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On January 11 2012 08:26 GGTeMpLaR wrote:Show nested quote +On January 11 2012 08:13 Mohdoo wrote:On January 11 2012 08:05 GGTeMpLaR wrote:On January 11 2012 07:40 DoubleReed wrote:On January 10 2012 22:48 Warfie wrote:On January 10 2012 22:06 Biff The Understudy wrote:On January 10 2012 21:59 DetriusXii wrote:
Evolution also has the plausibility of being testable. If given enough resources, 100,000 years, and an area of land the size of Germany, I'm fairly certain that I would be able to apply selective pressures to force dogs to branch to a new species that would be unable to reproduce with the original dog. Other theories are intelligent design and that's just inserting mystery thing X that we could never hope to identify. I have the chance to experiment with evolution as a framework. That's what makes it scientific and other theories not. Evolution is a scientific fact. Someone denying evolution does the same than someone denying that the earth is spheric. There is no evidence against evolution, we know perfectly the biological mechanisms that allow it, such as genetic mutations, and we don't have the slightest hypothesis of an alternative model except for the ridiculous superstition of some religious nuts who live in middle age. If you're advocating "the scientific way", then don't call evolution a scientific fact and compare it to the earth being spherical. Evolution is a theory, just like physics theories explaining gravity, electro magnetic waves etc. are theories. We observe different phenomena, like the force that works between objects with a mass which we call gravity, or in this instance: That animals and life forms are not the same in the present, compared to what we can gather of information on how they were like in the past. The only thing that is a fact is the observation - we then make a theory to try to explain our observations. A theory is flawed, or 'wrong', if we can find evidence that does not fit into its model, but conversely we can never 'prove' that it is correct in every instance because we cannot observe every instance. I don't really see the big fuzz about politicians saying evolution is a theory - because it is, and currently we don't have any observation that it cannot explain. I wish people would look a bit beyond this matter in these elections though, it's not like someone who doesn't accept evolution as the leading theory is automatically unfit to be president, because believe it or not, it seems the US has more pressing issues right now. The spherical nature of the Earth is also a Scientific Theory. It is also a fact. Evolution is a Theory and it is also a fact. A Theory just means it explains something and has tons of details and complications with it. As opposed to Laws (like the Law of Conservation of Energy) which just assert something without any explanation. There's no explanation why you can't create or destroy matter. We just say it doesn't happen. It has nothing to do with the factual nature of the thing. The Plum Pudding Model of the Atom is also a Theory and it's wrong. It's not true. As long as you're aware that when you call it a "scientific fact", you're comfortable saying that we don't have 100% certainty of it's truth and that it may end up being a "false fact". On January 11 2012 07:45 Mohdoo wrote:On January 11 2012 07:40 DoubleReed wrote:On January 10 2012 22:48 Warfie wrote:On January 10 2012 22:06 Biff The Understudy wrote:On January 10 2012 21:59 DetriusXii wrote:
Evolution also has the plausibility of being testable. If given enough resources, 100,000 years, and an area of land the size of Germany, I'm fairly certain that I would be able to apply selective pressures to force dogs to branch to a new species that would be unable to reproduce with the original dog. Other theories are intelligent design and that's just inserting mystery thing X that we could never hope to identify. I have the chance to experiment with evolution as a framework. That's what makes it scientific and other theories not. Evolution is a scientific fact. Someone denying evolution does the same than someone denying that the earth is spheric. There is no evidence against evolution, we know perfectly the biological mechanisms that allow it, such as genetic mutations, and we don't have the slightest hypothesis of an alternative model except for the ridiculous superstition of some religious nuts who live in middle age. If you're advocating "the scientific way", then don't call evolution a scientific fact and compare it to the earth being spherical. Evolution is a theory, just like physics theories explaining gravity, electro magnetic waves etc. are theories. We observe different phenomena, like the force that works between objects with a mass which we call gravity, or in this instance: That animals and life forms are not the same in the present, compared to what we can gather of information on how they were like in the past. The only thing that is a fact is the observation - we then make a theory to try to explain our