What is the Empirical World?

@paulhanke,

paulhanke;115968 wrote:

... the distinction (if there is one) being that I have been using the word "sound" to denote the auditory experience of atmospheric pressure waves (in contrast to the visual and tactile experiences of the same) ... so perhaps I'll stick with the term "auditory experience" to avoid any further confusion ...

I agree that I cannot have auditory experience unless I have an auditory experience.

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@Zetherin,

Zetherin;115009 wrote:

I consider reality to be, "The state of things as they actually exist". It is what is mind-independent.

How we perceive reality is subjective, but that does not mean that we aren't perceiving what is objectively real.

The point of Schopenhaur's and Kant's philosophy, despite their differences, is that 'objectively real' in the sense you are using the term, is an assumption. I think the vital lesson from them (and Berkeley) is to show that we cannot and do not know a reality independent of our perception of it. I think neurology has confirmed this by showing that the brain 'constructs' reality. As has been said, nothing is red, but neither is it far, near, large, small, hot or cold, except insofar as it is these things for the observer. It is neither objective nor subjective - the reality is not 'what you see out the window' but 'you looking out the window'. It includes you, the window, what you see out of it, the act of looking, and the hundreds of millions of neural operations that occur the instant you look.

When you look out the window, 'what you see' is dependent on an enormous - in fact an incalculable - number of variables, including whether you're human; whether you're color-blind; whether you're familiar with the view; whether you're looking for something in particular; etc etc ad infinitum. In practical terms, as a working hypothesis, you and I will see the same thing; but it is the job of philosophy to deconstruct this. (See also Ortega's Doctrine of the Point of View)

Try this thought experiment.

Quote:

You are a mountain, but are endowed with basic sensory perception. However, being a mountain, you are somewhere in the vicinity of 50 millions years old. Now, in your perception, much of what would be 'real' from the 'human' viewpoint would be completely invisible to you. People and animals would arise and perish in such infinitesmal time-spans that you would never notice them. For you, they wouldn't exist. Rivers, you would have to reckon with; they would be around long enough to carve gullies in your flanks. The pole star, you could see, blinking on an off rapidly. You might notice seasons but they would seem like hot and cold flushes to a human....

The point of that thought-experiment is to show how reality is and must be a human reality, no matter how much science tells us about it. (Thomas Nagel is good on that question also.)

Regarding 'the tree falling in the forest' - the way to deal with this is to ask the question 'which tree'?

The answer is, of course, 'well it doesn't matter. Some hypothetical tree'. But in doing this, you are already thinking of the tree (=creating it in perception). In asking 'does this tree not exist if no-one is around to see it', what you are actually doing is imagining its non-existence. You are thinking 'OK, if no-one sees the tree fall in the forest, does that mean it doesn't exist'? Well - WHICH TREE DOES NOT EXIST? You see the point?

(Russell said that according to G. E. Moore, idealists claim that when you are sitting in the train carriage, the wheels don't exist, because you are not perceiving them. To which again I would answer 'which wheels don't exist?'(History of Western Philosophy, 1974 edition, p 631.)

The corollary of the fact that things exist in perception is not that they don't exist when not being perceived. It is that, insofar as they exist at all, they exist in relationship to the seer - reality is the conjunction of seer-seeing-object seen. To which Berkeley, Kant and Schopenhaur add 'and don't you forget it!'

Berkeley, it might be remembered, also said that when nobody was around to observe anything, reality was sustained by the perception of God, hence the famous limerick:

Quote:

There was a young man who said "God
Must find it exceedingly odd
To think that the tree
Should continue to be
When there's no one about in the quad."

"Dear Sir: Your astonishment's odd;
I am always about in the quad.
And that's why the tree
Will continue to be
Since observed by,
Yours faithfully,
God."

(Composition anonymous, to my knowledge)

One way of thinking about this which gets you out of the solipsism bind is to reflect on the fact that consciousness is collective; so things don't necessarily exist in your consciousness or my consciousness, but in consciousness.

