How much should you doubt?
I'm not sure if this falls under epistemology or general philosophy but here we go.
We demonstrably have very different ideas of what is and is not reasonable to believe on this site, otherwise it wouldn't be interesting. But we can agree on some general characteristics of when something is reasonable to believe. Such as: Doesn't lead to contradictions, has supporting evidence, is the simplest alternative for explaining things, etc.. and something unreasonable to believe is missing these elements.
Everyone thinks their beliefs are reasonable and everyone has differing beliefs (on this site and elsewhere). So by definition some of these beliefs would be unreasonable. The question is: How much is it reasonable to doubt your own beliefs? We call someone who doubts that 2+2=4 unreasonable, and we call someone who beliefs that the earth is 6000-10000 years old unreasonable too. So there is some point on this spectrum which we all lie at. You can doubt too much and go crazy and you can doubt too little and be dogmatic. The question is: What degree of doubt is reasonable? How do you know if you're doubting too much or too little?
Was Descartes reasonable in trying to doubt every last belief of his? In the end he managed to "prove" most of his most important beliefs back (and he even got God out of it! What a coincidence!) so sometimes I also wonder if we are even capable of truly doubting what we believe. Maybe we already decided what to believe for the most part, and only doubt as a pretense to seem reasonable in front of others, when we're really just trying to find a way to confirm our own beliefs logically. So is this reason to doubt more? Or to give up and doubt less?
What do you think?
We demonstrably have very different ideas of what is and is not reasonable to believe on this site, otherwise it wouldn't be interesting. But we can agree on some general characteristics of when something is reasonable to believe. Such as: Doesn't lead to contradictions, has supporting evidence, is the simplest alternative for explaining things, etc.. and something unreasonable to believe is missing these elements.
Everyone thinks their beliefs are reasonable and everyone has differing beliefs (on this site and elsewhere). So by definition some of these beliefs would be unreasonable. The question is: How much is it reasonable to doubt your own beliefs? We call someone who doubts that 2+2=4 unreasonable, and we call someone who beliefs that the earth is 6000-10000 years old unreasonable too. So there is some point on this spectrum which we all lie at. You can doubt too much and go crazy and you can doubt too little and be dogmatic. The question is: What degree of doubt is reasonable? How do you know if you're doubting too much or too little?
Was Descartes reasonable in trying to doubt every last belief of his? In the end he managed to "prove" most of his most important beliefs back (and he even got God out of it! What a coincidence!) so sometimes I also wonder if we are even capable of truly doubting what we believe. Maybe we already decided what to believe for the most part, and only doubt as a pretense to seem reasonable in front of others, when we're really just trying to find a way to confirm our own beliefs logically. So is this reason to doubt more? Or to give up and doubt less?
What do you think?
Comments (96)
For the person who says matter is an illusion and only consciousness is real, what are the practical day-to-day consequences of that view?
Quoting khaled
That may not be the whole story though. Reasonable applied to what? If your staring point is less dogmatic, standards of reasonableness have less extreme implications. I am not a philosopher and have no idea but the starting point for me is nothing is 100% certain and there is no agreement about how we can access truth. I would venture that capital T truth may not exist. But is certainty and truth necessary?
Spot on.
'Reasons' are mostly post hoc narratives to explain to ourselves, and others, why we believe what we do.
We'd no doubt like to imagine they're foundational. The phenomenal influence of culture, social group, peer belief, subliminal data etc on our beliefs pretty much conclusively shows otherwise.
Then again, doesn't this also apply for the reasons you believe this:
Quoting Isaac
We seem to be stuck here. If we throw everything out as "Oh you just believe that because you've been conditioned to believe that" we'd have to throw THAT out too.
So we are still left with the question: How much should you doubt? What counts as "reasonable"? etc
Does it matter? If we're not really arriving at our beliefs that way anyway, then we don't really need an answer to that question.
Quoting khaled
Yes, indeed it does.
Quoting khaled
I don't think we need to throw anything out. I don't intend that one should read what I said as pejorative. Most of that methodology is perfectly effective. As you've said yourself many times, if it was a rubbish way to arrive at beliefs about the world we'd never have resolved to do it that way.
