On Oct 1, 2014, at 4:00 AM, John Collier wrote:

I think that it is a given that for any realist position there is a nominalist position in the contemporary sense that can fit the same assent structure. Typically one is realist about some things, but not others (for example one can be a realist about physical laws but not numbers, or vice versa).

HP: That is the way most physicists think (if they think about it). They don't make a big point of it one way or the other because any model must be empirically testable. Epistemological opinions do not provide a test.

JC: So contemporary nominalism, if it works at all, will work for all claims of reality involving a specific external existence.

HP: Physicists feel no need to stick with one or the other. They are "unprincipled epistemic opportunists".

At 02:03 PM 10/1/2014, Clark Goble wrote:

It's also interesting in that even people I'd largely call nominalist in science still tend to have a "dodge" regarding the fundamental laws of physics that govern dynamics within fundamental stuff. Those they treat as real and in that sense they aren't nominalists. However in practice they're very nominalist towards everything else. i.e. don't accept mathematical abstract entities, colors, qualia or so forth as mind independent.

HP: That is the case. But why do you call this a "dodge"? In physics, Natural Law is a category based on its principles of invariance and symmetry to obtain maximum objectivity. Laws are expressed in the formal language of mathematics, but this language is a different category. It has many types of axioms and rules that are not dependent on, or limited by, Natural Laws (except for information processing satisfying the 2nd Law).

CG: But it's also tricky in that most scientists aren't philosophically informed and thus are ignorant of many subtle issues. Incoherent beliefs that might bug a philosopher are thus quite common.

HP: The European founders of modern physics had philosophy in their curriculum. As C. P. Snow would have said, "most philosophers aren't scientifically informed and thus are ignorant of many subtle issues. Incoherent beliefs that might bug a scientist are thus quite common."

Howard







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