Another Subjective Experience thread (for PTB)

[vhawk01]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Many seem to think that science is limited to what can be empirically verified...Rather, it entertains ANY model of reality that makes testable predictions.


[/ QUOTE ]

Having observational implications, or 'making testable predictions', is exactly how a philosopher of science would characterize theories that are empirically verifiable.

So what does 'making testable predictions' mean if it doesn't mean empirically verifiable?

[/ QUOTE ]

hellbender brought up the point on another thread that science does not "verify" its models. Evidently there was once a big debate on the issue of "verification". The idea being that to "verify" a model you would have to make every possible test to see if it holds up in every possible circumstance. For example, the model which says that any two objects fall at the same rate in a vacuum. One prediction that model makes is that a feather and a marble fall at the same rate and you can test this. But to "verify" the model you would have to test every pair of objects in the universe against each other because the model says "any" two objects.

Gotta be careful with the word "verify" these days I guess.



PairTheBoard

[/ QUOTE ]

Its a pretty significant difference. I don't know if I would go as far as to say 'science doesn't attempt to verify its models,' though. I mean, the actual process is an attempt to FALSIFY its models, but by doing so it does verify them, at least if you understand verification to be a gradient and not binary. The models are never Verified, but you can verify them.

This is a meaningful, important distinction when discussing certain topics, especially religious ones. Its not that big of a deal when we are talking about personal theories of the mind or scientific theories of experience and phenomenology. We can trust that Philo understands this difference and didn't mean empirically Verifiable, but instead empirically verifiable.

[PairTheBoard]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

Moving to experience, it is important to note that science does not rely on a different "kind" of experience than any other endeavor. Every hypothesis ever made has been sparked by experiences felt by human senses, filtered through human biases, and, reacted to by human emotions. That is, experienced subjectively.

[/ QUOTE ]

You seem to be using the term 'subjective experience' in something like the sense of "affected by emotion, personal bias, etc." This is different from what philosophers usually mean by 'subjective experience'.

What philosophers mean by "subjective experience" are experiences that are not objectively accessible to others, i.e., the kind of 'private' or 'first-person' experiences of consciousness (like sensations) and self-conscious thought (like my awareness that I'm thinking about what the weather will be like for tomorrow). Pain is also a kind of subjective experience, since only I can feel my own pain. (there is a necessary objective aspect even to subjective experience but that is usually the domain of philosophy to deal with, not science)

[/ QUOTE ]

subfallen can speak for himself. Although I thought his wording was imprecise I took him to be getting at something I brought up on another thread. Science looks at objective data. When it has a model it can check to see if the model fits the data objectively. And it can test predictions of the model objectively. But when it creates models it relies on the inner creative process of scientists, which involves subjectivity. Also in the process of identifying those tests it thinks are important to test there will be subjectivity involved.

I took that to be his meaning. It seemed to fit the rest of his presentation.

PairTheBoard

[Philo]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Many seem to think that science is limited to what can be empirically verified...Rather, it entertains ANY model of reality that makes testable predictions.


[/ QUOTE ]

Having observational implications, or 'making testable predictions', is exactly how a philosopher of science would characterize theories that are empirically verifiable.

So what does 'making testable predictions' mean if it doesn't mean empirically verifiable?

[/ QUOTE ]

hellbender brought up the point on another thread that science does not "verify" its models. Evidently there was once a big debate on the issue of "verification". The idea being that to "verify" a model you would have to make every possible test to see if it holds up in every possible circumstance. For example, the model which says that any two objects fall at the same rate in a vacuum. One prediction that model makes is that a feather and a marble fall at the same rate and you can test this. But to "verify" the model you would have to test every pair of objects in the universe against each other because the model says "any" two objects.

Gotta be careful with the word "verify" these days I guess.



PairTheBoard

[/ QUOTE ]

By 'verified' I simply meant tested empirically.

Empirical theories can only be confirmed to greater or lesser degrees, but not shown to be true conclusively (we can call this 'proven' or 'verified'). The reason is not because we cannot test every possible case (we could have a theory that makes a prediction about only one case, for example), but because every test involves background assumptions which themselves could be the reason why the theory fails an empirical test, and not because the theory is false. The available empirical evidence always underdetermines the theory we are testing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duhem%E2%80%93Quine_thesis

[PairTheBoard]

That's interesting and something I hadn't considered. I'm taking the meaning of "model" to include everything that goes into making the prediction. So if a prediction is tested and found false it falsifies the model. The point of the Duhem–Quine thesis - which talks about the impossibility of testing a scientific hypothesis in isolation - for the model therefore is that although the model has been falsified we don't know which element of the model we have shown to be false. For example, in the model of a moving earth that predicts that birds get thrown off into the sky whenever they let go of a tree branch, the test that falsifies the model does not tell us that the model's element of a moving earth is the one that has been falsified.

