Dear Doug and Russ,
Russ, I have been reading a lot of CS Peirce who defines truth as what will in the long run be agreed upon if we keep doing science about the world, and real as all that is true, as that upon which rational inquiry converges. Its a strange view, but it seems to have had a profound effect on the people who taught the people who taught us in graduate school. Even though Peirce and rorty have both been called pragmatists, he is about as far from Rorty as you can get. Peirces father was America;s first and foremost mathematical star, and Peirce took much of his inspiration from statistical mathematics of the time. He would say things like, what is true about humans is what an insurance company can make money betting on, in the long run. Doug, I didnt MEAN to be clever.(Accused of being flippant AND clever in the same correspondence, and I dont want to be either) It was just such a wonderful example of how faith plays a role in drawing any conclusion from experience, that I wanted to underline it. There is a great philosophical joke which philosophers use to make fun of psychologists: there once was a drunk who fell off a ten story building. And as it happened, there were psychologists with pencils and clipboards standing on each of the balconies to hear what he said as he went by. It was, So far, so good. Talebs Black Swan is another great example. The problem is how do we continue doing science given the problem of induction. What I am liking about Peirce is that he charts a reasonable course between sophomoric skepticism (eg Rorty, Fish, etc.) and naïve empiricism. He so values rational inquiry that he makes it the measure of all things, even meaning. Thanks to you both, Nick From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Russ Abbott Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2012 4:27 PM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Just as a bye-the-way Nice gloss of Goodman. But it also suggests a problem with philosophy: the need to make demonstrably true statements. Induction in mathematics is a proof technique. When applied to reality it doesn't work because the axiom of induction isn't available for reality. But then notion of a true statement as applied to reality is a bit of a stretch anyway. Yet philosophers keep insisting that it's important to make statements that can be shown to be true. But that's a cause lost before one even begins because there is no real connection between words and things -- only imagined connections. -- Russ On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 2:53 PM, Douglas Roberts <d...@parrot-farm.net> wrote: Very clever. --Doug On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 3:37 PM, Nicholas Thompson <nickthomp...@earthlink.net> wrote: Doug wrote In retrospect, I suppose I do have faith in one other fairly immutable quality -- the accuracy of my bullshit detector Well, why not. its always worked in the past . . Nick From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Douglas Roberts Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2012 2:55 PM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Just as a bye-the-way Thanks, Nick, you describe an interesting way of establishing a life-view. Not quite sure how to answer, except to say that if I have faith in anything, it is in evidence. If I have accrued a sufficient pile of evidence that supports a conclusion about some observation, then I'll probably believe it. If my collected evidence is such that the inescapable conclusion is that nothing is constant, then I suppose I'd eventually come around to believe that, so long as I had a constant framework from which to corroborate and verify the inconsistencies. Otherwise, I'd continue to look for the missing pieces of the puzzle (a reference to the cosmological artifacts I sent you earlier). As to religion: for me it's a big "No thank you" to any cult mindthink that requires brainless acceptance of a supernatural homo-centric benevolent/malevolent boogyman. And that goes double for one particular cult whose belief system is predicated upon "hieroglyph"-inscribed disappearing golden tablets. Oh, and I guess that goes triple for any cult that attempts to dictate what kind of skivies I must wear to become a member of the club. I guess you could say that it would take a miracle to get me to assent to becoming a member of any of the existing flocks of theist-following sheep out there. In retrospect, I suppose I do have faith in one other fairly immutable quality -- the accuracy of my bullshit detector. --Doug On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 11:47 AM, Nicholas Thompson <nickthomp...