Can I rant for a moment about Thunderf00t?

[Ex_Nihil0]

Don't take this the wrong way, FlowCell, but I only got through the first two paragraphs of that before I started to see too many words I didn't know and don't have the will or strength to look up.
I'm still convinced that you went a distance of 100 meters when you only needed a displacement of 2 meters with all of this.
I'm no philosophy buff, and I really don't care about it (outside of the philosophy of liberty of course) and I don't have the same problems as Thunderf00t in this at all.

I've just begun studying philosophy AFTER getting my biology degree and working a few years at the bench, and I've concluded that it is a woefully underestimated and underappreciated discipline, since it undergirds just about every other discipline you could think of.  Remember that philosophy is ultimately about asking questions; it isn't about getting answers.  I'm sorry you thought I was too wordy, but I've got to admit I tend to get that way when I explain things.  I like to be as detailed as possible.  BTW, I didn't know you were convinced of anything in the first place.  Do you have any other concerns you feel I should address?

TF's problem is really quite simple:

1. A dogmatic refusal to look at the evidence that contradicts his deeply held convictions about democracy and the "collective" (however it is defined) and about the free market.

All very true.

At the risk of opening a can of worms, I find myself easing away from the Philosophy of science discussions because the message of them seems to be, "Well you don't know it all, so deal with it!" or some kind of original sin-type of thing like that.

Um, that sounds more like what a strong theist would say.  In fact, the wording of your examples suggests a strategy for arguing from ignorance.  It's sort of like when Ken Ham tells the ignorant skulls full of mush to respond to evolutionary biologists with the question "Were you there?", and then promptly tell those same skulls full that "God said it, it's in the Bible, so that settles it."  In other words, they are saying that because abductive reasoning (detective work) does not reveal truth, but a highly probable explanation, the Bible must be right because it proclaims itself to be The Truth (with a capital "T").  This is little more then an argument from ignorance buttressed with circular logic.  This, of course, is not what I am saying at all.  Quite the contrary, in fact. 

As they say, what is good for the goose is good for the gander, so when Ken Ham says "Where you there?", the question is just as valid to ask of him, because he wasn't around when the Bible was written.  Thus, he has no claim to The Truth, but neither does the evolutionary biologist.  What the evolutionary biologist does have, however, is the scientific method and statistical probabilities for the things that he or she can observe, and that's the difference between them.  Anyway, this should all be stuff you've heard before.

I am curious, though, how you thought original sin related to what I was talking about.  It makes me think that some of your definitions differ from my own, and that's causing some confusion.

I don't recall science ever "claiming" to know everything or even to try to.

Nope, I don't think anybody with a proper understanding of science would ever make such a claim, either, though I have heard some people say that eventually science will reveal all knowledge to man, though I find that very hard to accept.  What you might be confusing is logical positivism, which holds to the verification principle, which means that in order for a statement to be cognitively meaningful, it must be experimentally verifiable or tautologically verifiable.  The problem with the verification principle is that it does not fulfill its own standard for cognitive meaning.  This is why verification was replaced by falsification, and why absence of evidence is neither evidence of absence nor evidence of any any statement being true.

As QualiaSoup explains in his videos, Science thrives on openmindedness and on change.

Yes, you've got to be open minded, but not so open minded that your brain falls out.  But the real advancement comes from showing that assumptions are either false or still valid.  Every single theory in science is an assumption, and even though it may be a good assumption, every theory must be scrapped when sufficient evidence invalidates it, proving the null hypothesis.

In fact, changing what we DO know and not taking it as absolute is how science progresses.

I agree with that mostly.  My only quibble is that if you have to change what you know based on the evidence, was it something you knew in the first place?  That depends on if you are defining knowledge as all information, or all true information.  Because, otherwise, science is based on figuring out what the most likely assumptions are based on the most current and ever changing preponderance of the evidence.  Although we would love to work with facts of 100% certainty, this is not possible, so we pragmatically stick with our best assumptions because we have nothing else that works better at any given moment in time.