observations. A theory is flawed, or 'wrong', if we can find evidence that does not fit into its model, but conversely we can never 'prove' that it is correct in every instance because we cannot observe every instance. I don't really see the big fuzz about politicians saying evolution is a theory - because it is, and currently we don't have any observation that it cannot explain. I wish people would look a bit beyond this matter in these elections though, it's not like someone who doesn't accept evolution as the leading theory is automatically unfit to be president, because believe it or not, it seems the US has more pressing issues right now. The spherical nature of the Earth is also a Scientific Theory. It is also a fact. Evolution is a Theory and it is also a fact. A Theory just means it explains something and has tons of details and complications with it. As opposed to Laws (like the law of conservation of energy) which just assert something without any explanation. It has nothing to do with the factual nature of the thing. The Plum Pudding Model of the Atom is also a Theory and it's wrong. It's not true. One thing that is worth pointing out, I being someone who works in research in the scientific community, is that terms like theory and whatnot are used extremely modestly. The amount of certainty that it takes for something to be a theory, theorem, law, etc are wildly beyond what most non-science people would think. The "theory of evolution" is a testament to how noble and modest the scientific community is. They have extreme certainty, but in accordance with their beliefs on when it is appropriate to say you "know something 100%", it is called a theory. Non-science people see the word theory and assume it is used the same way any every day non-science person would use it. But its not being used in an average person way. It is how scientists use it to describe scientific concepts. Their respect for knowledge and truth goes above and beyond anything else, and its for that reason that, despite them being what any other person would call "definitively certain", scientists still call it a theory. Actually, scientists (and anyone) who say that the "scientific theory of x is known with 100% certainty" are not being very scientific in that statement. Yes, a Scientific Theory does have a large degree of certainty and evidence that supports it, but it will not reach 100%. I can't tell if you are refuting what I was saying or agreeing. I believe that what I said agrees with what you said. It is "a scientific thing to do", to never have 100% certainty, because scientists believe so much in accuracy. Whereas other people are a lot more lenient and don't have the same admiration for accuracy. As a result, less educated people tend to think scientists have less solid of evidence than they do. Well when you said "but in accordance with their beliefs on when it is appropriate to say you "know something 100%", it is called a theory" it sounded like you were trying to say 100% certainty was present in scientific theories, which I disagree with.
Er, yeah, I shouldn't have said 100. I guess I meant 99%!
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On January 11 2012 06:41 Voros wrote:Show nested quote +
What took 5000 years is for humanity to get some kind of social organisation where even someone who doesn't have money can get taken care off without relying on the hypothetical generosity of some rich philanthropist if he breaks a leg or gets cancer.
Let's be clear: Ron Paul is nothing modern. He is a classical liberal, and he supports the type of society we had 150 years ago. I read an interview about him by a French economist the other day and he was saying that hearing Ron Paul debating was like travelling in time, and that his view on the economics was partially outdated since the end of the XVIIIth century.
Now I've stated earlier why his idea are simplistic. They don't resist any forward thinking.
You are a kid, your parents are poor. You get ill. In RonPaulland, you don't get anybody to help you unless you are lucky enough that some rich people gives you charity. Your parents can't pay? Gtfo. RonPaulclusion? If you had had a healthcare, you would live under tyranny. Feel happy to be free and die.
You are a kid, your parents are poor. In RonPaulland, you don't get an education unless you are lucky and someone gives you charity to pay it (lol). Your parents can't pay for it? Gtfo. RonPaulclusion? If you had public education, you would live under tyranny. Feel happy to be free and stay ignorant in your ghetto.
etc etc etc etc etc etc
So yeah. Simplistic, because you are not free if you stay ignorant, you are not free if you are under the threat of dying if you break a leg etc... unless you have such a simplistic concept of freedom that we should envy the flies for being more free than us.
tl;dr? In RonPaulland, you fucking better not be poor. Nobody will give a damn about you, ever, because egoism is a virtue, as libertarian favorite mad philosopher, Ayn Rand, said in the title of her main book.
