iambiguous wrote:Scientists might get results other than what was expected. Or they might get results other than what they thought they ought to get given how they thought they understood the relationships between the components of space and time, matter and energy.
But sooner or later the results will either be in sync with the objective laws of nature or they won't. Here the "unknown unknowns" seem to revolve around the question of whether these gaps can be closed entirely re a TOE in sync with the actual physical reality of the universe.
The ontological truth perhaps? Then this part: Is there a correspnding teleological truth as well?
For me, teleology would seem to revolve around God. The universe not only exist as it does but it exists that way for a reason. The universe has a "purpose".
And, if so, how might the is/ought world of human interactions fit into that?
And if there's one thing that we are reasonably certain of, it is that no other life form on Earth grapples with the is/ought world quite like the human species does. In fact, what might be more interesting to probe is the possibility of other highly intelligent life forms on other planets. What might they think of all this?
Even the notion of natural laws is starting to be whittled at. That these change over time is seeming more possible - and that's within mainstream science. But basically I agree with you. But it doesn't change what I said. We, humans, not in some bird's eye view where we can see the natural laws or the truth and then compare that with what scientists say, find even our scientific explanations and conclusions open to revision and that revision has and likely will continue to happen, and this will likely to, as it has already, include revisions in our sense of what and who we are, such as revisions into brain, identity, cognition.
If one is disturbed by the potential for revision around ought, as you are, the 'is world' revisions that have already taken place and potentially will continue to take place
do not make the two realms very different related to that issue.
My point however is aimed not at the gap between what science knows about gravity here and now and all that can be known about it, but on imagining a time when we do know all there is to be known about it and discovering a moral component we had never even imagined could exist in discussing it.
If that was your point it was not a good example. And according to scientific philosophy itself, we never reach that time when we KNOW, as in, there, that's it, we have the final knowledge. That is built in to science. That is precisely one of the traits scientists consider an advantage over religious knowledge or 'knowledge' as they would view it. That scientific knowledge is always open to revision, period. It is always the current best explanation. Perhaps we will or have already hit the truth, now, but we cannot know that in some final way, according to scientific epistemology. That is part, but not all, of its strength.
What is "neat" about the gap that I always come back to?
Well, obviously I am pointing out a way it was neat. It would seem reading your posts, that revision in the ought realm, is not something we face in the is realm. But we do. You haven't really conceded any points. But I have been pointing out in the last couple of posts here things that do not fit with the neat is/ought distinction as you presented it. The ought realm in your rendition if filled with confusion, with changes over time, with uncertainty. And this I obviously agree with. But we experience this in the IS realm also. To be in a hole fragmented has to do with what you know and can know and cannot know, with changes over time (that is, revisions), with confusion and uncertainty. That is present in the IS realm. Yes, there are differences. But there is also overlap. And one could easily fall into a whole over what science presents and further the fact that one cannot know if what one considers true, for example about the self, based on science, will not be overturned tomorrow. You are not a hole about that. I assume, then, that you must have a contraption, according to your logic, that does not make you feel in a hole about that.
Obviously: If the minds of mere mortals are capable of grasping an ontological understanding of existence itself, there will be many, many revisions regarding our current understanding of human biology, sexuality, pregnancy and abortion.
I merely note the enormous gap between what we knew about them going back to pre-Socratic times, and what we know about them now.
And then noting the complete lack of an equivalence relating to the morality of human sexuality and unwanted pregnancies.
No, you do not merely note that. You have made it clear that part of your hole is based on the fact that your own moral positions have changed throughout your life and now you consider it possible that they will continue to change. This is part of your existential crisis. At no point when making the, for you, clear distinction between is/ought, do you mention or seem to realize that the same existential crisis - regarding revision - potential is there in the IS realm, when one bases one's knowledge on science, because science also has and will go through revision. I point this out and instead of saying,
oh, that's true, The IS realm also presents that exitential instability, you focus on a different, though yes related, issue that is part of your hole. I have already said that I do not consider the two realms to have the same issues. I was pointing out that the hard line distinction as you present it is not a hard line. I even highlighted that just because I am saying that your position is too much one way, I do not mean the complete opposite.
You also implied that the revisions to come will be about the infinitesmal and the astronomic. I point out that this is not the case, and with examples. You do not concede this point, you simply do not respond.
What great advances have we made in grappling with the conflicting goods embedded in either the "natural right" of the unborn to life or the "political right" of women to snuff it out?
If anything with the advent of feminism as a historical phenomena the arguments only get that much more complex.
Well, perhaps that complexity is an advance. But that's an aside; my point, as I said is not that there are no differences, just that the neat boxes you have them in are not so neat. I focused on one issue, and your rebuttal is focused on another, related, but not the same issue.
In other words, your "neat boxes" into which you cram my "neat boxes" are, in my view, still no less existential/intellectual contraptions.
Great, I wish you could demonstrate that by showing that your beliefs are open to revision. I point out that what is part of your hole is also present in relation to the IS realm since this realm is also open to revision. Something that clearly plagues you about your own experience of the ought realm is present in the IS realm, and not just about stars and quarks, but about brains and minds, cognition and emotions, animals and plants, gravity and more. That tomorrow the consensus may be quite different about very intimate parts of our lives.
how do you respond to a potential for revision? o You respond by not acknowledging anything, by focusing elsewhere.