Zetherin;115629 wrote:

What would the difference between "reality" and "ultimate reality" be?

This follows from the last point - according to traditional philosophy, what stands between us and 'true knowledge' is precisely our own self-centredness. If a human can see everything free from the taint of self-centredness then 'the doors of perception are cleansed', as said Blake, and the degree of truth we are able to percieve is proportional to the degree to which we are able to exercise the intellect free of self-interest. It might be easy enough to put this into words, but few realise it (cf also Spinoza's 'intellectual love of God'.)

kennethamy;115685 wrote:

What is naive about naive realism?

Scientific realism is not the view that nothing exists except what is detectable by science. It is that whatever we can know about the world is best known though science. It does not say there is nothing else in the world.

Bertrand Russell again:

Quote:

They (analytical philosphers) confess frankly that the human intellect is unable to find conclusive answers to many questions of profound importance to mankind, but they refuse to believe that there is some 'higher' way of knowledge by which we can discover truths hidden from science and the intellect (p 789, History of Western Philosophy).

I think that Schopenhaur, Kant and Berkeley disagree with this. Remember the inscription above the dwelling of the Oracle of Delphi: 'Man, know thyself'. Self-knoweldge is not a scientific matter. This is exactly why philosophy is different to science, which has been largely forgotten in a scientific age. A scientist will generally not ask himself 'is my life real? What if everything I believe is an illusion? Is there any greater truth that I can discover within myself than what is told me by others?' I believe this is the kind of question which is demanded in the traditional philosophical quest. It is a very old-fashioned notion.

Zetherin;115893 wrote:

But there's still a sound, even if there is no human there to experience it.

You disagree with this?

Well, we believe that. And we believe it because it is a scientific age. Our locus of reality is the empirical realm, that the OP started off with. Not only do we not question it, we don't know how to question it. This is where moderns are very different. What you call skepticism nowadays is nothing like skepticism was. Go out on retreat for a good while, eat cold meals, have cold showers, forget all the comforts of home and everything you think you know. That is what the Greeks used to do, if they wanted to acquire wisdom. That is really 'questioning' and the real environment in which the skeptics practised their 'epoche'. Maybe self-knowledge requires that too.

OK I am being polemical. The point is, the 'real world' that us moderns assume, has indeed been questioned by philosophers and monks and spiritual practitioners. There is a sense in which 'the world' can be understood to be unreal, but it really takes some doing. It can't just be explained. I don't think Russell got this, nor do modern academic and analytical philosophers generally. The scientific revolution after all started out with throwing out metaphysics and traditional philosophy and saying 'let's all just concentrate on what is 'really there'.

I hear faint laughter from the heavens.....:bigsmile:

1 Reply

@jeeprs,

jeeprs;116042 wrote:

Regarding 'the tree falling in the forest' - the way to deal with this is to ask the question 'which tree'?

The answer is, of course, 'well it doesn't matter. Some hypothetical tree'. But in doing this, you are already thinking of the tree (=creating it in perception). In asking 'does this tree not exist if no-one is around to see it', what you are actually doing is imagining its non-existence. You are thinking 'OK, if no-one sees the tree fall in the forest, does that mean it doesn't exist'? Well - WHICH TREE DOES NOT EXIST? You see the point?

No, I am afraid I do not see the point. Or rather, I think the implicit argument is fallacious. How is it that when I ask whether the tree exists when it is not observed that I am "imagining its non-existence" I am merely asking that question. I am not imagining anything. But, suppose that I do imagine that the tree does not exist (the one right in front of me, I mean. That one). What is that supposed to imply? That I cannot imagine it does not exist without observing it? That is just false. Imagining it as not existing is not observing that tree (or any tree).