We keep having this same argument in this thread, but you need to get it through your head that just because the government doesn't do something doesn't mean that no one will do it. Believe it or not, charity hospitals did (and miraculously, in this age of horrific government interference and subsidy in healthcare, still do) exist. There are tens of thousands of med students, MDs, and nurses who donate their time to these charities pro bono, which is not even considering the role of charitable donations in financing expensive surgeries. Now, this all exists within a heavily socialized and artificial/predatory pricing framework in which the government pays more than fifty cents on every dollar spent on medicine in this country, a government that inflates the price of care via absurd mandates on hospitals and widespread abuse and corruption. Why would anyone, whether out of poor judgment or nihilistic cynicism, think that charitable medicine would disappear when left to the private sector? Who the hell would think that the government has not only done a good job with medicine, but deserves even more control over it? And since you apparently don't understand the American education system or Ron Paul's stance on education, let me give you the short of it: the federal government has inflated the funding of education nearly twofold in inflation-adjusted dollars without increasing its effectiveness one iota. Rather than leaving local schools to be run by those who know the most about local education (namely the school districts and states), the Dept of Education has given us brilliance like No Child Left Behind, which has been nothing short of a disaster for disadvantaged children or those suffering from learning disabilities. More bureacracy, more central planning, more idiocy. And it's unfortunate that you don't even seem to understand that Paul supports states' rights to provide public education in whatever means they desire (vouchers, universal education, etc)--that's about as far from an ancap perspective as anyone versed in libertarian thought could imagine. And finally, Paul isn't a classical liberal (few of whom were around 150 years ago, as by that time people like Lincoln were already firmly entrenched in the federal government), he's a paleoconservative with a few libertarian (mostly states-rights) leanings. Jefferson and Madison were classical liberals; Paul is a paleoconservative; Gary Johnson is a Libertarian; Ayn Rand was an Objectivist. You may not understand why these distinctions matter, but they do, and once you do some digging you'll learn all sorts of interesting things, including tidbits like the fact that Ayn Rand and her Collective disdained libertarians for refusing to reject ethical altruism and that many libertarians and ancaps dislike Paul's apparent disregard for the 14th Amendment and his insistence that states have the power to do basically whatever they'd like.
That American government is notoriously bad at doing such things does not mean that it is a necessity. There was an age without public healthcare systems around the world. At no point in time were charitable initiatives able to cover even the fraction of the necessary cases. Charity also is a fickle thing which is notoriously bad thing when it comes to saving people's lives. Public healthcare systems in other countries work decently and funnily enough they are far more efficient than American mixed system. Even more so government-run insurance agencies are much more efficient in reality than private insurance companies. So I think government has done ok job (not in US) with medicine and much better than private sector would as private sector is not concerned with ethical issues whatsoever and medicine is full of those. That is why this is particularly the part of economy where market system fails to deliver as it is just not a good tool for that purpose. Tools need to be used correctly and market (as is government) is just a tool with its own limitations and problems.
The same goes for American education system. The fact that it is fucked up in US by stupid design from the get go does not mean that public education system do not work in general. They work pretty well elsewhere.
As for the last paragraph - that is why, except for the "misesian" bunch, libertarians, unlike randroids, are people that you can have some discussion with as there is at least some common ground in place in the form of at least somewhat common ethical base.
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On January 11 2012 03:00 bOneSeven wrote:Show nested quote +On January 11 2012 02:12 mcc wrote:On January 11 2012 01:46 Zorkmid wrote:On January 10 2012 23:22 mcc wrote:
Actually evolution is theory and the fact. Theory of evolution is obviously a theory, it is that model that explains how all that stuff happens. But evolution is also a fact as process of organisms evolving was observed. So it depends what you are actually talking about, but in some contexts saying evolution is a fact is correct.
The stupidest thing that science has ever done is this:In everyday life:Theory - Idea you want to test Fact - Hmm theory was correct, that's a fact! In Science:Hypothesis - Idea you want to test Theory - Ah ha! It's true! Now we have a solid theory. Well it is slightly more complex and that is probably why there is this dissonance between casual use of the word theory and scientific meaning of it. It should be : Science: Facts - observations Model - if not supported by enough evidence(facts) -> Hypothesis - if supported by reasonable amount of evidence -> Theory - in special cases of very well supported models that are not expected to ever be found wrong -> Law Notes - model has to be falsifiable - there is really no such thing as truth (in the mathematical/logical sense) in science, just predictive models supported by evidence and testing This guy is dead on! First fair post about this topic here ^^ :D Biff , I come from a really recent former communist country , you have no idea what you're talking about. To bad your parrents didn't live in such a "social" society , you would probably me more awake to the problem Ron Paul is trying to raise . And his simplistic views are dead on , the founding father were right in most of the times . It's not like we've done a magic technological breaktrough in the matters of politics or international affairs , so the same views apply today just as well . The evolution of ideas is , absent if you ask me in the realm of politics ... Kinda funny to see a guy who is basically preaching evolution say "what if your kid borns in a poor family with no social security, medical insurence blabla" . What happened to the fittest survive the test of time ? We are still arguing in schools if Kant or Hobbes were right , the recent authors in the realm of politics really don't strike me as , 10 levels above what was discussed a long time ago , so it's ok that Ron Paul is a conservative with 150 years old ideas .