I am sure you will label this a contraption on my part. Which is perfect because calling everything disagrees with you a contraption, or anything that points out how misleading you frame something a contraptoin, or in this case will add nuance to the way you describe two categories, a contraption....
makes revision on your part impossible. You won't even revise how you explain things. Perhaps you really knew all that I am pointing out already. Were that the case, you could say. OK, I knew that, perhaps the way I expressed myself was not clear. And there is revision in how you describe the IS/OUGHT categories. But, no, everything you have said and how you have said will not be revised. You will admit in the abstract that it may be a contraption on your part, but somehow nothing will ever make you revise that contraption. You were never even unclear. All criticism is a contraption, which you will then add, is your perspective. A perspective that cannot be revised.
IOW you have found a set of contraptions that make your truths, unlike scientific truths, utterly unrevisable. You can and will always go on saying 'from my perspective that is a contraption, though mine may also be contraptions.' The lovely thing about science is that while it recognizes this possibility, that the current explanation may be a contraption, it allows revision based on
best explanation. But you have found a perfect defense system against revision.
All you needed to do was acknowledge that
yes, revision takes place in the IS realm and one might not have thought that reading my more simplified dichotomy. I still see a difference between those realms, but my description was not clear. You could then explain why your overwhelming focus is on revision in the ought realm and why you are not in a hole about the revision potential and history of examples in the IS realm in science.
You tend to treat is as neatly binary, when we, as humans, do not experience those two realms in a binary way. We find ourselves having seen in the past and continuing through the present, many instances of IS REALM knowledge changing, some of this about the most intimate parts of our sense of self. And we know this may happen tomorrow also. And this would also affect HOW ONE OUGHT TO LIVE? should there be an answer to that question, which I doubt but which is one of your overriding questions.
The "hole" that I am in starts with three assumptions:
1] that had I lived my life differently, I may well have accumulated different preferences
2] that any one preference is no less able to be rationalized than any another
3] that ultimately what counts is who has the political power to enforce one set of values/behaviors over the others
You whole has to do with preferences/morals. An OUGHT hole.
No IS REALM existential angst because that is a different kind of drawing conclusions.
I point out that that in the is realm of science there is also revising, that we as humans in this life, are also subject THERE to revision and changes. That given that science functions via paradigms and models, there is contingency present also, as we work our way forward in time towards hopefully better explanations. That as we live it there could just as easily be existential angst and instability there also.
None of which is arguing that moral are the same as the objects of scientific inquiry or that scientific knowledge and moral opinions are the same thing.
But int he context of an existential crisis, a hole, which is in part based on the ever present and clear past presence of revision, the two realms overlap.
And there are people in holes about that too. There are people very disturbed by QM and relativity and determinism and the fact that we cannot even be sure the implications about us involved in these things will be relevent tomorrow, given that science can revise. I know people who are not very concerned about finding objective morals, but are in some kind of whole over IS realm changes in paradigm especially those parts that have to do with selves, but also the nature of reality. You do not have that hole. I would guess that part of your sense that you do not have an I but rather an 'I' is influenced by science, and that is part of your hole, but the fact that ideas about the self/brain/cognition/motivations, for example, may undergo revision at any time, is not a hole for you. You, given your assumptions, must have a contraption that gives less weight to that hole and perhaps others that give more weight to the OUGHT hole instability, lack of certainty.
And you have found a way to keep yourself from revision.
Peachy.
I know this post had many abstract aspects. I know, you think it is all my contraptions.
What wonderful accusations from someone who posts as abstractly as anyone else, does not notice concrete examples, and who is participating in a philosophy forum.
It's like the opposite absurdity of someone telling their lover that they are being too concrete and then saying that the way they are touching now is never a contraption.
To me what happens here is concrete. I point to things said as parts of concrete interactions between people. Given that you are house-bound, this is actually rather positive. I consider you to be participating in life and your act, here, as real instances of concrete lived experience. YOu are actually doing things in the lives of others, things that affect or may affect them. To me that is at least as concrete as a discussion of abortion, in general. You did/said this - with a quote to demonstrate it - and here's what that makes me think of. Here's my criticism. Here is what is going on in me.
I know you think like in Archive X, that the answer is 'out there' and we should talk about things that have happened in the past to us as individuals or top what is happening elsewhere to other people and only that is concrete. And that's fine and dandy and fits perfectly with this forum....also. But it is not more concrete than focusing on what actually happens here between the parties who are here.
Someone who asks me to demonstrate how my preferences are actually objective, which you did a few days ago, asking me and PHyllo to do this, is someone who is not noticing the concrete individual - me, in this case, the question made sense to ask Phyllo - who has made clear I would not have such an answer, nor would I even think such an answer possible.
I find myself swamped by generalisms, spoken to as if I was any interlocutor, retold things hundreds of times that I clearly understand, my points responded as if they were other points
and then accused of being abstract or as merely relaying contraptions
by someone who seems not even to notice me as a particular discussion partner or the particular points I make. Or his own level of abstraction...
You seem to want change. How could that change possibly happen?
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