What should the fact that I do not observe something have to do with whether it exists or not I have no idea. Of course, it may have to do with whether I know that it exists. But we should not confuse the question whether something exists with whether we know it exists. Don't you agree? (That, of course, is the Idealist Confusion).

I suppose there is a "sense" in which the world can be thought of as "unreal". But as you indicate by the quotation marks, that is a different sense from the sense in which we ordinarily talk of things as being real or unreal. So, how would that "sense" in which the world can be thought of as "unreal" be at all relevant to what we have been talking about? If you see my point. (I suppose that there is a sense in which a tiger can be thought of as an elephant. We can just make that sense up. But how would that sense be relevant to whether the tiger was an elephant?)

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@paulhanke,

Is there a "real" world independent of our perception of it?
Depends on what you mean by "real".
Is there a difference between our "perceived world" and the "real world"?
Do our perceptions "add something" which is not contained in the "real world"?
Do our perceptions "leave something out" which "exists" in the "real world"?
Again depends of what you mean by "real" and "exists" themselves difficult problems.
I suppose the "empirical world" is closer to the "perceived world" than the "real world". The correspondence theory of truth may have some application here.

1 Reply

@prothero,

prothero;116076 wrote:

Is there a "real" world independent of our perception of it?
Depends on what you mean by "real".
Is there a difference between our "perceived world" and the "real world"?
Do our perceptions "add something" which is not contained in the "real world"?
Do our perceptions "leave something out" which "exists" in the "real world"?
Again depends of what you mean by "real" and "exists" themselves difficult problems.

"Real" means, independent of our perception of it. So, it would be better to ask whether there is a real world independent of our perception of it. "Exist" means that certain properties are exemplified. "X exists" means that there are properties that X has.

2 Replies

@kennethamy,

[QUOTE=kennethamy;116077] "Real" means, independent of our perception of it. So, it would be better to ask whether there is a real world independent of our perception of it. [/QUOTE] The exact wording of my first question. I thought "what is real" was a difficult and classical philosophical question. You seem to have already answered it?

[QUOTE=kennethamy;116077] "Exist" means that certain properties are exemplified. "X exists" means that there are properties that X has. [/QUOTE]Properties as perceived by what or whom? What is the definitive arbitrator of what properties x does or might have? Before we could detect cosmic rays did they "exist"? There may be many properties that X has that we cannot and may not ever perceive or detect.

1 Reply

@prothero,

prothero;116081 wrote:

The exact wording of my first question. I thought "what is real" was a difficult and classical philosophical question. You seem to have already answered it?

Properties as perceived by what or whom? What is the definitive arbitrator of what properties x does or might have? Before we could detect cosmic rays did they "exist"? There may be many properties that X has that we cannot and may not ever perceive or detect.

Isn't what is real what is not imagined, or hallucinated, or dependent on observation? That is how I use the term, and that is, I think, what it means in English. For instance, "that oasis is real" denies that what you seem to perceive is a mirage."What you think is the magician cutting the lady in half is a trick, an illusion. It is not real".

That "what is real?" is a difficult question need not mean that it does not have an answer. Not even if it is a difficult and classical philosophical question.

Of course, there are many properties that something has which we may not be able to detect. Nothing I said is inconsistent with that. I just said that to say that X exists is to say that X has properties. I did not say anything about whether the properties were detectable or not.

1 Reply

@kennethamy,

[QUOTE=kennethamy;116083] Isn't what is real what is not imagined, or hallucinated, or dependent on observation? That is how I use the term, and that is, I think, what it means in English. For instance, "that oasis is real" denies that what you seem to perceive is a mirage."What you think is the magician cutting the lady in half is a trick, an illusion. It is not real". [/QUOTE] It is generally how I use the term too. It must have existence or properties independent of my perceptions to be "real".

[QUOTE=kennethamy;116083] That "what is real?" is a difficult question need not mean that it does not have an answer. Not even if it is a difficult and classical philosophical question. [/QUOTE] The way terms are used in common conversation often does not suffice in philosophical discussion although I think the common meaning of the term is a good place to start. The difference between real and exist is not so clear however.