You coming from former communist country does not make you more right in any way. So do I and aside from small changes I would made Biff's post is dead on. Like completely dead on in the matter of calling the concept of liberty used by libertarians as shallow. The only things I disagree with is attacking Paul's views as "old" and "outdated" as validity of the argument is not based on the era in which it was articulated even if his view came from such a long past, which is not exactly true.
As for your inability to see that there is no problem with using theory of evolution to explain and describe the biological phenomena and not being social darwinist, there is no problem there. Actually libertarians are the social darwinists here.
EDIT:typo
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On January 11 2012 08:27 GGTeMpLaR wrote:Show nested quote +On January 11 2012 08:26 1Eris1 wrote:
You guys do realize that evolution basically has about a much evidence supporting it as does gravity?
I mean errr.... Hell and satan are keeping us bound to the earth so that we cannot just float off into heavenPo I don't think anyone here is arguing that there isn't a lot of evidence for evolution.
Yeah but then shouldnt the evolution disbelievers be arguing against gravity as well? Or any concept we can't prove 100%?
+ Show Spoiler +Do realize I'm not being entirely serious. Some of you guys just have awful arguments
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On January 11 2012 08:33 1Eris1 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 11 2012 08:27 GGTeMpLaR wrote:On January 11 2012 08:26 1Eris1 wrote:
You guys do realize that evolution basically has about a much evidence supporting it as does gravity?
I mean errr.... Hell and satan are keeping us bound to the earth so that we cannot just float off into heavenPo I don't think anyone here is arguing that there isn't a lot of evidence for evolution. Yeah but then shouldnt the evolution disbelievers be arguing against gravity as well? Or any concept we can't prove 100%? + Show Spoiler +Do realize I'm not being entirely serious. Some of you guys just have awful arguments
No, because gravity probably doesn't conflict with their current beliefs in the same way evolution might =p
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On January 11 2012 07:47 Silvanel wrote:Show nested quote +On January 11 2012 05:19 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On January 11 2012 04:33 frogrubdown wrote:On January 11 2012 04:26 Krikkitone wrote:On January 11 2012 04:22 frogrubdown wrote:On January 11 2012 03:39 GGTeMpLaR wrote:On January 11 2012 03:07 frogrubdown wrote:On January 11 2012 02:12 mcc wrote:On January 11 2012 01:46 Zorkmid wrote:On January 10 2012 23:22 mcc wrote:
Actually evolution is theory and the fact. Theory of evolution is obviously a theory, it is that model that explains how all that stuff happens. But evolution is also a fact as process of organisms evolving was observed. So it depends what you are actually talking about, but in some contexts saying evolution is a fact is correct.
The stupidest thing that science has ever done is this:In everyday life:Theory - Idea you want to test Fact - Hmm theory was correct, that's a fact! In Science:Hypothesis - Idea you want to test Theory - Ah ha! It's true! Now we have a solid theory. Well it is slightly more complex and that is probably why there is this dissonance between casual use of the word theory and scientific meaning of it. It should be : Science: Facts - observations Model - if not supported by enough evidence(facts) -> Hypothesis - if supported by reasonable amount of evidence -> Theory - in special cases of very well supported models that are not expected to ever be found wrong -> Law Notes - model has to be falsifiable - there is really no such thing as truth (in the mathematical/logical sense) in science, just predictive models supported by evidence and testing There is no distinction between truth in math and logic and truth in science. Tarski's semantic conception of truth works well enough for both. The fields do have different methods for justifying truths, but that's a different thing entirely. Most of scientific "truth" is reliant on inductive reasoning, which never guarantees absolute certainty. Confirmation after confirmation of a certain law just gives an increasingly stronger probability of it's truth. There isn't much deductive reasoning in science, aside from making directly observable facts* (using Carnap's definition of facts), which makes it a different ball game from math and logic (in the deductive sense). That is largely just a restatement of what I said. It is the same thing for a scientific theory and a mathematical theorem to be true, but there are different methods for discovering those truths. Your citation of Carnap maybe indicates that you disagree with even this (maybe you think mathematical truths are based on meaning alone [are analytic] whereas as scientific truths are not). I don't agree with that, but yes that is a different view. In any case, although the methods are different I don't think it amounts to very much when it comes to certainty. People make mistakes in math and logic all the time, just as they do in empirical matters. I know quite a lot of math and logic, but if certainty is something that absolutely and necessarily eludes all of science, then I am also not certain about any math and logic. To summarize my view: A) Truth is the same thing in math/logic and science. B) Science typically uses different methods than math/logic to get at the truths in its domain. C) There is no in principal difference in the certainty with which we can know the truths that follow from the different methods. A "True" scientific theory can be false (newton's theories, the separate theories of the conservation of matter and energy, etc.). a "True" mathematical theorem cannot. Ah, you've