So, (assuming I'm not misunderstanding what the philosophy of science stuff is getting at), it seems it is:

1. Strawmanning how science works period     and/or
2. making a mountain out of a mole hill.

I'm not fully sure how you come to this conclusion.  What I have presented is the best understanding of the science of philosophy that I know of.  This may seem trivial to you, but I feel this is a rather important philosophy because it strips everybody of being purveyors of The Truth, which means government is naked of its legitimacy to make law beyond the protection of Liberty.  It no longer has the absolute authority to do so, or rather, it never did.  I'd hardly call that a mole hill.

Does that make sense?

[Travis Retriever]

I would like to start out by saying that both when I posted that, and a bit as I post this, I'm still somewhat burned out.  Just to give you a heads up if I come off as capricious or unnecessarily confrontational.

I've just begun studying philosophy AFTER getting my biology degree and working a few years at the bench, and I've concluded that it is a woefully underestimated and underappreciated discipline, since it undergirds just about every other discipline you could think of.  Remember that philosophy is ultimately about asking questions; it isn't about getting answers.  I'm sorry you thought I was too wordy, but I've got to admit I tend to get that way when I explain things.  I like to be as detailed as possible.  BTW, I didn't know you were convinced of anything in the first place.  Do you have any other concerns you feel I should address?

I will address my concerns below as they come up.

All very true.

Glad to know we agree on that.

Um, that sounds more like what a strong theist would say.  In fact, the wording of your examples suggests a strategy for arguing from ignorance.  It's sort of like when Ken Ham tells the ignorant skulls full of mush to respond to evolutionary biologists with the question "Were you there?", and then promptly tell those same skulls full that "God said it, it's in the Bible, so that settles it."  In other words, they are saying that because abductive reasoning (detective work) does not reveal truth, but a highly probable explanation, the Bible must be right because it proclaims itself to be The Truth (with a capital "T").  This is little more then an argument from ignorance buttressed with circular logic.  This, of course, is not what I am saying at all.  Quite the contrary, in fact.

Except that WASN'T an argument, so much as an admission that I'm not very well versed in this stuff and to beg pardon if I'm mis-characterizing the philosophies in question.
I suppose I could have worded that better, and I do apologize for the confusion.

As they say, what is good for the goose is good for the gander, so when Ken Ham says "Where you there?", the question is just as valid to ask of him, because he wasn't around when the Bible was written.  Thus, he has no claim to The Truth, but neither does the evolutionary biologist.  What the evolutionary biologist does have, however, is the scientific method and statistical probabilities for the things that he or she can observe, and that's the difference between them.  Anyway, this should all be stuff you've heard before.

True.

I am curious, though, how you thought original sin related to what I was talking about.  It makes me think that some of your definitions differ from my own, and that's causing some confusion.

I thought it was related because the feeling I got from the stuff about "no one knows the truth" just reeks of post-modernism.

Nope, I don't think anybody with a proper understanding of science would ever make such a claim, either, though I have heard some people say that eventually science will reveal all knowledge to man, though I find that very hard to accept.  What you might be confusing is logical positivism, which holds to the verification principle, which means that in order for a statement to be cognitively meaningful, it must be experimentally verifiable or tautologically verifiable.  The problem with the verification principle is that it does not fulfill its own standard for cognitive meaning.  This is why verification was replaced by falsification, and why absence of evidence is neither evidence of absence nor evidence of any any statement being true.

The only way I can see that as being true is if the verification is taken as absolute, which, last time I checked, it isn't.
It DOES mean that there is no reason to believe something if there is no evidence for it.
Do you believe in Unicorns or say, "Well, they might exist, or they might not"?
Last time I checked it was not logically possible to prove a negative.
That's the point of verification. I would have thought that to be the point of verification.

Yes, you've got to be open minded, but not so open minded that your brain falls out.

True.  One of the reasons I stay out of philosophy. (Well, that and a general lack of honest interest, time and desire.)

But the real advancement comes from showing that assumptions are either false or still valid.  Every single theory in science is an assumption, and even though it may be a good assumption, every theory must be scrapped when sufficient evidence invalidates it, proving the null hypothesis.

