Important Philosophical Idea.

But Meleagar, you are mixing things together. Logic is simply the science of the abstract rules of reasoning. It is an idealized model. Logic is not the cognitive processes we reason with when we don't do formal logic.

Yes, it is. It's called informal logic.

And the principle of bivalence is not something that everybody accepts. And yes, we often decide things via some kind of logical computation, but the actual empirical observation itself, which is a condition that precedes the logical calculation, is not itself bound by logic.

I didn't say empirical observations are bound by anything; I said that unless the interpretation of the observation is guided by logic, such interpretations cannot lead to any meaningful theories or conclusions about what the data means.

No body is denying that logic plays a role, but you seem to make some sweeping statements that make it sound like you adhere to some kind of extreme rationalism, where we via logic gets to know the world. That is not true as it stands.

Unfortunately, without a logical framework and argument for the above claim, all it can be is manipulative rhetoric.

Okay, I think I see where you are coming from and going at. I just reacted to the way you said it. When you said that scientific theories are "based on" I understood it as if logic was the substance of and determiner of scientific theories and experience in general. So I probably agree with you more or less.

Re #1

1) Science is true.
2) Religious, political and economic ideology is not true.
3) Reality is cause and effect.
4) Acting on the basis of religious, political and economic ideologies false to a scientific understanding of reality is the root-cause of ill-effects mounting against us, threatening civilization and therefore humankind.
5) Conclusion: acting on the basis of scientifically valid knowledge is necessary to survival.

Hi Basichep,
bsically this is science or humanities sort of thing? CP Snow and all that guff?
It is a false dichotomy which is essentially a democratic product and democracy is a bastard in itself which first manifest itself within our kingdom, England.
So the correct conception is of two bastard princes of a bastard king. In 5) you chose one bastard (science) whilst recognizing the other bastard (humanities).

But they are both piles of deranged crap, arteficially prolonged only by printing.

There are exceptions which are the great ******** busters of the humanities. These particular authors represent a considered view of the whole pile of nauseating crap.

So it is just basically our anti-social (ex bastard) ertwhile delinquent, friend "Humanities is a delinquent, so I (science) am not.

To which the answer: "Oh, That' s clever I' ve never heard a bastard pose a false dichotomy before, do you vote Labour or Conservative?"

Re #1
5) Conclusion: acting on the basis of scientifically valid knowledge is necessary to survival.

Yes, because all the life-forms that don't have science have all gone extinct, and humans weren't capable of surviving before they had scientifically valid knowledge.

The initial post here is trivial (and some of the responses quite condescending). Yes science is as close to 'truth' as possible, and yes, if we don't use scientific knowledge in order to make decisions, we are likely to make bad decisions.

But what's missing here is what we're supposed to do with scientific knowledge! And that's a very substantial thing that is missing. The 'science is true' position could justify Social Darwinism as well as Utilitarianism, and lots of other kinds of ethics.

Which is it that we should choose?

You're argument lacks a basic axiome. I've got one: Suffering is to be avoided. Because it's intrinsically bad -- for: every sentient being acts as to avoid suffering.

What follows is Utilitarianism.

But what's missing here is what we're supposed to do with scientific knowledge! And that's a very substantial thing that is missing. The 'science is true' position could justify Social Darwinism as well as Utilitarianism, and lots of other kinds of ethics.

Science cannot provide morality or ethics. You can't get an ought from an is.

You're argument lacks a basic axiome. I've got one: Suffering is to be avoided. Because it's intrinsically bad -- for: every sentient being acts as to avoid suffering.

Please support your assertions above (that suffering is intrinsically bad, and that every sentient entity acts to avoid suffering).

What follows is Utilitarianism.

Except I have no reason to adopt your anti-suffering principle in the first place.

1) Science is true.

Everything is True! Everything is Existence/Reality, which is all inclusive! One.

2) Religious, political and economic ideology is not true.

