Science is a metaphysical party pooper.

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Why hasn't anyone said this sooner?

Going back a bit, I'm astounded that 'rational' people can hold to the dogma that something that hasn't been physically proven can't exist in any way. What about those phenomena that can only be proven to exist logically or through experience, such as the experiential aspect of consciousness? Can we admit the possibilities thrown up by brane or multiverse theory, which include pixies living at the bottom of my garden in a parallel dimension, which while physically testable in theory may not be in actuality?

Also, the 'psychological desires and fears of the human brain' ARE part of actuality

Nobody claims that something unproven physically is non-existent. Merely that it is only a possibility that cannot be incorporated into a paradigm of inter-related confirmed factual knowledge until observed physical proof is obtained. Philosophy and mathematics is full of self consistent systems that have no confirmation in reality and if and when a physical basis can be discovered for them they can be accepted as real. Without that physical basis they are mere conjecture and must be held as such.

Well, ok, but even if the question becomes epistemic, there is still a criticism, as you are placing your philosophy above accepting a very basic framework that most people recognize and through that you are placing your philosophy above your own experiences. In order to do that, you would seem to have to rest upon something non-empiric, and thus it seems that there is either a contradiction or a self-imposed mind-blindness.

And it is also seems true that our own perceptions of reality must also be conceptions of reality as well, and thus the focus upon external data never occurs before a logical processing of the world. After all, a computer without a program will not interpret the data correctly, and the human brain not only does not, but cannot perceive and comprehend all of the data before it without taking short-cuts and using heuristics. When a person looks at a chair, they are not seeing bits of brown, but rather they perceive a structure that they have been taught to look for already. The fact that our realities are conceptualized has also posed a problem for psychological methods such as behavioralism, as many of the stimuli are not raw physical facts, but also can carry other facts, without which, the stimulus is incomprehensible. One psychologist criticized behavioralism because it could not recognize these mental facts, but psychological behavior would be almost impossible to understand without the reference.

In any discussion it's important to have a common basis in terminology. There are may words in abstract discussions that must be tied down very tightly in any particular discussion to be certain participants are discussing the same thing. "reality" and "knowledge" are two terms that have an almost infinite set of meanings and to employ them they must be agreed upon in any specific discussion. Mathematics does indeed contain information but it is information about an infinite number of universes only one of which pertains to our own. "Existence" in this discussion is a term I use indicating our own universe. There are certain physical constants such as the speed of light, the interatomic forces etc. which we have determined in our own universe and are used in understanding reality. Mathematics permits the exploration of universes where these forces are different but these are not, in my terminology, real universes although the knowledge about them is no doubt real. We discover our own universe by measuring actual perceived physical effects and thereby extend our understanding of reality. Each human has a variation of sense perception and, as a matter of fact, one of my eyes sees the universe differently than the other in the matter of color and acuity but I must assume they are looking at the same universe. Of this I cannot be sure but it is a reasonable assumption. Thus, whatever the differences in perception or interpretation of perception each human has it is a common assumption that we are all perceiving the same universe and science must make accommodation for the differences. Otherwise we must accept a totally chaotic existence. Philosophy, like mathematics and theology, can formulate many different universes depending upon the personal interpretations of the thinker but until those interpretations are measured against physical realities obtained by measurements of observed phenomena it is all groundless supposition which may or may not have validity in our universe. Theology is notorious in rejecting physical confirmation or denial of its tenets and is largely unconfirmed prejudice and fantasy with many basic internal contradictions and any attempts to correct them is fiercely objected to by adherents on emotional grounds so I personally find the whole business somewhat insane and reject it.

Sand, first off, I think there is a contradiction in affirming that math supplies information about our universe(along with all other possible universes) while denying that it provides information about our universe, this could be a misconception on my part, but I don't see why the claim about math and possible universes is relevant. Secondly, the issue is not just in literal perception but also in selection of data as valid and more importantly, in the recognition of certain sets of data. The philosophical claim is that people in this thread are not recognizing the perception of a certain set of data as valid or at least taking a rather strained interpretation of this data for arbitrary reasons. As such, the argument made is not based upon a speculative fiction, but rather arguing that based upon a certain set of accepted data, a certain conclusion seems necessary, in fact, most philosophers do not entirely make things up, even if they do come to odd conclusions, but rather they try to rely upon inductive methods that are outside of the scope of the sciences, you can reject this inductive method, but the level that some in this thread want to reject, is as on a rather extreme level

basically, it is to the point where we would argue that some serious rationalizations have to be occurring(which is strange given how much your side rejects the validity of rationalizations).

actually the whole concept of conducting experiments came from alchemy which was mystical and philosophical. Science came from philsosophy it was actually called natural philosophy. All one has to do is put that into google or use wikipedia.