clarified your view in parentheses. This largely confirms my diagnosis of what you were saying. Newton's theories were once considered true, but it turns out that they are false. Do you honestly think this doesn't and couldn't happen in math/logic? Do you want me to tell you what Euler thought the sum from n=0 to infinity of (-1)^n was? People get stuff wrong in every discipline. This is not unique to science. There is a huge difference between math/ logic and science. You can prove things with absolute certainty in math and logic, because you use formal abstract proofs. Science uses empirical evidence, and the theories remain falsifiable. Mathematicians could certainly make conjectures (in the same way that scientists make initial hypotheses) and get them wrong, but once a formal proof is established, you can go to sleep at night and not have to worry about a fossil or atom or planet being discovered that will shatter the theorem. It's airtight and proven, in all forms of the word "proof". Science's validity and level of proof is "mountains of observable data", which should be enough for most people to accept with no problem, although the theories remain falsifiable. They're never 100% proven, but it's enough for the common man to trust, once they've done the proper research. Math and science are both trustworthy, and the experts can certainly guess things wrong, but the levels of proof are not equivalent (nor do they have to be). While i generaly agree with You, it should be noted that even in math and logic there is room for some disagreement. For example there is number of methods (especially in logic) that are not tottaly accepted by every mathemathician. Ie while, for someone proof of say" A" might seem conclusive other mathemathicain might disagree because he finds the method that proof of A is delivered unaccaptable. Its staggering how much such things might depend on social acceptance, for example in early days after publishing of Gödel's incompleteness theorems they were wildly discussed, and many mathemathicain thought the method that Godel used to deliver the proof is unaccaptable (ie. wrong). Granted its different problem than in science, but still. //End of offtopic. Every discussion about evolution (and therfore also politics) eventualy ends here. Ps.I agree You can't use Tarski's defintion of truth to empirical science.
I suppose by the disagreement you mean things like constructivists not liking law of excluded middle and thus rejecting proof by contradiction or rejecting axiom of choice. But those are meta-disagreements, they do not disagree that if you accept axiom of choice you can prove this and that. They disagree if we should use axiom of choice in the first place. And even though there are reasons to accept it or reject it they are in the end kind of arbitrary, because of very weak connection between physical reality and math.
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On January 11 2012 08:14 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +On January 11 2012 08:00 mcc wrote:On January 11 2012 04:49 Hider wrote:On January 11 2012 02:49 Biff The Understudy wrote:On January 11 2012 02:39 Voros wrote:Also his ideas about freedom, as simplistic as they may be, are appealing to youth. Simplistic is "my boot, your face." You may be familiar with that style of government. A constitutional republic based on the theory of natural rights of the individual is not simple, which is why it took about 5,000 years of statism for it to ever hit the table. What took 5000 years is for humanity to get some kind of social organisation where even someone who doesn't have money can get taken care off without relying on the hypothetical generosity of some rich philanthropist if he breaks a leg or gets cancer. Let's be clear: Ron Paul is nothing modern. He is a classical liberal, and he supports the type of society we had 150 years ago. I read an interview about him by a French economist the other day and he was saying that hearing Ron Paul debating was like travelling in time, and that his view on the economics was partially outdated since the end of the XVIIIth century. Now I've stated earlier why his idea are simplistic. They don't resist any forward thinking. You are a kid, your parents are poor. You get ill. In RonPaulland, you don't get anybody to help you unless you are lucky enough that some rich people gives you charity. Your parents can't pay? Gtfo. RonPaulclusion? If you had had a healthcare, you would live under tyranny. Feel happy to be free and die. You are a kid, your parents are poor. In RonPaulland, you don't get an education unless you are lucky and someone gives you charity to pay it (lol). Your parents can't pay for it? Gtfo. RonPaulclusion? If you had public education, you would live under tyranny. Feel happy to be free and stay ignorant in your ghetto. etc etc etc etc etc etc So yeah. Simplistic, because you are not free if you stay ignorant, you are not free if you are under the threat of dying if you break a leg etc... unless you have such a simplistic concept of freedom that we should envy the flies for being more free than us. tl;dr? In RonPaulland, you fucking better not be poor. Nobody will give a damn about you, ever, because egoism is a virtue, as libertarian favorite mad philosopher, Ayn Rand, said in the title of her main book. Outddated = bad? If we ignore the political discussion which ppl can kinda never agree on, why is his economic policies bad? We are having a terrible financial crises due to unstable currencies. Why the hell would we not make gold our currency and void speculation and arifiical low interest rates? Because gold standard would not achieve that. Interest rates that are based on demand and suply = NATURAL. Interest based on printing money = ARTIFICAL. GOLD causes nautral itnerest rates. Artifical low interest rates creates malinvestments and speculations --> bubbles --> crises.