Schizophrenia (sapiens) is the fragmentation of that which is One; Reality. the complete Universe, Truth...
Everything that is perceived, by any Perspective, is real/exists. Not anything can exist without being perceived;

"Consciousness is the ground of all being!" - Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics

Existence = the complete Universe = Reality = Consciousness = Truth = 'Self!' = God = Brahman = Tao = ... etc....
ALL INCLUSIVE!!
'One'!

Everything Exists! All inclusive!
Everything is Real! All inclusive!
Truth is all inclusive!
Everything is True! All inclusive!
Existence/Reality/Truth is all inclusive!
'One'!
That which is perceived exists. All inclusive!
That which exists is perceived. All inclusive!
Not a thing exists (notice that I didn't say that 'nothing' exists, 'cause it don't! *__- ) that is not perceived. All inclusive!
Not a thing is perceived that does not exist. All inclusive!
There is no, nor can there be, any evidence to the contrary!

3) Reality is cause and effect.

Quantum mechanics has put that 'notion' to rest.
Reality is a sychrony of moments! 'Time' only exists in the mind.

Every moment of existence exists Now!

"The Laws of Nature are not rules controlling the metamorphosis of what is, into what will be. They are descriptions of patterns that exist, all at once... " - Genius; the Life and Science of Richard Feynman
All 'eternity' at once; Now!!

There is only one moment (Planck moment; 10^-43/sec; "almost" one billion trillion trillion trillionths of a second!!!) of the entirety of existence/Reality/the Universe!
All existence, ever, is one, literally, 'timeless' moment!
Now!

Without 'time' there can be no 'linearity' and hence no 'cause and effect'.
'Cause and effect' is a crude (-ly linear) way of saying "mutually arising features of the same event!"
'Causality' is inherent in many appearances and thoughts/beliefs. And so exists and thus true, but not so from a scientific and philosophical Perspective.

4) Acting on the basis of religious, political and economic ideologies false to a scientific understanding of reality is the root-cause of ill-effects mounting against us, threatening civilization and therefore humankind.

The 'root' od such violence is the schizophrenic thoughts that fragment the One of all into a sick and violent us vs them/you!
Science alone has failed te west, and the heart alone has failed the east!
It is the synthesis of both which define the current evolution of schizophrenic homo-sapiens into homo-novus, New Man!
There is no me vs you, there is we/'Self!'! One!
Who will you harm? Self?

5) Conclusion: acting on the basis of scientifically valid knowledge is necessary to survival.

And thus your conclusion is spurious.
History has shown us otherwise, either the head without the heart, or the heart without the head, fails us!
Science has certainly provided us with a bunch of great weapons and toxins to kill each other and destroy more of the environment! That's where the 'heart' comes in! Balance! Finally, after 130,000 years of schizophrenic sapiens!

Besides, there was lots of great 'survival' happening right up 'till Now with your ('religious belief' in science) relatively 'new toy' of "scientifically valid knowledge".

'Knowledge has a critically updated, all inclusive definition;
"Knowledge is that which is perceived!"
All knowledge is true, 'valid'.
Every moment of existence is a moment of 'Self!' Knowledge!
It's ALL True!

Okay - those are the premises of the argument.

And your argument, based on scientifically and philosophically spurious premises, fails.

*********************************

1) Wowbagger said; You're argument lacks a basic axiome. I've got one: Suffering is to be avoided. Because it's intrinsically bad -- for: every sentient being acts as to avoid suffering..

To which I reply;
There is no such thing, besides the meaningless words, as "intrinsically bad".
'Good' and 'bad' are matters of Perspective, and essentially different views of the exact same thing!

Every Perspective is unique every moment!

The First Law of Soul Dynamics;
"For every Perspective, there is an equal and opposite Perspective!"

There is no 'one-size-fits-all 'knowledge'. Everyone's perceptions are unique; some just a bit, others very much so.
Whatever you might consider 'bad', another sees the equally true and valid 'good'! Balance.

suf·fer;
1. to undergo or feel pain or distress

The suffering of pain is as inherent and natural a part of our existence as anything else; joy, bliss, grief, sadness, apathy, etc...

"A word is not a Word until spoken,
a heart is not a Heart until broken!"