Maths is not empirical, but is also not "knowlegde" about the world. It is a highly sophisticated instrument to build models of the world, but all new conclusions we follow out of this model, must be confirmed by empirical means. In engineering this confirmation had been done, so we can use our mathematical models to predict behaviour. A good part of research does try to confirm unproven conclusions based on mathematical models.



We have our systems of precept to which we build our model of the world, and in this point Kant is still valid - But: We had to give up of precepts if they are not in line with our empirical observations.



Your instrument of measurement is quit "unsuited" to see the activity of you neurons, there better instruments which give here a clear indication.

My very thought! I think we might have met in a Previous Life and had a conversation. Live Long and Prosper.

ruveyn

Science cannot "poop" metaphysics because, as far as I know, science does not address metaphysics. Sometimes metaphysics poops itself.

And that is why it isn't considered a branch of knowledge? Look, nobody said that mathematics was perfect, but to say that people don't know more because of it is ridiculous, and hard to support. In any case, the problem of induction is still an issue, even if engineering works with better known principles, as each individual problem is a new application, and thus the application of this knowledge is really an extrapolation. Nobody said that research was not valuable either, but once again, I would argue that if you claim that math isn't knowledge, then you must really be missing something, because math is widely considered a branch of knowledge, and it has important functions, such as in computer science, statistics, calculus, etc, some of which are used for empirical methods, such as in computers, and statistics.


Well, if they contradict our empirical observations, but I don't think anybody is pushing a direction that contradicts empirical observations, arguably pushing directions that go closer to our empirical data.


My instrument of measurement is more fundamental to my knowledge than any other instrument that sees the activity of neurons. Denying it's ability for the other instrument is on the level of denying I have sight because somebody claimed to disprove the existence of a visible spectrum, if such a thing happened, I could only stare at them with incredulity. In any case, I do not have a instrument of measuring neurons so much as I have an instrument of measuring mental states, which are ontologically different than neurons. I also know empirically that I have mental states, in fact, I have a stronger empirical verification of mental states than I do of neurons, because I directly experience mental states all of the time as a separate viewing field than others, but I have very few direct experiences of cells, much less of neurons, thus even if the 2 contradict, I could claim to be more reasonable to deny the existence of cells than of mental states, because denying a constant perception for less well-known seems fallacious. In this instance though, the 2 do not contradict, there are neurons and 1st person mental states.

Philosophers no longer develop hypotheses about the physical universe - That became science's job around the 17th century, as soon as the alchemists of the day became more confident in measuring hypotheses against the physical universe. More recently, philosophy has concerned itself mainly with the interpretation of scientifically-established facts, i.e. asking what evolution and so on may mean for us personally. Those interpretations are rarely relevant to any concept of measurement, although they must still withstand logical analysis.



Not so - An examination of the differences between autistic and NT perceptions confirms that our perceptions are not so much a copy of an external universe as internal mental realities that cannot always be reconciled with others.





To claim that something is only real if the possibility of physical proof exists is nonsensical, because you're adding the caveat 'physical' to the accepted definition of the concept 'real' /
'existent'. You can't win an argument by changing the definitions of words .

There are certain phenomena whose reality is confirmed merely by their appearance within our minds. It is the manner of their existence that remains up for scientific debate. If phenomena are observed, then they must have existence of some kind; this is a good example of tautology, which cannot be debated sanely .

Not so - An examination of the differences between autistic and NT perceptions confirms that our perceptions are not so much a copy of an external universe as internal mental realities that cannot always be reconciled with others.





To claim that something is only real if the possibility of physical proof exists is nonsensical, because you're adding the caveat 'physical' to the accepted definition of the concept 'real' /
'existent'. You can't win an argument by changing the definitions of words .

There are certain phenomena whose reality is confirmed merely by their appearance within our minds. It is the manner of their existence that remains up for scientific debate. If phenomena are observed, then they must have existence of some kind; this is a good example of tautology, which cannot be debated sanely .[/quote]

As I clearly pointed out words such as "reality" or "existence" are so multiply defined that each discussion must indicate which definition is under consideration. I am not changing any definitions, merely choosing which one applies to my comment. If you do not want to use my choice that is not my problem. I do not have to adhere to your selection of the definition of the term.

Although verbal philosophers may have forgone generalities over speculations on the nature of the universe mathematical analyses have more or less taken over that aspect by proposing multiple possibilities of our continuum and that is a vigorous ongoing task.

I'm still unsure whether any1 apart from u uses ur definition



I thought I was agreed with u about maths being a mental rather than a physical reality, in fact . I'm aware about the multiverse theory being used to fit the equations, but would find non-mathematical theories more convincing, perhaps cos I find maths boring {I'm biased!}_

Any sensible discussion lays out the definition of terms used whether or not they pertain to how the words are used outside the discussion. This is the only way to sensibly discuss anything.

science and cake...the only two things that have consistently made me smile