[QUOTE=kennethamy;116083] Of course, there are many properties that something has which we may not be able to detect. Nothing I said is inconsistent with that. I just said that to say that X exists is to say that X has properties. I did not say anything about whether the properties were detectable or not. [/QUOTE] So there may be things which are real and which exist of which we are completely unaware? In fact there probably are many such real and existent things? There is a gap between our empirical perceived world and the real and existent world? The only discussion would be how large that gap is and whether science can completely close the gap in practice or in theory?

1 Reply

@prothero,

prothero;116088 wrote:

It is generally how I use the term too. It must have existence or properties independent of my perceptions to be "real".

The way terms are used in common conversation often does not suffice in philosophical discussion although I think the common meaning of the term is a good place to start. The difference between real and exist is not so clear however.

So there may be things which are real and which exist of which we are completely unaware? In fact there probably are many such real and existent things? There is a gap between our empirical perceived world and the real and existent world? The only discussion would be how large that gap is and whether science can completely close the gap in practice or in theory?

So you seem to agree with me. It seems to me that science is our best shot. I cannot think of any nearly as good. 500 years ago, there were microbes, but no one knew about them. So, clearly there have been things we have been completely unaware of. And is there any reason to think that there are not now?

1 Reply

@kennethamy,

[QUOTE=kennethamy;116093] So you seem to agree with me. [/QUOTE] Well in many respect yes but don't get too hopeful.

[QUOTE=kennethamy;116093] It seems to me that science is our best shot. I cannot think of any nearly as good. [/QUOTE] I am a scientific realist in the sense that what science tells us is among the most reliable "knowledge" that we have. Scientific knowledge is always tentative, subject to change or modification, at best an approximation but is generally the best information we have about the objective world. Where we differ I think is in my notion that there is much about human experience and other forms of subjective experience that is not available to science. Science thus (in my view) only gives an inherently partial and incomplete picture of "experience". In my view such "experience" interiority is a wide spread phenomena in nature. Any views I have about religion, values or aesthetics are "informed by" but not "determined by" science. Religion should not deny what science tells us.

[QUOTE=kennethamy;116093] 500 years ago, there were microbes, but no one knew about them. [/QUOTE] There remain many things I think about which we are unaware and do not know. There are also many things of which we are aware (mind and subjective experience) which remain beyond the reach of material science.

[QUOTE=kennethamy;116093] So, clearly there have been things we have been completely unaware of. And is there any reason to think that there are not now? [/QUOTE] Nope, none what so ever. Humility is called for.

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@kennethamy,

kennethamy;116077 wrote:

"Real" means, independent of our perception of it.

I think this is the Galilean understanding of it. The Galilean idea is that reality has 'primary qualities' which are 'truly objective'; whereas the 'secondary qualities' (including colour, taste, and so on) are said to be 'non-objective'. So the 'primary qualities' are what defines what is really there. They are not in any way dependent on the presence of the observer.

This is characteristic of the scientific outlook and is a common sense view of the matter. It is 'the dominant paradigm', so you're on pretty safe ground there. But again, Schopenhauer

Quote:

claimed that an observing subject can only know material objects through the mediation of the brain and its particular organization. The way that the brain knows determines the way that material objects are experienced. "Everything objective, extended, active, and hence everything material, is regarded by materialism as so solid a basis for its explanations that a reduction to this (especially if it should ultimately result in thrust and counter-thrust) can leave nothing to be desired. But all this is something that is given only very indirectly and conditionally, and is therefore only relatively present, for it has passed through the machinery and fabrication of the brain, and hence has entered the forms of time, space, and causality, by virtue of which it is first of all presented as extended in space and operating in time.