You can control available supply of gold also. This distinction between natural and artificial seems artificial 
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I'm confused by these polls, people actually want Bachmann to win?
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On January 11 2012 08:20 frogrubdown wrote:Show nested quote +On January 11 2012 08:12 mcc wrote:On January 11 2012 06:13 frogrubdown wrote:On January 11 2012 06:04 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On January 11 2012 05:40 frogrubdown wrote:On January 11 2012 05:19 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On January 11 2012 04:33 frogrubdown wrote:On January 11 2012 04:26 Krikkitone wrote:On January 11 2012 04:22 frogrubdown wrote:On January 11 2012 03:39 GGTeMpLaR wrote:
[quote]
Most of scientific "truth" is reliant on inductive reasoning, which never guarantees absolute certainty. Confirmation after confirmation of a certain law just gives an increasingly stronger probability of it's truth. There isn't much deductive reasoning in science, aside from making directly observable facts* (using Carnap's definition of facts), which makes it a different ball game from math and logic (in the deductive sense). That is largely just a restatement of what I said. It is the same thing for a scientific theory and a mathematical theorem to be true, but there are different methods for discovering those truths. Your citation of Carnap maybe indicates that you disagree with even this (maybe you think mathematical truths are based on meaning alone [are analytic] whereas as scientific truths are not). I don't agree with that, but yes that is a different view. In any case, although the methods are different I don't think it amounts to very much when it comes to certainty. People make mistakes in math and logic all the time, just as they do in empirical matters. I know quite a lot of math and logic, but if certainty is something that absolutely and necessarily eludes all of science, then I am also not certain about any math and logic. To summarize my view: A) Truth is the same thing in math/logic and science. B) Science typically uses different methods than math/logic to get at the truths in its domain. C) There is no in principal difference in the certainty with which we can know the truths that follow from the different methods. A "True" scientific theory can be false (newton's theories, the separate theories of the conservation of matter and energy, etc.). a "True" mathematical theorem cannot. Ah, you've clarified your view in parentheses. This largely confirms my diagnosis of what you were saying. Newton's theories were once considered true, but it turns out that they are false. Do you honestly think this doesn't and couldn't happen in math/logic? Do you want me to tell you what Euler thought the sum from n=0 to infinity of (-1)^n was? People get stuff wrong in every discipline. This is not unique to science. There is a huge difference between math/ logic and science. You can prove things with absolute certainty in math and logic, because you use formal abstract proofs. Science uses empirical evidence, and the theories remain falsifiable. Mathematicians could certainly make conjectures (in the same way that scientists make initial hypotheses) and get them wrong, but once a formal proof is established, you can go to sleep at night and not have to worry about a fossil or atom or planet being discovered that will shatter the theorem. It's airtight and proven, in all forms of the word "proof". Science's validity and level of proof is "mountains of observable data", which should be enough for most people to accept with no problem, although the theories remain falsifiable. They're never 100% proven, but it's enough for the common man to trust, once they've done the proper research. Math and science are both trustworthy, and the experts can certainly guess things wrong, but the levels of proof are not equivalent (nor do they have to be). I realize that if there is a proof that P, then P. This is just because 'proved that' is factive. But we have to trust our own judgments about whether or not a supposed proof succeeds, and these judgments are clearly fallible as has been shown many times throughout history. Because of this fallibility, math does not offer certainty. So much the worse for certainty, I'm inclined to say. If you're arguing the difference between simple tautological claims and proofs that require axioms, I have no problem with that. All non-tautological knowledge, empirical or abstract, require axioms. That's not really what I'm arguing, or what you're arguing either. Math is still different than science in the exact same respect that I explained above- they're both dependent on axioms, but math still creates proofs that- assuming you accept the given axioms- prove things with absolute certainty (and then refer back to everything else I wrote beforehand regarding math and science). And of course, there's no reason why you shouldn't accept mathematical axioms either >.