It's just about recognising that there are numerous influences on beliefs. I'm not even rejecting the idea that things like parsimony, coherence and the like are in the mix.
The problem is reliably isolating them by introspection is very difficult (maybe even impossible), so whilst such analysis might be loosely instructive we shouldnot expect any particularly robust results from it. As you said, Descartes 're-discovered' God that way. Hardly a unforeseen plot twist!
Right but what do we do instead of introspection?
Quoting Isaac
I would think the answer is “No” then. Doubting your beliefs isn’t fun usually. And if it’s not how you arrive at beliefs anyways then why bother with it?
Doesn’t sound right. But maybe it is.
One quibble here: What is reasonable for one to believe depends (uncontroversially) on one's epistemic situation. For example, it is reasonable for you to believe that you know where you are right now, whereas for me it is not.
I don't think we necessarily need do anything instead. We're pretty good at thinking, using all sorts of methods. If there's a mistake, I think it might be in confusing reasoning (as a thinking method) with the social value of 'right' thought. There's a social value in having a case that is immune (or seemingly so) to counter-argument using established methods of debate. That social value is not the same as the utility/aesthetic value of the belief to you.
Quoting khaled
Yeah. Only you'll do it anyway, because it's equally uncomfortable to hold dissonant concepts at the same time, equally uncomfortable to hold beliefs which seem incongruous with those in your community (depending on your personality type), and equally uncomfortable to hold beliefs which constantly yield surprising results.
That seems enough to me already. Doing it deliberately on top of all that seems a bit masochistic.
Finally, the ultimate question, is there some inherent meaning, value, purpose etc. to life, or is there not?
Then we find out the answers, or at least try to the best of our ability.
I would know.
I doubt it!
How so?
I've had to deal with this issue all my professional career - not "When should I doubt" but "When should I believe." Here's how I lay it out to myself.
I think "What are the consequences of being wrong" is probably the most important of these questions. It's usually left out of the discussion.
Descartes never really doubted anything. He was engaged in an exercise which he thought necessary
because, for reasons not entirely clear to me, he thought it appropriate to explain why he didn't doubt what he didn't doubt. So, he pretended to doubt what he didn't doubt, and by pretending to doubt what he didn't doubt he claimed to discover that he was right not to doubt what he didn't doubt in the first place.
When should you favor the utility/aesthetic value over the social value? Some people, like flat earthers do it too much. Others too little, and are probably anxiety ridden because of that.
Agreed. And if you look in discussions of knowledge, that old justified true belief baloney, you don't see that kind of issue addressed.
I actually think most people do not choose. Take religion as an example (I know it's not exactly a theory of utility, but it is in the 'get to heaven' sense, so...). A priest may talk about his religion, use his knowledge of it for the social value that knowledge brings. But that same priest might well steal, abuse, misbehave... If he really believed that an eternity of torture faced him should he have sex with that hooker (or whatever), then would he do so anyway? To my understanding, the answer is a resounding no. He doesn't believe it insofar as it affects his actions at that time, he does believe it insofar as it affects his speech later to his congregation.
We can believe different things in different behavioural contexts even if, as a world-view, the two would be contradictory.
Doing so is not without its pain, but it's often a pain lesser than the alternative in either case.
No. He had no grounds, or reasons, to "doubt everything". Proof: he couldn't even doubt that he was doubting ... which, not entailing, presupposes (on pain of performative contradiction to deny) himself embodied and imbedded in the world. Only beliefs lacking sufficient grounds are dubious – such as Descartes' belief that 'it's reasonable to doubt that for which there aren't sufficient grounds to doubt' (vide Peirce's "paper doubts", Witty's On Certainty).
:sweat: :up:
[quote=Bertrand Russell]If you're certain, you're certainly wrong because nothing deserves certainty[/quote]
I doubt it!
The force is strong with this one.
Sure you would. Doubting something by itself doesn't lead to nothing, only doubting that's untempered by being realistic about what you can and cannot know or understand.