Source

In saying this, Schopenhauer is, I believe, at one with Kant. (My emphasis; also my counter-thrust :bigsmile:)

But this is why the question as to 'what is real' is a metaphysical question. It is because it has to take into account, not just the fact that 'the table exists', but also, what 'knowing the table exists' consists of. This is why it is a question of self-knowledge, of 'knowing how you know'. The view you are defending is the view of the scientific outlook: that the Universe is what is real, and through science, more and more about it, is disclosed. But the question that metaphysics always asks is, can you arrive at the end by summation? Metaphysics is actually radical in this respect. Maybe you're not willing to consider it - perfectly OK as far as I am concerned. I am just exploring the line of thought. I find it interesting.

---------- Post added 01-02-2010 at 10:30 AM ----------

I should add that there are many ways in which the 'modern scientific worldview' is actually completely alienating, and this view of reality is certainly at the root of it. I have noticed that the prominent apoogists for secular humanism, such as Dennett, Dawkins, Monod, and Wilson, all regard it as axiomatic that the vast universe, in which we are tiny and insignificant specs, is the Ultimate Reality, and we have evolved in it fortuitously. There is no real connection between this Ultimate Reality and H. Sapiens: as you say 'it exists whether we perceive it or not'. That is the philosophical background within which we have suddenly learned to manipulate fundamental objects and energies with unprecedented skill. No wonder the world seems such a scary place nowadays.

2 Replies

@jeeprs,

jeeprs;116160 wrote:

I think this is the Galilean understanding of it. The Galilean idea is that reality has 'primary qualities' which are 'truly objective'; whereas the 'secondary qualities' (including colour, taste, and so on) are said to be 'non-objective'. So the 'primary qualities' are what defines what is really there. They are not in any way dependent on the presence of the observer.

This is characteristic of the scientific outlook and is a common sense view of the matter. It is 'the dominant paradigm', so you're on pretty safe ground there. But again, Schopenhauer

.

That is how the term "real" is used, so it is not clear just what you are saying when you suggest that what is real is something different. That suggestion seems to be a recommendation that the sound and mark be used differently. But why? And, even if that suggestion were followed, that would not mean that the term "real" as it is ordinarily used does not mean what it means.

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@jeeprs,

[QUOTE=jeeprs;116160] But this is why the question as to 'what is real' is a metaphysical question. It is because it has to take into account, not just the fact that 'the table exists', but also, what 'knowing the table exists' consists of. This is why it is a question of self-knowledge, of 'knowing how you know'. The view you are defending is the view of the scientific outlook: that the Universe is what is real, and through science, more and more about it, is disclosed. But the question that metaphysics always asks is, can you arrive at the end by summation? Metaphysics is actually radical in this respect. Maybe you're not willing to consider it - perfectly OK as far as I am concerned. I am just exploring the line of thought. I find it interesting. . [/QUOTE] Science is one powerful way of gaining reliable (truth as consistency, coherence and correspondence) information about the "external real world". The debate would be how much of the "real world" lies beyond science and how much of our "knowledge" of the world comes from properties which the form of our senses and the conceptual categories of our mind add to our "knowledge". There are many things we cannot know for certain. We cannot know what properties x has we cannot perceive or what x's exist of which we are unaware. We cannot know which properties we add to the world with our mind and which properties the world has independent of our perceptions. "Through a glass darkly" is the religious phase and it applies to the scientific view as well. Science informs us and the information science gives us is reliable (scientific realism) but it is not complete. Religion must take science into account but it not limited to it.