> We should accept mathematical axioms, but our faculty for picking out the true ones is fallible. See, for instance, the appeal of the naive comprehension axiom. Quite frankly, this now-known-to-be-false axiom is at least as appealing to my and most other's axiom judging faculties as any of the current axioms we accept. Because of all this, our knowledge of the truth of the axioms is fallible, i.e., not certain. Further, I agree that if the axioms are true, whatever follows from them is true. This doesn't have much to do with the certainty of what follows from them. For one thing, as I've already said, knowledge of the axioms themselves is not certain. For another, our faculties for deriving logical conclusions from axioms are imperfect (fallible). See any undergrad's math homework; I've graded plenty. So even though the truth of the axioms guarantee something, we don't have any certain access to what it is they guarantee. Once again, I'm not being skeptical here. I think we have all kinds of knowledge of both math and science. I just don't think that there is any principled difference in terms of certainty between the kinds of knowledge. What does it mean true axiom ? Axioms are true by definition Picking axioms is arbitrary (except when you make the system inconsistent by contradiction) and then what follows follows. You can pick specific axioms because they create a formal system that is useful in describing real world, but that is also arbitrary. There is no necessary correspondence between math/logic and reality. As there is no such correspondence between a novel and reality. In science no axioms are actually necessary as no proofs are done. And just to clarify I am in no way saying that this fact makes science in any way less useful and not worthy of trusting. The design of scientific method is still the best way to gain knowledge about physical reality and science in this day and age is so accurate (note that I do not use true) that denying its results on any base other than existing evidence is folly. The difference between the math and scientific theorems being false is in principle. Yes our mental faculties make it so that we can mess up math proofs, but in principle math proofs are absolute. Scientific "truths" are not and cannot even in principle be absolute, they are always just accurate to some degree and that is all you can say. Well, I'm not a fictionalist about math (and certainly don't think axioms are true by definition), but that's not really relevant. As long as you acknowledge a way in which axioms can go wrong (which you do in the form of inconsistency), you have already acknowledged what matters for my point. I have throughout this thread agreed that there is an in principle difference between truths that follow from deduction and truths that follow from induction. What I have been disagreeing with is the claim that this makes the mathematical truths certain in a way that empirical truths are not. Since you've already acknowledged that our faculties for knowing mathematical truths are fallible, we should be on the same page here. Scientific "truths" are absolute in the sense that if we luck on to the right scientific theory, it is true regardless of what anyone says. We evolved from apes regardless of what anyone says. Sometimes the degree to which they are accurate is 100%. We haven't gotten there in most places, and maybe never will. But that difference is not a principled one.
Ok, we probably mostly agree anyway So just few things. In my opinion it is principled difference in that in science there is no way for us to know even in principle if we have the 100% accurate theory, whereas in math even with our fallible senses, some proofs are absolute in principle and in practice as our fallibility comes into play only with more complex proofs. And you can always just make a deducing machine (and yes I know we can fuck up the machine and still not have 100% certainty ).
As for axioms not being true by definition. This is the definition of an axiom : "An axiom is a proposition regarded as self-evidently true without proof".
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On January 11 2012 08:49 mcc wrote:Show nested quote +On January 11 2012 08:20 frogrubdown wrote:On January 11 2012 08:12 mcc wrote:On January 11 2012 06:13 frogrubdown wrote:On January 11 2012 06:04 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On January 11 2012 05:40 frogrubdown wrote:On January 11 2012 05:19 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On January 11 2012 04:33 frogrubdown wrote:On January 11 2012 04:26 Krikkitone wrote:On January 11 2012 04:22 frogrubdown wrote:
[quote]
That is largely just a restatement of what I said. It is the same thing for a scientific theory and a mathematical theorem to be true, but there are different methods for discovering those truths. Your citation of Carnap maybe indicates that you disagree with even this (maybe you think mathematical truths are based on meaning alone [are analytic] whereas as scientific truths are not). I don't agree with that, but yes that is a different view.