What Descartes did was groundbreaking at the time. It takes courage to doubt everything at the risk of going completely insane. It paved the way for a new scientific age and I love him for it.
Did he really though? He got all his beliefs back. With God as a bonus.
Maybe doubting everything should drive you insane.
It could also be that they’re all unreasonable; that there is no absolutely reasonable belief. Actually, considering that humans are not perfectly reasonable creatures, I’m not sure perfect reasons could even be an outcome. I mean, why is it that this:
Quoting khaled
is what determines what is reasonable? It’s certainly possible that nature is not uniform, and that contradictions can exist in nature. I think it’s pretty well accepted that nature is constantly changing, so why insist on consistent fundamental aspects of nature?
Quoting khaled
If you doubt reason itself, then where does that leave us? Does doubt need to be reasonable? Why, or why not? Also, what exactly do you mean by doubt? Is anything less than 100% certainty doubt? Is simple open-mindedness about the possibility of being wrong doubt?
Either way, I think to answer your question we first need to determine whether or not, or how likely, the world is intelligible. The reasonableness of beliefs about the world depend on how accurately we can access the world.
I read Descartes' wrestling match with doubt as being more concerned with advancing his Method than solving a problem with it. The Discourse on Method argues using only "clear and distinct ideas" to develop inquiry into phenomena. The point is made that deduction from what is obvious can only go so far and that further understanding requires exploring cause and effect by means of hypothesis and experimentation. The separation of mind and body given as necessary in some syllogisms don't match up well with all that stuff about the pineal gland as the seat of consciousness.
A lot of his writing displays what Ortega y Gasset referred to as a willful obscurity but none of that sort of thing is present in On Geometry, where centuries of mathematical problems are solved for all time.
For example, I looked into Flat Earth theory because I wanted to know what those people believed. But it was simply impossible to let go of our current cyclical model of the universe.
Perhaps it's a psychological defence mechanism to prevent you from getting insane.
Is it? A contradiction is when one statement is the negation of another, yet both are asserted.
Is nature is made up of statements? That's what you seem to be asserting. How else could it be that "contradictions can exist in nature"?
A better way to think about this is that nature just is, and that apparent contradictions mean that we have simply spoken improperly.
Coming across a contradiction means we have said it wrong.
Throwing reason away because someone disagrees with you seems an overreaction, Pinprick.
No, that’s not what I’m trying to say. I didn’t realize the definition of contradiction was strictly limited to statements. I was meaning facts in nature may not be rational, thereby contradicting reason. Also, that fundamental laws (I.e. physics) aren’t necessarily required to be reasonable. The universe does not have to be ordered to the extent that fundamental laws are constant and universal.
Quoting Banno
Right. The point I was trying to get across is that a belief isn’t necessarily true simply because it’s reasonable, logical, etc. It would have to match up (correspond) to whatever the object of the belief is. It may be reasonable to believe it’s raining outside, for example, but the only way that belief can be true is if it in fact is raining. The bottom line is reason isn’t infallible. So any belief based solely on reason has a chance of being wrong.
I don't think this works.
Consider an example fo a contradiction - light being both a wave and a particle; the speed of light being the same in any direction despite the Earth moving around the sun; whatever you like. What do we do here? We don't shrug and accept the contradiction. We find a description that is consistent - quantum mechanics and special relativity.
An apparent contradiction means that our description is wrong, not that the world is inconsistent.
But yes, reason is not infallible, and "it's raining" will indeed be true if and only if it is raining. Worth the reminder.
This wasn't always the case. And Sigmund Freud, the founder of modern psychology had some very dubious theories about women. He viewed them as utterly inferior to men. The power of philosophy lies in questioning psychology and its claims.
Right, but I think it’s telling that neither theory suffices on its own. IOW’s they aren’t universal, so it’s doubtful that there can be a unified theory; a strict set of laws that the universe follows at all scales from the quantum to the astronomical. If the universe was completely reasonable, then it would have consistent rules, and we could use reason alone to explain everything.
Quoting Banno
How do you know?
