Philosophy Now Forum

Scott. In what way is a circle real?

Obvious Leo wrote:I regard logical positivism as a chilling doctrine because it denies the role of human reason in the conduct of human affairs. It is responsible for the fact that for over a century physics has been saddled with models which define a universe which make no sense and I regard thus as a significant impediment to the advance of human knowledge for which Plato should be held to account.

"Logical Positivism" is NOT being practiced and was as much squashed by the past as is the Steady State theory. I don't know how you seem to feel this is the norm? I prefer a foundational approach but cannot assert that I support all of the old logical positivists as they apparently supported other ideas that I don't. Godel's Incompleteness Theorem is what discouraged others from bothering to even try to repair the loss of logic as an essential element to reality. So to me, the reverse of your concern is the issue. That we've abandoned the idea that any certainty can be assured through logic itself. It defeats any attempt to try to prove reality through a bottom-up approach using "a priori" premises.

Obvious Leo wrote:Scott. In what way is a circle real?

You confuse the homonymity of the idea of abstractions as "obscure concepts" rather than "generalized inferences".
A perfect circle may not be able to be drawn. [Mind you, I can't imagine how you could even prove such a denial?] But the formula to create it is NOT and why those like Euclid described the process of how it is defined using a compass. What is so 'unreal' about it?

Scott Mayers wrote:

Obvious Leo wrote:I regard logical positivism as a chilling doctrine because it denies the role of human reason in the conduct of human affairs. It is responsible for the fact that for over a century physics has been saddled with models which define a universe which make no sense and I regard thus as a significant impediment to the advance of human knowledge for which Plato should be held to account.

"Logical Positivism" is NOT being practiced and was as much squashed by the past as is the Steady State theory. I don't know how you seem to feel this is the norm? I prefer a foundational approach but cannot assert that I support all of the old logical positivists as they apparently supported other ideas that I don't. Godel's Incompleteness Theorem is what discouraged others from bothering to even try to repair the loss of logic as an essential element to reality. So to me, the reverse of your concern is the issue. That we've abandoned the idea that any certainty can be assured through logic itself. It defeats any attempt to try to prove reality through a bottom-up approach using "a priori" premises.

Additional inspection of the "logical positivists" from the wikipedia entry. There, they say,

Logical positivism and logical empiricism, which together formed neopositivism, was a movement in Western philosophy that embraced verificationism, an approach that sought to legitimize philosophical discourse on a basis shared with the best examples of empirical sciences. In this theory of knowledge, only statements verifiable either logically or empirically would be cognitively meaningful. Efforts to convert philosophy to this new scientific philosophy were intended to prevent confusion rooted in unclear language and unverifiable claims.[ Michael Friedman, Reconsidering Logical Positivism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999), p xiv.]

I support the inclusion of logic by this explanation but can't speak on the details of what they're referring to as "verificationism". So I reserve standing to support them as I'm not sure what they limit as what could be considered "verified". I interpret verification, to me, as merely what one individual can perceive from their subjective experience, even if it may NOT necessarily be communicated nor shared. If they are assuming "prediction" as an essential component, while it helps, I don't think that this is necessarily possible and unimportant for one's personal capacity to experience. To me this is akin to prophets who served this very function in religion. Also, some expect not only a prediction, but a novel one. In other words, we are preferentially discouraged from discrediting the original interpretations of those putting forth theories even if it is more improved by doing so. It is assumed that if it 'works', then we are forced to grant perfect authority to the one's who proposed them even if their interpretations are incorrect.

You are confusing mathematics with logic, Scott. In the Kantian position mathematics cannot model nature but only a particular narrative of nature which must first be specified by the observer of it. You are claiming the same thing as the logical positivists do because you claim that it is the mathematics which specifies the narrative rather than merely modelling it. I'm saying that mathematics is only an epistemic tool and you're saying it has an ontological currency beyond this and this is why I say that you conflate your map with your territory.

This is the proposition I suggest you address in order to clarify your point.

Models are representations of reality. True, models are not the thing being represented. However, to say that that means that they do not reveal reality is like saying that a photograph does not describe reality. If someone shows me a photograph of their baby I then know what the actual baby looks like.

I agree with you on this, raw_thought.

Leo, I'm not sure what your are thinking I'm confused about with regards to math and logic. Math is a specific branch of logic that uses numerical propositions. The only difference to this and other uses of logic is that we can use any non-numerical premises to argue with too. Thus, logic is the most abstract form that includes math.

I do personally see that we can use a mathematical approach to determine reality, though. So ontologically, yes, math is valid too, not just epistemologically. Since all we experience or can know is all we can say about reality anyways, we can only interpret the epistemology as covering ontology from our perspective. [By "covering", I'm using the meaning from logic as those concepts, ideas, premises, conclusions that are generalized as including another within it.] Reality may not need us but we interpret it based on our local perspective. And I don't appeal to popularity to dictate what this is. [Actually, I don't appeal to any human 'authority' as far as this point is concerned except for the individual subjectively and their capacity to reason.]

Obvious Leo wrote:You are confusing mathematics with logic, Scott. t.

What Scott said is true. Math is a subset of logic.
Read Bertrand Russell, Principa Mathimatica
Leo,
Of course you may claim that Bertrand's project was refuted by Godel. However (in a nut shell) Godel's proof is based on a deficiency in logic not math (liar paradox).

Scott. Our disagreement is simply about the nature of determinism. We both agree that there are patterns of organisation in nature and that it is possible to model these patterns mathematically. However what you are claiming is that nature is the way it is because it has been caused to be that way because of some mathematical laws of supernatural origin which physics has managed to discover. What I claim is the exact opposite. I claim that nature is the way it is because it is SELF-ORGANISING and as such it is beholden to no laws beyond the single meta-law of cause and effect. Self-organising systems are evolutionary systems and therefore evolve increasingly more informationally complex sub-structures within themselves over time and my claim is that it is these evolutionary algorithms which our mathematical tools are attempting to model in physics, with spectacularly piss-poor outcomes I might add, since evolving systems are non-Newtonian and the tools of physics are exclusively Newtonian.

raw_thought wrote:

Obvious Leo wrote:You are confusing mathematics with logic, Scott. t.

What Scott said is true. Math is a subset of logic.
Read Bertrand Russell, Principa Mathimatica

I've read all of Russell plenty of times and I agree with him. Mathematics is a subset of logic. However this does not mean that logic is a subset of mathematics. Our equations cannot define reality for us.

What does that last sentence mean? Are you saying that math does not apply to reality? Can you give one example where a mathematical equation is not obeyed in the real world? Somewhere 2+2 does not equal 4?

raw_thought wrote:What does that last sentence mean?

I've told you dozens of time what it means. It means that mathematics can only model a particular narrative of reality but can make no statement about the truth value of that narrative. Ptolemy's cosmology of the epicycles modelled the movements of the planets precisely and made perefctly accurate predictions.

In the absence of a referent 2+2=4 has no meaning.

Well we will have to agree to disagree on that. Shakespeare is meaningful,even tho there is no physical human,Hamlet.
But anyway, answer the question. Are you saying that it is possible that somewhere 2+2 does not equal 4?

raw_thought wrote:Models are representations of reality. True, models are not the thing being represented. However, to say that that means that they do not reveal reality is like saying that a photograph does not describe reality. If someone shows me a photograph of their baby I then know what the actual baby looks like.

And I am saying that narratives reveal reality.