[QUOTE=jeeprs;116160] I should add that there are many ways in which the 'modern scientific worldview' is actually completely alienating, and this view of reality is certainly at the root of it. I have noticed that the prominent apoogists for secular humanism, such as Dennett, Dawkins, Monod, and Wilson, all regard it as axiomatic that the vast universe, in which we are tiny and insignificant specs, is the Ultimate Reality, and we have evolved in it fortuitously. There is no real connection between this Ultimate Reality and H. Sapiens: as you say 'it exists whether we perceive it or not'. That is the philosophical background within which we have suddenly learned to manipulate fundamental objects and energies with unprecedented skill. No wonder the world seems such a scary place nowadays. [/QUOTE]I think the question of mans relationship to the universe is The "existential" question. Religion is primarily an effort to overcome the notion of our "existence" as meaningless and insignificant. Modern Science taken alone not only fails to address the primary human existential concern; it can, as you imply aggravate it. Cultures which live in close proximity to nature: as opposed to those which are technologically separated from nature I think fare better in "existential" terms. Man must as a self reflective, self aware creature construct a worldview that includes his relationship to nature. The view that life is accidental, purposeless and ultimately meaningless is not satisfactory.

1 Reply

@prothero,

prothero;116213 wrote:

I think the question of mans relationship to the universe is The "existential" question. Religion is primarily an effort to overcome the notion of our "existence" as meaningless and insignificant. Modern Science taken alone not only fails to address the primary human existential concern; it can, as you imply aggravate it. Cultures which live in close proximity to nature: as opposed to those which are technologically separated from nature I think fare better in "existential" terms. Man must as a self reflective, self aware creature construct a worldview that includes his relationship to nature. The view that life is accidental, purposeless and ultimately meaningless is not satisfactory.

... it's interesting to me that on a philosophy forum "religion" and "science" are so often set in contrast to one another as if they were the only options Smile

... anyhoo, science tells us that free atoms will bounce around without purpose nor meaning, and that for the first few milliseconds of this universe there weren't even sub-atomic particles, let alone atoms ... this has direct relevance to human purpose and meaning only if reductionism is true ... that is, if reductionism is true, then there is never really anything new under the sun - all is mere epiphenomena of what existed at the moment of the big bang, which, let me point out again, it has been theorized did not include atoms nor sub-atomic particles, and therefore matter itself is a mere epiphenomenon ... if reductionism is true, then human purpose and meaning are just as fictional as matter ... if, on the other hand, reductionism is not true, then the fact that free atoms can be observed to bounce around without purpose nor meaning has little relevance to the fact that humans can be observed to bounce around with purpose and meaning ... if reductionism is not true, then there can be new things under the sun (such as electrons and atoms and molecules and humans and meaning and purpose) ... so let me ask you this - is reductionism currently a scientific theory, or is it still a metaphysical theory? ... that is, is reductionism science or philosophy? ...

1 Reply

@paulhanke,

But what is interesting about it is the way that the relationship between the religious and scientific views were historically determined and also how very related they are in a kind of dialectic. Hence science and scientific reductionism grew out of the scholastic tradition and Western metaphysics. Many of the basic dicoveries which enabled the Scientific Revolution were laid down by medieval scholastics.

But under the historical circumstances, many progressive thinkers had to abandon the 'dead hand of scholasticism' and the traditional metaphysic that was identified with it...which is part of what Francis Bacon, William of Ockham, Locke, Kant, Hume, Voltaire, Comte and the other 'founders of the enlightenment' did (although some of them remained more open than others to retaining a metaphysic). As is well known, Descartes' dualism was an essential foundation for the scientific revolution with the division of reality in to mind and matter. It was a short step from there to describing mind as an epiphenomenon of matter.

Reductionism really came from Auguste Comte and the other philosophical materialists who said (reasonably, under the circumstances) 'why all this blather about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, and so on, let's just concentrate on positive science and what we can actually do to improve the lot of humankind'. This was in light of the recent discovery of Newton's Laws of Motion, which did after all unify the entire visible universe into a set of equations. This is where reductionism came from.