So do you think that truth can perceive, because surely that would turn into a conscious entity, more like a god, even if only in the sense that the pagans or Egyptians meant? That is if truth exists in a distinct way, of course, independent of our perception and meaning.
Preach it, brother!
I don't think many psychologists would take the Freudian model too seriously. His ideas would be seen as historically important - a seminal influence. Psychology is as fraught with sectarian division and as any religion.
A claim like that requires some texture otherwise it is no more profound than a bumper sticker.
Doesn’t having a consistent description of the world depend on whether or not the world is consistent to begin with? Reason relies on order, so when we approach the world using reason, an order is assumed. But, if there is no order at the fundamental level of reality, then we could never arrive at a reasonable (consistent) description. Chaos, or randomness, cannot be comprehended through reason.
I think this is correct, but I also think there are two distinct levels to this. Language is inherently relative so when we describe we first must decide whether we have described the scenario correctly. Then we must decide whether our description is appropriate to the world itself. So both atman and pinprick are right, they are just right about different things.
Again, it's descriptions that are consistent, not worlds. IF the description is inconsistent, you need a better description. Quoting PinprickOn the contrary, chaos and randomness have quite sophisticated mathematical descriptions - they need to be complex in order to accommodate what they are describing.
Sorry to butt in but my personal view, supposing it's worth anything, is that consistency is probably a feature of the world at the human scale. Go up a few levels and enter cosmic scales or go down a few levels into the world of the very small and what we encounter are baffling inconsistencies. It's kinda like the frog in the pond story - the frog assumes, at its own peril, that the pond which it calls home is all there is.
Also, let's not forget what seems to be an ever-growing list of paradoxes that people are discovering lying at the heart of so many important philosophical and non-philosophical issues we're grappling with. It reminds me of the prevailing wisdom in astronomy that at the center of every galaxy for which there's a gravitational equation there's a supermassive blackhole inside which these equations break down.
My two cents.
They're "baffling" when one forgets or denies that only as one deviates farther from this – our – scale-perspective the more "inconsistent" those higher or lower scales seem, and like Banno points out, the more necessary it is to abandon descriptions adequate to this – our – scape-perspective and adopt descriptions adequate to those higher and lower scales. It's analogous to apparent "inconsistencies", or nonsense, which confuse us whenever we play one language-game (e.g. describing the movement of stars) in terms of another language-game (e.g. describing the impact of the zodiac on horoscopes). All that we "encounter" is, first and foremost, the "inconsistencies" of our inadequate descriptions.
That damn Evil Demon just keeps messing with us.
Again, how do you know? Are you just claiming this because the term “consistency” only applies to language? If so, then feel free to replace that term with another that suits you. Regardless, we seem to be stuck. The OP was about doubt, and seemed to me to imply that the most reasonable explanation is always the best. My comment was meant to call reason itself into question, because it isn’t a given that the world is reasonable, or necessarily ordered. I think the fact that all (?) of our physical laws are limited in their explanatory power illustrate this point. In some ways quantum physics contradicts general relativity. This is what I mean by being “inconsistent.”
However, I’m not trying to imply that we should just give up when we discover something that seems contradictory (inconsistent). Of course we should try an alternative explanation. But the insistence that every explanation must be reasonable may be faulty, because the world may not be rational, or uniform, or parsimonious. Therefore, the possibility of being wrong is always a possibility. Therefore doubt, depending on what’s exactly meant by that term, is justified (paradoxically via reason).
Quoting Banno
True randomness is uncaused isn’t it? And uncaused events are irrational. If a cause could be determined, then it could be explained, predicted even, but then it wouldn’t be random, and would therefore be rational.
Because consistency is non-contradiction, and contradiction occurs in language. Calling reason into question is self-defeating; any argument against rationality presupposes rationality. showed how we change our descriptions to understand things we find strange. Doubt requires a background of certainty. Descartes took the language in which he formulated his meditations for granted. You cannot be wrong about the bishop always remaining on the same colour, you can only stop playing chess. Randomness is subject to precise statistical analysis, and is not directly related to cause.
Quoting Banno
:clap: "Goo goo g'joob!"