"A heart, like a plaster mold, must be broken, releasing that which hides within!" - anon

Pain is a very valuable necessity in our lives. All blessings are painful, all real growth is painful; would you go without both/either merely for your own personal comfort?
Perhaps learning to 'suffer' the pains in life with the same equanimity as we 'suffer' (endure) the joys, can make life a 'happier' affair?

in Plato's 'words';
'The growth of the soul in man is as that of a pearl in an oyster, both being caused by irritation."

"There are places in the heart that do not yet exist. Pain must be that they might be!"

"The same well from which springs one's joy, once flowed with tears!"

This is an important idea. You won't understand at first -because you are not at all well, but please try, and you might get better. The principles involved are really quite simple - while the connotations are vast, difficult and complicated. Ready? Focus.

1) Science is true.
2) Religious, political and economic ideology is not true.
3) Reality is cause and effect.
4) Acting on the basis of religious, political and economic ideologies false to a scientific understanding of reality is the root-cause of ill-effects mounting against us, threatening civilization and therefore humankind.
5) Conclusion: acting on the basis of scientifically valid knowledge is necessary to survival.

Okay - those are the premises of the argument. Please try to keep any comments on-topic. I know this will be difficult for you because your illness makes you want to impose ideological bases of analysis

Hi to all,

I think this is an instructice thread, because it demonstrates how also reasonable ideas can become ideologies.

Basichelp's basically reasonable idea: Science is true (or: Scientific findings are true.)

Basichelp's ideology: You are all ill who do not think what I think, that only science is true and that we should act only according to science.

So the question arises: What should we do with the people who are "ill"?
- kill them?
- hospitalize them?
- put them into prison?
- marginalize them, put them into ghettos?

I am inhabitent of the same country where Hitler was born - and I am definitly against all these options!

1 Science is true but it is false.
2. Religious ...etc - False but might not be because there is no science that give enough evidence that there is no God and there is no religion to give enough evidence that there Is God.
____________________________________________
Great minds talk ideas average minds events small minds people.

Let's try this:

1) Science is organisationally produced knowledge. It leads to results, not to understanding.
2) Religious, political and economic ideology is not true, but to do without it would mean to give up producing rich and colourful pictures of how we want to live.
3) Reality is cause and effect.
4) Acting on scientific results (that is: algorithms, without understanding) is the root-cause of ill-effects mounting against us, threatening civilization and therefore humankind
5) Conclusion: We have to create images of how we want to live using our profound heritage of religious, political, economic and other ideologies in order to sort out, what we want to do with scientific knowledge.

Best wishes
philohof

This is an important idea. You won't understand at first -because you are not at all well, but please try, and you might get better. The principles involved are really quite simple - while the connotations are vast, difficult and complicated. Ready? Focus.

1) Science is true.
2) Religious, political and economic ideology is not true.
3) Reality is cause and effect.
4) Acting on the basis of religious, political and economic ideologies false to a scientific understanding of reality is the root-cause of ill-effects mounting against us, threatening civilization and therefore humankind.
5) Conclusion: acting on the basis of scientifically valid knowledge is necessary to survival.

Okay - those are the premises of the argument. Please try to keep any comments on-topic. I know this will be difficult for you because your illness makes you want to impose ideological bases of analysis - for example, I say, in scientific terms, assuming we want to survive, we must apply renewable energy/clean fuel technology globally.
You object, saying: 'We can't afford it' - or something like that, but this is ideology again. Money isn't a scientific reality, but an ideological invention - not true and not real. Nation states are not real. We don't know if God exists or not - but religions aren't true. Reality exists, and is best described by science. Science works. Acting upon a scientific understanding of reality, by the action of cause and effect, we could not merely survive and prosper, but build for the sky. That's important - so please, try to think calmly and moderately about this without letting your illness get the better of you, forcing you to re-introduce common, false assumptions.

The problem with your conclusion is that it does not show us how we OUGHT to act. Putting the issue of ideologies not being true (which is an odd statement because it is such a sweeping generalization). your argument does not seem to understand the difference between fact and value.

