion sometimes, however planetariums still model the solar system geocentrically, because geocentrism works better for them. Relativism. Additionally, geocentrism works a lot better for calculating the position of the moon. The center of an infinite space(or any area whose edges you can't see) is an arbitrary point chosen by the observer.

Also... The double slit experiment seems to empirically confirm relativism.

Okay... So here's your description of science rephrased in symbolic logic...

X= Experimental Data Differs to Control Data
P = Null Hypothesis

1. P v ~P (the only logically mutually exclusive hypotheses; P and NOT(~) P)
2 + 3. [IF NOT P THEN X] (If the null hypothesis is false, then there will be a difference between experimental data and control data)
4. Experiment is run.
4a: X (Experimental Data Differs)
4b: THEREFORE ~P. (4a, 2: Fallacy of affirming the consequent).

This is called empiricism or reasoning from induction(statistics and whatnot) it fell out of vogue in the 1920s...

Thomas Kuhn's book "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" gives a good discussion of science, and he points to examples where scientific paradigms are abandoned and taken up based not on empirical evidence or testing, but rather based on a host of other reasons including socio-cultural reasons and other things of that nature. Once a paradigm has been established(or believed) then scientists set about the work of figuring out how the rest of the world fits into that pre-existent belief - think of geocentrism, or the phlogiston theory, in both cases scientists had huge volumes of work, phlogiston was empirically verified(there were machines to measure it) geocentrism could be used to plot the courses of the planets through the heavens...

I'm not  a full time philosopher of science... I dabble though; I'm more interested in the philosophy of language or mind.

The trick is that scientists still used practices that are theoretically out-dated and fallacious because it works for what they want: think of Newtonian physics which work fine as an approximation until you get to things that are really small or fast...

So is the statement "All facts are things which are empirically verifiable, while beliefs cannot be verified through testing" a fact or a belief? That is to say, if you cannot think of a way to test that statement then it isn't a fact but a belief, which means it could be a mere belief. That means that all your facts are, by your definition, beliefs.

"if you make that error bar small enough, it's close enough for me to accept it as fact." Again, is that a belief or fact?

I didn't talk for a long time about philosophy of science because I don't want to regurgitate 20 page essays on what science is. >.<

Ungatt... Try to stay on topic, please. Don't whine just because you are bad at this game of debating.

Now... The test
I can change flour, eggs, milk, and water into delicious pancakes.
However I don't

Ungatt, I agree with you... It's stupid just like hockey is just a stupid contest to see who can skate the fastest or hit the hardest, and shoot the straightest or make the other team look bad... Holy Ragefur, I'll never understand any of you hockey players.

PS: You can also change hockey to football, or Warcraft or any other game of your choice...

I never claimed to be any of those things... I am not the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob... That would be blasphemous.

Well, you still haven't proposed a scientific test... What are the attributes and properties of a god that you you would like to test and see if I pass them?

Philosophically speaking, facts are things which are in the world, whereas beliefs are mental propositions. Beliefs can be about facts. You There is no verb form for "fact" you believe facts or disbelieve them, facts are true or not.

Scientific sets about proving a hypothesis as follows...

1. If my hypothesis is true, then I should observe x PREMISE, unverifiable
2. I observe x. PREMISE, unverifiable.
3. Therefore my hypothesis is true. CONCLUSION

The whole of science is actually based on a logical fallacy(of affirming the consequent; you learn about it in early logic courses), but nevertheless, science is logic applied to observation. The whole things is sort of a running joke among philosophers of science.

Fact is something that is ultimately provable, a belief may or may not be provable.

So... by that definition all provable beliefs are facts... If you read Descartes(and post-cartesian sceptics) you'll quickly learn that there is very little that is provable beyond a shadow of a doubt...