...and learn guitar.
Are you saying inconsistences are mere artefacts of our descriptive paradigms, that they're apparent inconsistencies and not real ones? The inconsistencies people have discovered in the world being nothing more than a sign of poor/deficient descriptive frameworks and that once we hit upon the correct way of describing things, these inconsistencies will disappear.
The way it seems to me, your notion of "descriptions" is synonymous with theories and hypotheses devised for explaining the world. @Banno gave an example of how light behaves inconsistently - like a wave and a particle - and as per the two of you this is only an apparent inconsistency waiting for the right theory/hypothesis to come along for a satisfactory resolution i.e. we should expect the inconsistency to vanish away.
It's a nice way to look at the entire issue of inconsistencies as they are found in nature but to say that ALL inconsistencies are simply manifestations of poor descriptions is a really big claim. Perhaps the two of you are coming at it from a Wittgensteinian perspective but that's where you two lost me.
Contradiction occurring in language isn’t evidence that it doesn’t occur in nature. I’m not asking if language is consistent. Nature is constantly changing, so why insist on the existence of static fundamental laws?
Doesn’t this:
Quoting Banno
contradict this:
Quoting Banno
?
Quoting Banno
I understand that. I’m not arguing against doing that.
Quoting Banno
Hmm... You may be correct, but I’ll think on it some more. I’m not finding what global skeptics would consider certain. In any case, then what is your position on doubt? Are any arguments/explanations beyond doubt?
Quoting Banno
Do you mean that he took the meaning of the words he used as certain? I’d agree with that, but it is still possible to doubt language, regardless of whether Descartes did or not.
Quoting Banno
So, if we’re playing chess and you move the bishop incorrectly that’s not a wrong move? Can I not simply correct you?
Quoting Banno
Then what makes something random? If the analysis is so precise, then why can’t we predict things like the stock market, or lottery numbers, or random number generators?
Sorry, but the very notion of a contradiction in nature is confused. Nature is not the sort of thing that can be both true and false; because a fact cannot be false.
No. Doubt requires a background of certainty. And certainty is far more common than philosophers think.
But there are facts. Such as that this post is a reply to your post, which was in turn a reply to a previous post. Or that this sentence ends in a full stop.
Quoting Banno
Quoting bongo fury
Ah, solving that question
Brings the priest and the doctor
In their long coats
Running over the fields
You ask the impossible for any example I cite could be "explained away" - an accusation made against Daniel Dennett in re his claim that consciousness is an illusion - as borne of an "inadequate idea" (Spinoza).
By the way, the burden of proof, I'm sorry to say, rests on your able shoulders for it is you [and @Banno] who has made the claim that, "ALL inconsistencies are due to inadequate descriptive frameworks." I, on the other hand, am open-minded about the whole issue and am willing to countenance the possibility that reality could very well be able to conjure up, for our entertainment and to our exasperation, inconsistencies every now and then, here and there.
Do you recall participating in the thread A cage went in search of a bird? Inconsistency is our problem, not the universe's, right?
Right! My point exactly. To wit:
So that means the universe can be inconsistent in ways that don't have anything to do with our descriptions even though our descriptions, due to inherent limitations, spawn their own variety of inconsistencies.
Quoting 180 Proof
All I can say at this point is if you really believe what you're saying that we're in disagreement shouldn't bother you at all; after all, that we contradict each other is, at the end of the day, a description issue and all that the two of us and Banno need is the "right" description to realize that there really is nothing to argue about. If you agree then I don't see why we should squabble over anything.
Another issue has to do with how any given inconsistency will be resolved by an "adequate" description. Take for instance the inconsistency involving atheism and theism (one of your favorite topics going by your comment history). How would an "adequate" description resolve this particular inconsistency? Would it side with theism, would it side with atheism, would it reject both, accept both? How exactly would finding the "appropriate" description make this and all other inconsistencies...go away?
Facts are solidified opinions.
Facts weaken under extreme heat and pressure.
Truth is elastic.
-- "The Physics of Epistemology", taken from "Murphy's Laws, Book 3", 1973.