References:

The Theological Origins of Modernity by Michael Alan Gillespie
God's Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations for Modern Science by James Hallam

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@paulhanke,

[QUOTE=paulhanke;116219]... it's interesting to me that on a philosophy forum "religion" and "science" are so often set in contrast to one another as if they were the only options ...[/QUOTE] Well I think science is value and aesthetics neutral. Some metaphysical assumptions or worldviews which are commonly associated with science (i.e. the mechanistic determinism and materialism of classical mechanics) or reductionism do not mesh well with religious worldviews but they are not science or intrinsic to the "scientific method". Some forms of religion (young earth creationism for instance) or just supernatural theism in general is hard to make compatible with science. Personally I think religion and science largely deal with different aspects of human experience and human concern. They are not inherently incompatible. Neither science nor religion alone creates a comprehensive or coherent worldview.

I like Einstein's "Religion without Science is Blind, and Science without religion is Lame". Some aspects of both are necessary for a complete or comprehensive worldview. Some augment their science with materialism. Others augment their science with spirituality. Science alone does not give a complete worldview it is always augmented by some metaphysical assumption or philosophical speculation. It is not science that is in conflict with religion it is certain kinds of metaphysics (particularly materialism and mechanistic deterministic views of nature).

Give up materialism and supernatural theism and science and religion do just fine together. For me it is process philosophy for metaphysics and process theology for religion. Nothing in my worldview conflicts with "science' or science as a method for understanding certain aspects of reality. Nothing in my religion cannot accept what science shows us to be "true" as correspondence to objective reality.

[QUOTE=paulhanke;116219].... anyhoo, science tells us that free atoms will bounce around without purpose nor meaning, and that for the first few milliseconds of this universe there weren't even sub-atomic particles, let alone atoms ... this has direct relevance to human purpose and meaning only if reductionism is true so let me ask you this - is reductionism currently a scientific theory, or is it still a metaphysical theory? ... that is, is reductionism science or philosophy? ...[/QUOTE] I would say reductionism is a useful tool but when taken to extremes is false. The reductionist approach is utilitarian in breaking a problem down in components pieces and yielding some degree of understanding but a purely reductionist approach or understanding is very limited, partial and incomplete. For me things only truly exist in their relationship to other things. Until one puts the reductionist pieces into the puzzle and can view their relationships to the whole and to other things one does not understand. Even the lowly electron has "choices" and some degree of "freedom" as well as some "perception" of its relations to other things. My particular religious view entails the notion that the universe as a whole is an "emanation of spirit "or a "manifestation of the divine". Creativity (creation of value) is the ultimate divine purpose.

So what is the "empirical" world? It is a partial, limited and incomplete view of the "real world". The real word is alive and enchanted and full of experience and purpose. Man is not the ultimate or only thing with purposes and meanings.

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@paulhanke,

Thoughts...

Perhaps it was asking how many angels can dance on the head of a pin that eventually led to the idea of fluxions.

The problem of scepticism puts paid to realism as anything more than a hypothesis. Even if scepticism is false physics will never be able to show it.

To me it seems that the whole basis of religion is reductionism.

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@Whoever,

Whoever;116422 wrote:

T

The problem of scepticism puts paid to realism as anything more than a hypothesis. Even if scepticism is false physics will never be able to show it.

.

Realism is not shown to be false just because it cannot be known to be true. To argue that is to commit the fallacy of ad ignorantium, the appeal to ignorance.

Argument from ignorance - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

(Not, of course, that we do not know that Realism is true).

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@paulhanke,

You're putting words in my mouth. Scepticism puts paid to realism as a scientific theory. Whether the theory is true or not is another matter.

1 Reply

@Whoever,

Whoever;116422 wrote:

Thoughts...

To me it seems that the whole basis of religion is reductionism.

Well, knock me down with a feather.

Wikipedia says reductionism can either mean

Quote:

(a) an approach to understand the nature of complex things by reducing them to the interactions of their parts, or to simpler or more fundamental things or (b) a philosophical position that a complex system is nothing but the sum of its parts, and that an account of it can be reduced to accounts of individual constituents

So, in light of that definition, how can 'religion' (generalisation alert) be reductionist?

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