Define "assumption".
A theory in science is merely an explanatory framework onto which the current set of facts fit.
Right.

I agree with that mostly.  My only quibble is that if you have to change what you know based on the evidence, was it something you knew in the first place?  That depends on if you are defining knowledge as all information, or all true information.  Because, otherwise, science is based on figuring out what the most likely assumptions are based on the most current and ever changing preponderance of the evidence.  Although we would love to work with facts of 100% certainty, this is not possible, so we pragmatically stick with our best assumptions because we have nothing else that works better at any given moment in time.

I'm talking practical knowledge.
You learn more as you refine techniques in experimentation, find consequences in theories that are to be tested, etc.

I would think all true information, but then I wouldn't be certain.
Right, as Matt Dilahunty once said, "Get rid of this [assertion/point? I can't remember the word he used] about absolute certainty.  Absolute certainty is just a red herring used to distract from more important matters."

I'm not fully sure how you come to this conclusion.  What I have presented is the best understanding of the science of philosophy that I know of.  This may seem trivial to you, but I feel this is a rather important philosophy because it strips everybody of being purveyors of The Truth, which means government is naked of its legitimacy to make law beyond the protection of Liberty.  It no longer has the absolute authority to do so, or rather, it never did.  I'd hardly call that a mole hill.

Well, if what you mean is to find another justification for Locke's idea of "all people being born equal"; that is, not to tear people down, but rather to use as a philosophical mechanism to show why no-one has claims higher than the other, then I can get on board with that.
This point is also confirmed by both the Wisdom of Crowds and the Calculation Problem of Socialism (as explained by Ludwig von Mises).
In which case, yes, I suppose you can argue that it isn't a mole hill, if the above is what I meant.

Does that make sense?

More than before, yes.

[Gumba Masta]

To be fairly honest, this thread needs

[Ex_Nihil0]

I thought it was related because the feeling I got from the stuff about "no one knows the truth" just reeks of post-modernism.

Actually, Hume was one of the first to point out the problem of induction and that the "real world", if it exists, is inherently unknowable.  He's one of the first really famout atheist philosophers, though he never admitted such because doing so would have gotten him killed back then.  He was certainly not post modern.

The only way I can see that as being true is if the verification is taken as absolute, which, last time I checked, it isn't.
It DOES mean that there is no reason to believe something if there is no evidence for it.
Do you believe in Unicorns or say, "Well, they might exist, or they might not"?
Last time I checked it was not logically possible to prove a negative.
That's the point of verification. I would have thought that to be the point of verification.

Well, if you are a pure rationalist, you can believe in something a priori (logically discovered) while the empiricists were the ones who thought perception was superior to logic.  This is why guys like Descartes (pure rationalist) generally believe in God, while guys like Hume (an empiricist) generally do not. 

The problem with verification is that it isn't supported by it's own standard.  That is, in order for something to be cognitively meaningful, it must either be experimentally provable or tautologically demonstrable.  The principle of verification, however, cannot fulfill it's own standard of cognitive meaning, making it meaningless nonsense!  This is why you don't see logical positivist hanging around anymore, though many still try to revive verification.  Falsification, however, is better because it is relatively easy to prove something false, while truly impossible to prove something true (thanks in part to the problem of induction). 

Do not confuse proving something false as the same as proving a negative.  Falsification is about disproving positive claims, not negative ones.  This is why a good null hypothesis is written so that it MUST be true of the positive claim (or alternative hypothesis) is true.  Actually, it is impossible to both prove negatives and positives as true.  Disproving positive claims is all that science is capable of.  Experiments and observations can only confirm and bust myths, but it can never prove them true.

Define "assumption".
A theory in science is merely an explanatory framework onto which the current set of facts fit.

An assumption is when one takes a given fact or statement for granted.

Yes, Theories are explanations for given facts and are best described in terms of how wrong they are, since they become less wrong as science improves.  Theories, however, are not Truth because they are always wrong or incomplete.  A theory, in this sense, should be thought of as the best explanation given a set of facts for a phenomena.  You've always got the annoying possibility, however remote, that everything is not as was previously thought.