I attended several trials. As an outside observer.
The presiding judge at one jury trial gave directives to the jury; the directives included something like this (quote is not verbatin): "You will be hearing opinions and claims. Opinions and claims become fact when you accept them as being true."
This struck me hugely.
You stand up at church during mass at points in the RC churches.
At trials, you stand up when the Judge appears or stands up or leaves.
You shut your clapper at mass. As an observer.
You shut your clapper at the trial as an observer.
You don't sass back to the judge, even when given permission to speak.
You say a few words at the mass if you are part of the congregation, but definitely don't sass back.
And what really struck me: the wafer and wine becomes the body and blood of Christ via accepting it;
The claim becomes fact via accepting it.
The RC faith does not stand up to logic and reason.
Trials, if they include this transmogrification, also don't.
Trials are patterned for their rituals after the Church rituals. Not for the pattern of the rituals only; also for the pattern of incomprehensible processes.
So the truth value of facts can change, but the fact that the fact is a fact doesn’t?
Quoting Banno
But suppose I delete my post, or a mod edits yours and deletes the punctuation. Then the fact is no longer true, which in my mind means that it isn’t a fact.
For example, are we doubting a philosophical notion or scientific law? If you believe something that turns out to be untrue, your not going to suddenly lose all sense of logic and the universe probably won't begin to unravel either. :grin:
Are we doubting whether to trust a person you only somewhat know with a small loan? If he dips and you never see him again, or just mismanages it and is simply unable to pay you back, that could have a notable impact on your life.
Are we doubting whether or not to use the raw chicken you were thawing but forgot about til half a day later? If spoiled, it could make you ill.
The dynamic I see is "better safe than sorry" vs. (I'm sure there's a more apt saying but it's one I found to be relatable) "scared money don't make money" or maybe "woe is the man who endlessly pondered the meaning of a life he forgot to live" .. which implies sometimes to get a reward you have to take risks .. or else everybody would do so and said reward would no longer be a reward but a given.
Strawman. In fact, you're the one guilty of what you accuse me of here. :shade:
I have asked you to counter my claim which I assert in the absence of evidence, as far as I know, to the contrary:
Quoting 180 Proof
:chin:
[quote=TheMadFool]All you've done is asserted that to be so without argument. I'm calling you out on that. Need I say more?[/quote]
Yeah, explain what it even means for you to "assert without argument" that the universe itself, outside our descriptions, is in any way "inconsistent". That's nonsense, but I'll consider any intelligible explain (or, as requested above, a consistent, factual, example as evidence counter to my claim).
Quoting Pinprick
All this show is an over exuberance for continuity. The world changes, facts change, which statements are true changes. If that bothers you, add a few indexicals.
My experience informs me that I should defer to your better judgment but my gut instinct tells me I should, at the very least, raise an objection to your claims.
You're right that I haven't provided you with a counterexample to the claim that "ALL inconsistencies are description issues" and that, I believe, is what you refer to as "...the absence of evidence...". My reply is, and I'm sure you must've anticipated it, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
Now let's get down to the brass tacks and explore what "ALL inconsistencies are description issues" means for a particular [example of] inconsistency. My choice of inconsistency is the theism-atheism duo. [If you prefer another inconsistency (wave-particle duality of light or something else) let's discuss that.] Anyway, since this, as per you, is only an apparent inconsistency, a frustrating byproduct of, in Spinozist terms, an "inadequate idea" it follows that we can resolve this apparent inconsistency by discovering an "adequate idea" which once found will make this [apparent] inconsistency go away. What is this "adequate idea" and what will the mutually inconsistent pair of theism-atheism look like after we succeed in describing them with the aforesaid "adequate idea"?
Your thoughts...
Descriptions. Ok, my point precisely. Those are not, however, inconsistent things events or facts to which descriptions might refer. Also, only 'theism' is inconsistent; atheism is consistent in negating it; and the relation of them is bivalent (or incommensurable), not "inconsistent". I think, Fool, you've lost the plot. :smirk:
It doesn’t bother me, but you seem to be contradicting yourself. You said “facts can’t be false,” but here you agree that they can change. If a fact changes so that it is no longer true, doesn’t that mean it’s false?