Along with the link you gave I think everyone here should read this one on what it means to be a Verificationist.

It looks to me like subfallen is trying to reinvent logical positivism. I've been somewhere in the post-logical positivism camp.

In the link there's an interesting reference to a post-logical postivist camp whose key objection speaks directly to one of the assumptions subfallen makes in his presentation. From the link:
-------------
Verificationists need not be logical positivists; Willard Van Orman Quine is a famous example of a verificationist who does not accept logical positivism, on grounds of semantic holism. He suggests that, for theoretical sentences as opposed to observation sentences, meaning is "infected by theory". That theoretical sentences are reducible to observation sentences is one of the ‘dogmas of empiricism’ he rejects as incompatible with semantic holism.
----------------


And there appears to be a new concept that's become popular in the last 20 years called Constructive Empiricism whose big idea is of the "empirically adequate". From the link:
-------------
Constructive empiricism states that scientific theories do not aim at truth, but to be empirically adequate and that their acceptance involves a belief only that they are empirically adequate. A theory is empirically adequate if and only if everything that it says about observable entities is "true" (or well-established). Constructive empiricism therefore rejects unverifiable positions not because they lack truth or meaning, but because they go beyond what is needed to be empirically adequate.
----------------

I think my point still holds that tests cannot be performed for every possible prediction a scientific model can make. As I bolded in the passage from the link above, "their acceptance involves a belief only" that "everything that it says about observable entities is true(or well established)"

Finally, after all is said and done I'm afraid we are still left with the age old question,

What is Truth?

PairTheBoard

[Subfallen]

Disclaimer: Subfallen == hellbender. I thought I had been banned permanently, but then it got rescinded.

And...well...[censored] it. I've written two posts at least as long as the thread OP and then deleted them. Right now I just don't have the talent to put it all together cleanly. I do know the basic thing bugging me is this:

There are three types of experiences:
(1) Experiences of the "external" world, such as sights, sounds, smells, etc.
(2) Experiences of the purely "internal" world, such as fantasy images, daydreaming, ideas, etc.
(3) Experiences of emotion or "affect", ranging from bodily pains, tickles, etc. through emotional storms of anger, joy; to icy trances of anxiety or regret.

My position is that we should require every possibly true statement about reality to be somehow based on a Type (1) experience. But considering how little is known about why and how Type (2/3) experiences happen, I can't make an airtight argument for my case. Maybe someday when the missing science of consciousness has overrun our last mystical intuitions, a conclusion will be reached.

But for now I can only argue on pragmatic grounds. Logicians will do anything to keep a contradiction out of their formal systems, because starting with a contradiction, anything can be proven. I think the same thing happens when we allow statements based only on Type (2/3) experiences to hold equal ground as possibly true. Because if I can say the truth is God==Jesus, and he can say the truth is God==Allah, and she can say the truth is God==G_d, then the only real truth of the matter is that I damn well better have a bigger gun than either of them.

[Edit - oh, and thx PTB for indulging me! Your ability to never dismiss a position at face value inspires me. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]]

[PairTheBoard]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Many seem to think that science is limited to what can be empirically verified...Rather, it entertains ANY model of reality that makes testable predictions.


[/ QUOTE ]

Having observational implications, or 'making testable predictions', is exactly how a philosopher of science would characterize theories that are empirically verifiable.

So what does 'making testable predictions' mean if it doesn't mean empirically verifiable?

[/ QUOTE ]

hellbender brought up the point on another thread that science does not "verify" its models. Evidently there was once a big debate on the issue of "verification". The idea being that to "verify" a model you would have to make every possible test to see if it holds up in every possible circumstance. For example, the model which says that any two objects fall at the same rate in a vacuum. One prediction that model makes is that a feather and a marble fall at the same rate and you can test this. But to "verify" the model you would have to test every pair of objects in the universe against each other because the model says "any" two objects.

Gotta be careful with the word "verify" these days I guess.



PairTheBoard

[/ QUOTE ]

Its a pretty significant difference. I don't know if I would go as far as to say 'science doesn't attempt to verify its models,' though. I mean, the actual process is an attempt to FALSIFY its models, but by doing so it does verify them, at least if you understand verification to be a gradient and not binary. The models are never Verified, but you can verify them.