I'm talking practical knowledge.

Knowledge is only practical to the point of your ability to use it.  If you had access to ultimate truth and you discovered that God and unicorns were real, for example, would that be of any use to you?  No.  So it is possible to know something that it true, hypothetically speaking, that is completely useless.  God and Unicorns are useful concepts to religion and metaphysics, not science and engineering.   Another example would be that we all live in a perfect simulation made to look perfectly real.  Like God and Unicorns, even if this were true, it is useless to science and engineering.  I'm suddenly beginning to realize what the whole "separate Magesteria" thing was all about for Stephen J. Gould.  It's all about what ideas are useful to what disciplines. 

You learn more as you refine techniques in experimentation, find consequences in theories that are to be tested, etc.

Yes.

I would think all true information, but then I wouldn't be certain.

Right, as Matt Dilahunty once said, "Get rid of this [assertion/point? I can't remember the word he used] about absolute certainty.  Absolute certainty is just a red herring used to distract from more important matters."
Well, if what you mean is to find another justification for Locke's idea of "all people being born equal"; that is, not to tear people down, but rather to use as a philosophical mechanism to show why no-one has claims higher than the other, then I can get on board with that.

Yes, if nobody has claim to absolute truth, then nobody has higher authority over another since we are all born with the same knowledge of absolute truth: zero.  I suppose that would be a more neopragmatic view of tabula rasa.  Wow, you just helped me come up with that.  That seems like the perfect modernization of Lockes political theory.  Having access to absolute truth would seem to me, at least, to be the only logical reason anybody would have natural authority in the first place.  Thankfully, it's absence from the human mind means natural liberty instead.

Its like of like telling a PhD to fuck off when he asks you to bend over for a Venus project.  He's just a man of science promising you heaven and has become no different then his religious counterparts in the Church leadership.

And now for some Cowbell: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlqLLZQLNiA

[Travis Retriever]

Actually, Hume was one of the first to point out the problem of induction and that the "real world", if it exists, is inherently unknowable.  He's one of the first really famout atheist philosophers, though he never admitted such because doing so would have gotten him killed back then.  He was certainly not post modern.

Sounds post-modernist to me.
Well at least based on what little I know about that stuff, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.

True, but the closest we seem to get is via the scientific method and the wisdom of crowds.
One of many reasons I *heart* science and free market economics.

Well, if you are a pure rationalist, you can believe in something a priori (logically discovered) while the empiricists were the ones who thought perception was superior to logic.  This is why guys like Descartes (pure rationalist) generally believe in God, while guys like Hume (an empiricist) generally do not.

I don't believe in god for the simple reason that there is no evidence, and thus, no reason to.
You can't logically prove a negative last time I checked, only a positive.

The problem with verification is that it isn't supported by it's own standard.  That is, in order for something to be cognitively meaningful, it must either be experimentally provable or tautologically demonstrable.  The principle of verification, however, cannot fulfill it's own standard of cognitive meaning, making it meaningless nonsense!  This is why you don't see logical positivist hanging around anymore, though many still try to revive verification.  Falsification, however, is better because it is relatively easy to prove something false, while truly impossible to prove something true (thanks in part to the problem of induction).

How is the idea that repeated observations aren't more reliable than ones that don't repeat isn't tautologically demonstrable?

Do not confuse proving something false as the same as proving a negative.  Falsification is about disproving positive claims, not negative ones.  This is why a good null hypothesis is written so that it MUST be true of the positive claim (or alternative hypothesis) is true.  Actually, it is impossible to both prove negatives and positives as true.  Disproving positive claims is all that science is capable of.  Experiments and observations can only confirm and bust myths, but it can never prove them true.

Ooooooh, OK. That first point clears up a lot.  Thank you.
Explain what you mean by "prove positives and negatives as true" and "disproving positive claims".
I think that might be a place where my confusion is stemming from.

An assumption is when one takes a given fact or statement for granted.

True, which can be a bad thing when the assumption needs to be called into question (e.g. friction = zero for a Newtonian problem), and that you assumed it is taken for granted, and somewhat forgotten.  So that can be problematic, if that's what you mean.