Also, keep in mind I’m only trying to establish that all statements, beliefs, explanations, observations, etc. can rationally be subject to doubt. All of these have the possibility of being incorrect, or becoming incorrect (perhaps this is the background of certainty you alluded to earlier “I’m certain all beliefs, etc. can be false.”?), and therefore have grounds for being doubted.
Well, yes: it means it is no longer a fact.
It's a fact that it is afternoon here. Soon it will be evening. It will no longer be a fact that it is afternoon, but it will be a fact that it is evening.
Perhaps you expected something more profound. Quoting Pinprick
...and I'm happily pointing out that this is not quite right. The Bishop example is a neat case in point, and there are plenty of others. Maths provides ample.
Problems such as you describe arise when one finds an answer to a philosophical question before one looks around. So one decides that facts must be immutable, forever true; then gets a surprise to find that it ain't so.
Your contention is that reality isn't inconsistent and inconsistency, if observed, is only "apparent" in that it occurs at the level of and is because of defective descriptions.
My brief investigation on the matter suggests that there are two strains of consistency/inconsistency relationships:
Type 1. Consistency/inconsistency of a model/theory/description with respect to reality. This kind of consistency/inconsistency is based on empricial observation and, it appears, is scientific in nature. In this we construct a model/theory/description, test it against observation, and if model/theory/description is consistent with observation, we retain the model/theory/description as "innocent until proven guilty"; if, on the other hand, observation and a model/theory/description are inconsistent, adjustments are made to the latter and if that doesn't work you know what happens.
Type 2. Consistency/inconsistency among models/theories/descriptions. This variety of consistency/inconsistecy needs no introduction and I'll merely cite some examples: the theism-atheism inconsistency, the physicalism-no life after death consistency.
At this juncture I'd like to call to the witness stand, since I couldn't make any headway with theism-atheism, the double-slit experiment which demonstrates that light behaves as both a particle and a wave. Before I proceed further, I'd like you to take note of the fact that being both a wave AND a particle is an inconsistency.
In accordance with type 1 consistency/inconsistency, the type that's apposite for the matter at hand - whether reality itself is consistent/inconsistent - we discover that with the double-slit experiment, light is a wave and light is a particle and not forgetting this is science, a field in which we're constantly reminded that reality is judge, jury, and executioner and that models/theories/descriptions must fit reality and not the other way round, we have to conclude, for reality has spoken, through the double-slit experiment, that it can be inconsistent with itself.
The wave-particle duality of light is not a description issue for reality, empirical observation, calls the shots in science and as far as we can tell, light behaves inconsistently. Reality, on occasion, can be inconsistent.
Everything we experience is due to our inclination to predict what happens next. What we experience is built upon what just happened a moment ago. Doubting our so-called ‘experience of reality’ is precisely what experience is.
In the day-to-day world there are many ‘items’ we just accept. Accepting something doesn’t mean we stop doubting it.
In short ... What cannot be doubted cannot be experienced. The ‘degree’ of ‘doubt’ seems like a misplaced sentiment to me. That said, I may question somethings more than others. Outside of that ‘certainty’ only has meaning within a set set of predefined circumstances. In terms of basic arithmetic 1+1=2 is a ‘certainty’ ... in experienced reality (applied to ‘reality’) I have plenty of room to doubt the use of its application. Ubiquitous ‘certainty’ would be something literally ‘Beyond Doubt’ and therefore outside of experience (aka nonexistent for all intents and purposes!).
You cut your finger.
You experience the pain.
Can you doubt the pain?
Then what cannot be doubted can be experienced.
The long and short of it is that reality sends us mixed signals i.e. it's consistent with mutually inconsistent descriptions which, to my reckoning, is a trail of crumbs that lead back to reality's doorstep. Reality is inconsistent as the fact that mutually inconsistent hypotheses (descriptions) may account for the same raw data we gather from observation attests to.
By the way can you cite some sources I can refer to? Thanks in advance.