This is a meaningful, important distinction when discussing certain topics, especially religious ones. Its not that big of a deal when we are talking about personal theories of the mind or scientific theories of experience and phenomenology. We can trust that Philo understands this difference and didn't mean empirically Verifiable, but instead empirically verifiable.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think Philo made his meaning clear. The question was, what was subfallen's meaning? Philo claimed subfallen was incorrect. I pointed out that it depended on which meaning subfallen intended. I took subfallen to mean the Capital V version.

PairTheBoard

[PairTheBoard]

Using the language of Constructive empiricism that I quoted above, I think you are saying that you are only interested in models of reality which are Empirically Adequate. These would be the models based on your Type 1 Experiences. These are the models science is interested in.

So what can be said about a model that goes beyond the Empirically Adequate, those based on type 1-3 experiences? Well, it would be a model for which we could not reasonably believe that "everything that it says about observable entities is "true" (or well-established)". That is, where the "observable" is of the Type 1, and the "well-established" is by testing using Type 1 experiences.

That's all well and good. Maybe you're not interested in such models, but other people are. Just because they can't be Empirically Adequate doesn't mean they can't be Adequate in some other important way. Maybe there's a way to define "Religiously Adequate" which has its own quality of importance. The acceptance of such a model would be based on some other type of belief than that everything it says about Type 1 observable entities is "true" (or Type 1 well-established). I think a lot of religious people would say the belief is based on Type 1-3 experiences and "Faith". When they use the word "true" it should not be confused with the use of the word in the "Empirically Adequate" definition. You would need to understand "Truth" in a different way I think.

In my view, the Quality of Importance for such Religiously Adequate models is the Power they generate for transforming indivual lives for the better. If and when Empirically Adequate Models are able to do this we may see the Religiously Adequate ones pass away. I don't see that happening though.

PairTheBoard

[Subfallen]

[ QUOTE ]
In my view, the Quality of Importance for such Religiously Adequate models is the Power they generate for transforming indivual lives for the better.

[/ QUOTE ]

I would agree with your sentiment if I knew of even one specific Religious Model that consistently transformed its believers into better people. In my experience no such model exists---at least not when you define "better people" in ways like "happier, more compassionate, more tolerant, more insightful, more interesting, more productive, etc, etc."

But I see your point, & thx for the link about empirical adequacy.

[PairTheBoard]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
In my view, the Quality of Importance for such Religiously Adequate models is the Power they generate for transforming indivual lives for the better.

[/ QUOTE ]

I would agree with your sentiment if I knew of even one specific Religious Model that consistently transformed its believers into better people. In my experience no such model exists---at least not when you define "better people" in ways like "happier, more compassionate, more tolerant, more insightful, more interesting, more productive, etc, etc."

But I see your point, & thx for the link about empirical adequacy.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think sometimes it does those things. But if it just changed a sociopathic killer into someone who's no longer going to murder me I'd be pleased with the result.

I think the reason you want "consistency" is because you're looking for a kind of Truth in the religion which conforms to the kind of truth you talk about in Empirically Adequate models. I think Truth has to be understood differently for Religiously Adequate models. Exactly how I'm not sure. And you may not be interested in that kind of Truth. My thought is that there's a lot left for us to explore in that concept alone and the quest looks intriguing to me.

PairTheBoard

[Philo]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

Moving to experience, it is important to note that science does not rely on a different "kind" of experience than any other endeavor. Every hypothesis ever made has been sparked by experiences felt by human senses, filtered through human biases, and, reacted to by human emotions. That is, experienced subjectively.

[/ QUOTE ]

You seem to be using the term 'subjective experience' in something like the sense of "affected by emotion, personal bias, etc." This is different from what philosophers usually mean by 'subjective experience'.

What philosophers mean by "subjective experience" are experiences that are not objectively accessible to others, i.e., the kind of 'private' or 'first-person' experiences of consciousness (like sensations) and self-conscious thought (like my awareness that I'm thinking about what the weather will be like for tomorrow). Pain is also a kind of subjective experience, since only I can feel my own pain. (there is a necessary objective aspect even to subjective experience but that is usually the domain of philosophy to deal with, not science)

[/ QUOTE ]

subfallen can speak for himself. Although I thought his wording was imprecise I took him to be getting at something I brought up on another thread.

PairTheBoard

[/ QUOTE ]

When you spoke about your subjective experience of your existence, weren't you talking about the sense of 'subjective experience' expressed in the cogito?