Yes, Theories are explanations for given facts and are best described in terms of how wrong they are, since they become less wrong as science improves.  Theories, however, are not Truth because they are always wrong or incomplete.  A theory, in this sense, should be thought of as the best explanation given a set of facts for a phenomena.  You've always got the annoying possibility, however remote, that everything is not as was previously thought.

It would be a spectrum though.  For example, on the scale of 0 to 1 (0 = False; 1 = Truth), I would imagine biblical creationism being closer to the 0 than is the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection.
And how is that a bad thing if you find out it was "wrong"?
It means you learn something, and can use the new theory to engineer more and improve the systems more.

Knowledge is only practical to the point of your ability to use it.  If you had access to ultimate truth and you discovered that God and unicorns were real, for example, would that be of any use to you?  No.  So it is possible to know something that it true, hypothetically speaking, that is completely useless.  God and Unicorns are useful concepts to religion and metaphysics, not science and engineering.   Another example would be that we all live in a perfect simulation made to look perfectly real.  Like God and Unicorns, even if this were true, it is useless to science and engineering.  I'm suddenly beginning to realize what the whole "separate Magesteria" thing was all about for Stephen J. Gould.  It's all about what ideas are useful to what disciplines.

True.  Well, I was referring to what Matt Dilahunty was talking about when I said "practical knowledge".
Basically what we can know to be true (lowercase t) with a reasonable level of certainty.

Yes, if nobody has claim to absolute truth, then nobody has higher authority over another since we are all born with the same knowledge of absolute truth: zero.  I suppose that would be a more neopragmatic view of tabula rasa.  Wow, you just helped me come up with that.  That seems like the perfect modernization of Lockes political theory.  Having access to absolute truth would seem to me, at least, to be the only logical reason anybody would have natural authority in the first place.  Thankfully, it's absence from the human mind means natural liberty instead.

Oh, so THAT's what you meant in your video about liberty when you said, "All people are born equal for the same reason all people are born atheists:  all of us are born without knowledge."

Its like of like telling a PhD to fuck off when he asks you to bend over for a Venus project.  He's just a man of science promising you heaven and has become no different then his religious counterparts in the Church leadership.

If he does so by authority, then absolutely.
Especially since the Venus project is just long refuted communism/socialism repackaged (but we won't go there. )

And now for some Cowbell: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlqLLZQLNiA

Yay! Cowbell! 

[Ex_Nihil0]

Ha!  Yeah, I can see now why you thought I was being post modern.  No, that's relativism.  What I have presented is neo-pragmatism, which is largely epistemology.  Moral realtivims is ethics, which is a different branch of philosophy.  On the contrary, neopragmatism is an attempt to be rational about what we can and cannot know for certain, in spite of the limitations of human perception.

No, I am a deontologist, meaning that I don't like greater good or relativist morality, because those moralities are meaningless.  I like the moral philosophy of Liberty by Locke and Kant's Categorical Imperative. 

[Travis Retriever]

Anyways, back on topic, there is something a bit odd about Thunderf00t's reaction (based on what FlowCell wrote) that I find a bit revealing; something that no one else here has pointed out that needs to be said.
In college/university most of the learning you do is on your own; you're considered responsible for learning and understanding the material and being able to apply it.

The rule of thumb is 2 to 5 hours of studying out of class for every hour in class (depending on what university you go to).
The fact that thunderf00t doesn't seem to know this brings into question whether or not he's a professor, or if he's even BEEN to college in the first place.

As far as I'm concerned, the fact that the students ourselves are responsible pretty much refutes the idea that we *need* full time professors to lecture to us as the default model.
I mean, couldn't we just have groups of students pool resources and learn by ourselves, and teach one-another?
With maybe a part-time professor to help when problems come up?
As ladyattis noted in his reply to Thunderf00t's asshole video, the fact is, universities are so damn bureaucratic now, it seems to be boarding on ridiculous.