I view ‘experience’ as necessitating ‘doubt’. Feelings are all quite dubious. My position is one that questions the semantic validity of the terms in use. Anything can be questioned
:lol: The photon's 'wave-particle complementarity' is no more of "an inconsistency" than is a coin with opposing faces because it's not "a wave" & "a particle", or "heads" & "tails", simultaneously. Photons are recognizable as such because, like anything else, they behave consistently.
Quoting TheMadFool
... because we ask "mutually inconsistent" questions of reality such as when cartographers ask different questions of the same territory which result in – they answer by producing – (1) a road map, (2) a topological (elevation) map, (3) a geological map, (4) a hydrological map, etc ... The territory is consistent with different maps because they are maps of different – complementary – aspects of the territory and are not complete maps (since the only complete map of the territory is the territory itself ... just as the only complete description of a photon is the photon itself).
:rofl: :chin:
You don't seen an inconsistency in light being a particle AND a wave? That it is both doesn't strike you as in the slightest bit odd? You're ignoring the fact that something can't be a particle and then, at another time, a wave. If it's a particle it stays a particle and if it's a wave it remains a wave. That light is a particle and not a wave or vice versa at different times (i.e. not simulataneously) doesn't, I'm sorry to say, help your case.
I thought light was a wave not a particle.
This is not aimed at you Mad Fool but I am always fascinated how many qualified theoretical physicists there are on this forum poised and ready to disprove science.
You didn't reply to my second post about how reality is open to, squares with, multiple mutually inconsistent interprerations. Democritus, the laughing philosopher and Heraclitus, the weeping philosopher. Ring any bells?
That two models, each inconsistent with the other, are both, at the same time, perfectly compatible, with reality seems to point to a reality that plays both sides. Isn't that why we're in the mess we're in?
You're in some "mess", for sure, but leave me out of it. I'm moving on because you've made a fetish of 'inconsistent reality' for which you've not provided a single example. Well, good luck with that, Fool. Btw, Democritus & Heraclitus only propose descriptions of 'conceptions of reality' (not experimental models) which are not reality itself. Again, your fetish makes you incorrigible with respect to this description-described (map-territory) distinction. :victory:
:lol: It seems you've reached the end of your rope with me. My humble apologies if you found our conversation not as stimulating as you might've wished.
At this point, I suggest we disengage as our discussion is not going anywhere mutually acceptable. If I can think of anything that might end the deadlock and push the matter forward I'll let you know IF you're in the mood of course. Thank you! Have a good day.
Doesn’t this mean nature is inconsistent? Consistent means “same,” or something close to that, correct? If the thing you’re talking about changes, then it is no longer the same. Therefore it’s inconsistent; sometimes one thing, sometimes another.
Quoting Banno
I don’t understand the Bishop example. Someone most certainly can be wrong about where the Bishop belongs. Regarding math, can’t you doubt whether or not you added, multiplied, etc. correctly? We are fallible, so the possibility of making mistakes abounds.
ALL experience (be it pain, love, heat, or dreamed) is necessarily open to questioning. That is why it is ‘experience’.
You may well ask ifI question this point ... of course. Strangely enough it isn’t self-refuting; it’s just a way to explore human experience and view the roughly shod concepts we use to communicate.
I don’t want to interrupt your conversation, but I think this passage here might help in clarifying your discussion with Banno:
[quote=Bertrand Russell] Some forms of Scepticism which, in our own day, are advocated by men who are by no means wholly sceptical, had not occurred to the Sceptics of antiquity. They did not doubt phenomena, or question propositions which, in their opinion, only expressed what we know directly concerning phenomena. Most of Timon's work is lost, but two surviving fragments will illustrate this point. One says "The phenomenon is always valid." The other says: "That honey is sweet I refuse to assert; that it appears sweet, I fully grant." A modern Sceptic would point out that the phenomenon merely occurs, and is not either valid or invalid; what is valid or invalid must be a statement, and no statement can be so closely linked to the phenomenon as to be incapable of falsehood. For the same reason, he would say that the statement "honey appears sweet" is only highly probable, not absolutely certain. [/quote]