@earthlink.net> wrote: Dear Doug, I am afraid that the black hole example is already too technologically dense for me, so I am going to punt on the project of luring you inside my walls and slaughtering you there, and just out-right tell you what I think . The argument began with my detecting in you (perhaps wrongly) the belief that you, unlike the religious, can get along without some sort of faith in your life. Most people I have known in the past who have reached this conclusion have done so through their confidence in induction. What do I need with faith if I can just collect the evidence and act on it? And the answer is that without faith of some sort, there is no foundation for induction. The argument for this position is famously from Hume. A version of it is colorfully laid out by Nelson Goodman in his The New Riddle of Induction. So lets say, I want to learn if grass is green. My religious buddy says, Look in the Bible. I am sure its in there somewhere. My atheist buddy says, nonsense, go out and look at the grass. Im an atheist, so I go out and start collecting samples of grass. I collect a hundred samples and I bring them back in announce that I am satisfied that all grass is green. At which point my religious buddy says, No, No, you have no evidence there that Grass is green. All you have is evidence that grass is grue. Grue!? I say. Whats Grue? Charitably forgoing the opportunity to ask, I dunno. Whats Grue with you? my religious buddy simply says, Its the property of being Green until your last measurement, and Blue thereafter. Nonsense, I reply. What kind of a property is THAT? Nature doesnt HAVE properties like that. Perhaps thats been true, he replies, but only up till now! In other words, our belief in induction is based on our plausible but unfounded belief in induction, i.e., faith. Nick -----Original Message----- From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of glen e. p. ropella Sent: Monday, March 26, 2012 11:40 AM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Just as a bye-the-way This is a red herring. The argument for dark matter/energy need not be inductive. The inductive form is: o we've defined the set based on the laws of physics we've observed o everything is in this set o gravity seems stronger/weaker than predicted in some contexts .: there are unobserved members of the set: dark matter and energy. A non-inductive argument for dark matter/energy is just as valid: o the model we've induced is not completely consistent with the data o the laws characterize everything we've encountered so far .: there must be something we haven't encountered that will refine the laws. No induction is necessary to motivate a hypothesis for some form of matter that's imprecisely or inaccurately described by the laws we've, so far, induced. But parsimony suggests that a theory that assumes it's complete is more testable than a theory with metaphysical holes in it. So, the argument for dark matter _seems_ inductive, even though it's not. Only someone who assumes our laws are complete (fully refined) would think the argument is inductive. My sample is small. But I don't know of any physicists or cosmologists who think our laws cannot be modified. I.e. it's naive to assume identity between a scientific theory and the reasoning surrounding the pursuit of a scientific theory. Douglas Roberts wrote at 03/24/2012 03:08 PM: > There's also an interesting "dark matter" inference that has found its > way into grudging cosmological acceptance. This time the role of the > inferred substance is to keep galaxies from flying apart, as it has > recently been observed that based on the amount of their measurable, > observable mass and rotational velocities, they should flung their > stars off ages ago. > > --Doug > > > On Sat, Mar 24, 2012 at 3:16 PM, Douglas Roberts <d...@parrot-farm.net > < <mailto:d...@parrot-farm.net> mailto:d...@parrot-farm.net>> wrote: > > I feel that I am being drawn in to an enemy encampment, but: > > Developing a proof would be far better than choosing to rely > on inference, if the goal is to develop a larger-scale understanding > of a system. > > Take "dark energy" as an example. Its presence is inferred from > having observed that the rate of expansion of the observable > universe began to accelerate relatively recently, on a cosmological > time scale. In response to this, the cosmologists have inferred the > existence of a mysterious energy with magical gravitational > repulsive properties as a means to explain away an otherwise > inexplicable observation. A much more satisfying approach will be > to develop a sufficient understanding of the underlying physics of > our universe from which a rigorous proof of the phenomenon could be > derived. > > But, without that understanding, we are left with cosmological > "magic dust", instead of a real understanding of the observed dynamics. > > --Doug -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, <http://tempusdictum.com> http://tempusdictum.com ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at <http://www.friam.org> http://www.friam.org ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org -- Doug Roberts drobe...@rti.org d...@parrot-farm.net http://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins 505-455-7333 - Office 505-670-8195 - Cell ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org -- Doug Roberts drobe...@rti.org d...@parrot-farm.net http://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins 505-455-7333 - Office 505-670-8195 - Cell ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
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