[valvatica]

That's what I was originally talking about on Thunderf00t's video. He doesn't elaborate on why the professor, being in the classroom/auditorium, etc. make all the difference in learning. Unless the students take turns reading an entire book out loud like in elementary school (can you picture trying to get through a 900-page textbook that way?), the student inevitably reads most of the book himself on his own time. If he wants to argue "students can't get lab experience studying by themselves" that's a whole other argument.

[Travis Retriever]

That's what I was originally talking about on Thunderf00t's video.

My apologies, I forgot you mentioned that.

He doesn't elaborate on why the professor, being in the classroom/auditorium, etc. make all the difference in learning. Unless the students take turns reading an entire book out loud like in elementary school (can you picture trying to get through a 900-page textbook that way?), the student inevitably reads most of the book himself on his own time.

Like I said; that Thunderf00t doesn't seem to understand this suggests to me that not only is he not a professor, but has probably never gone to college.
When ConfederalSocialist/Fringeelements first said that Thunderf00t is just a guy with too much spare time on his hands, I shrugged it off.
Now, I think CS might be onto something.

If he wants to argue "students can't get lab experience studying by themselves" that's a whole other argument.

And even then, why would they *need* the university structure as it exists today?
Why not just have the student offer to work for little at the labs and engineering firms themselves like Mary J. Ruwart and others did before regulation, minimum wage laws, taxation, etc made it impossible to do so?
That way, they'll get work experience, some money and figure out if the job is something they'll like and want to do within a few months at most, instead of having to find out after spending over 4 years and shitload of money at a college to learn by themselves and get lectured to by a professor.

[VectorM]

As ladyattis noted in his reply to Thunderf00t's asshole video, the fact is, universities are so damn bureaucratic now, it seems to be boarding on ridiculous.

Totally not on topic, but am I the only one that actually refers to ladyattis as a "she"?

[Ex_Nihil0]

Just to address Thunderf00t's status as a professor, I think he's way to young to be one, especially if he works at a major university.  He is likely an applications scientist (meaning he does nothing but crank out "science") working for a real professor's research project.  This is why Thunderf00t calls himself an "educator" in quotes.  Since it looks like he works at a university lab, he's obviously thumbed his nose at higher paying jobs in Industry.  That means his livelihood is based on the collection of tax money given to his university in the form of grant money.  I can tell you for certain that working at a university as a research staff member doesn't hardly pay anything worth mentioning.  This is why Thunderf00t seems to have humble travel accommodations.  If he worked in Industry, he'd likely afford a better car.  Could it be any more clear that this is a man rebelling against modern economics and supply and demand? 

I will say this about Thunderf00t.  Although he doesn't get paid for his videos as a YouTube partner, he gets paid a fortune in accolades and praise from his rabidly adoring troll fans.  And that is something money can't buy.

FYI, the few videos of his that do have ads are likely there because of copyright infringement.  Instead of his video getting hit with a DMCA, YouTube collects advertising money on behalf of the copyright holder.  Usually, if you have ads on a video that is banned in Germany, it is probably because of copyright infringement claims, not false flagging (but I could be wrong).

[Gumba Masta]

Totally not on topic, but am I the only one that actually refers to ladyattis as a "she"?

I did too until I learned that he was a he.
I tell you, that was my biggest disapointment of 2009.

[MrBogosity]

I've known she was a he since way back when he tried to get on Free Talk Live's Shrine of Female Listeners.

[LuminousMonkey]

Totally not on topic, but am I the only one that actually refers to ladyattis as a "she"?

Sidenote: A few weeks ago I asked her what pronoun she prefers, she said he or she is fine.

[Travis Retriever]

I've known she was a he since way back when he tried to get on Free Talk Live's Shrine of Female Listeners.

Even MORE off topic: Congratulation on your 1000th post!

@LuminousMonkey:  Thanks!  I've been meaning to ask him that.

@Gumba Masta: lol!

@VectorM:  After reading his profile saying that the person is transgendered, I figured it was a he...or something.

@FlowCell:  True, but then Industry has been pretty unstable, at least where I live because of economic interventionism (e.g. they won't hire us engineers unless we have a specialty, etc)...but then I think we all know how to fix that issue.