Science is a methodological approach to gaining predictive knowledge of the empirical world. Nothing in that method can tell you how to act.

In ethics the term "naturalistic fallacy" is deployed for situations like this one. The fallacy is in confusing the way things are (the "is") for the way things should be according to some standard of ethics (the "ought). Being that ethics is about how people "ought" to behave and not how they might or could behave, this distinction between "is" and "ought" is valid, otherwise there would be no way to determine right from wrong conceptually.

So lets imagine some time in the future where humanity via scientific progression has learned all there is to know practically speaking (at least all the really big stuff) and can accurately describe reality. After all this is the goal most people have in mind when they think of the scientific enterprise.

However, being able to predict empirical phenomenon via theoretical constructs does not in any way tell us how we should behave as a result. We would be able to predict things about behavior and other facts about the world but we will not be able to infer how we ought to behave.

--

Now your argument says that science is necessary for survival. This an empirical claim, however there are so many variables because it depends on the facts about history that you are in no position to say such things.

Your premises state that religion and other ideologies are false, but even granting that as such something can be totally false and still be useful for survival. People have "survived" and in fact thrived due to these ideologies, among other things, you claim are not necessary for survival.

Now I am not saying we need these things in the current form, but I am saying that your syllogism is logically invalid.

And now Einstein is not correct. Do you have an example of when science has been infallibly correct? If you do, you are obviously not a scientist. Science is the new Philosophy, as in it is all a process now. I anxiously await your Hegelian half baked psycho babble retort. If you want to be taken seriously, try not to be so insufferably off-putting. You do realize that there are many people doing "science", and you may not like the people they are doing "science" for. Who checks them, huh? Maybe politics aren't so bad in that regard. Or maybe the country should be run by unchecked corporate sponsored mad scientist types? You'd like that huh, because it's easier than being wrong. Geesh, go get a hug or something. There are better things to waste time on, this obviously won't be a lucrative one for you.

Hi everyone, I was basichelp - I'm now mark black2 - I had a lot of problems with my computer and haven't been able to post here for quite some time. Now I'm back... in black, as it were. Sorry, but I cannot reply substantively to everyone's post - though I have read all of them.

Many of the replies have focused on the naturalistic fallacy - missing the point that survival is a value. If we want to survive...we need to act on valid knowledge of reality.

Others have disputed the assertion that science is true...but I suspect that their definition of truth is absolute, and excludes all knowledge. That so, what use is such a definition? Hence my proposed re-definition of (scientific) truth as that which works within a causal reality.

As philohof suggests, anyone who disagrees with me should be:

- kill them?
- hospitalize them?
- put them into prison?
- marginalize them, put them into ghettos?

...though not necessarily in that order!

nameless, No!

Everything is True!

It isn't.

Quantum mechanics has put that 'notion' to rest.

See! QM is irreconcilable with the physics of the macroscopic reality we inhabit - which is cause and effect.

...and to those who didn't get that the intro was intended as a joke - it wasn't!

@ mark black2,

did you see my post directed at your original argument?

As a side note, cause and effect is not actually true 100% of the time at the macro level. See my thread on "Newtonian physics is indeterministic." Newton's equations actually show that macro level objects are not ruled by precise causal laws.

Exogen - hello again.

@ mark black2,

did you see my post directed at your original argument?

As a side note, cause and effect is not actually true 100% of the time at the macro level. See my thread on "Newtonian physics is indeterministic." Newton's equations actually show that macro level objects are not ruled by precise causal laws.

Imagine a ball resting on a dome. According to the differential equations of Newton's physics, the ball has the possibility of moving at any point down the dome in any direction, or not. Meaning the ball could roll down at any unspecified time or never at all, and each of those are real and equal possibilities according to the equations. remember there are no "hidden variables" here at work. The assumption is that no outside force will effect the ball.

Not precise - no. Such phenomena are 'Irreducibly Complex' - and therefore chaotically unpredictable, but contrary to popular misconception chaos is a casual phenomenon.

I'll look at your reply to my original argument and post again... it'll be tomorrow. Until then, many regards, mb2.