In any case, although the methods are different I don't think it amounts to very much when it comes to certainty. People make mistakes in math and logic all the time, just as they do in empirical matters. I know quite a lot of math and logic, but if certainty is something that absolutely and necessarily eludes all of science, then I am also not certain about any math and logic.
To summarize my view:
A) Truth is the same thing in math/logic and science.
B) Science typically uses different methods than math/logic to get at the truths in its domain.
C) There is no in principal difference in the certainty with which we can know the truths that follow from the different methods. A "True" scientific theory can be false (newton's theories, the separate theories of the conservation of matter and energy, etc.). a "True" mathematical theorem cannot. Ah, you've clarified your view in parentheses. This largely confirms my diagnosis of what you were saying. Newton's theories were once considered true, but it turns out that they are false. Do you honestly think this doesn't and couldn't happen in math/logic? Do you want me to tell you what Euler thought the sum from n=0 to infinity of (-1)^n was? People get stuff wrong in every discipline. This is not unique to science. There is a huge difference between math/ logic and science. You can prove things with absolute certainty in math and logic, because you use formal abstract proofs. Science uses empirical evidence, and the theories remain falsifiable. Mathematicians could certainly make conjectures (in the same way that scientists make initial hypotheses) and get them wrong, but once a formal proof is established, you can go to sleep at night and not have to worry about a fossil or atom or planet being discovered that will shatter the theorem. It's airtight and proven, in all forms of the word "proof". Science's validity and level of proof is "mountains of observable data", which should be enough for most people to accept with no problem, although the theories remain falsifiable. They're never 100% proven, but it's enough for the common man to trust, once they've done the proper research. Math and science are both trustworthy, and the experts can certainly guess things wrong, but the levels of proof are not equivalent (nor do they have to be). I realize that if there is a proof that P, then P. This is just because 'proved that' is factive. But we have to trust our own judgments about whether or not a supposed proof succeeds, and these judgments are clearly fallible as has been shown many times throughout history. Because of this fallibility, math does not offer certainty. So much the worse for certainty, I'm inclined to say. If you're arguing the difference between simple tautological claims and proofs that require axioms, I have no problem with that. All non-tautological knowledge, empirical or abstract, require axioms. That's not really what I'm arguing, or what you're arguing either. Math is still different than science in the exact same respect that I explained above- they're both dependent on axioms, but math still creates proofs that- assuming you accept the given axioms- prove things with absolute certainty (and then refer back to everything else I wrote beforehand regarding math and science). And of course, there's no reason why you shouldn't accept mathematical axioms either >.> We should accept mathematical axioms, but our faculty for picking out the true ones is fallible. See, for instance, the appeal of the naive comprehension axiom. Quite frankly, this now-known-to-be-false axiom is at least as appealing to my and most other's axiom judging faculties as any of the current axioms we accept. Because of all this, our knowledge of the truth of the axioms is fallible, i.e., not certain. Further, I agree that if the axioms are true, whatever follows from them is true. This doesn't have much to do with the certainty of what follows from them. For one thing, as I've already said, knowledge of the axioms themselves is not certain. For another, our faculties for deriving logical conclusions from axioms are imperfect (fallible). See any undergrad's math homework; I've graded plenty. So even though the truth of the axioms guarantee something, we don't have any certain access to what it is they guarantee. Once again, I'm not being skeptical here. I think we have all kinds of knowledge of both math and science. I just don't think that there is any principled difference in terms of certainty between the kinds of knowledge. What does it mean true axiom ? Axioms are true by definition Picking axioms is arbitrary (except when you make the system inconsistent by contradiction) and then what follows follows. You can pick specific axioms because they create a formal system that is useful in describing real world, but that is also arbitrary. There is no necessary correspondence between math/logic and reality. As there is no such correspondence between a novel and reality. In science no axioms are actually necessary as no proofs are done. And just to clarify I am in no way saying that this fact makes science in any way less useful and not worthy of trusting. The design of scientific method is still the best way to gain knowledge about physical reality and science in this day and age is so accurate (note that I do not use true) that denying its results on any base other than existing evidence is folly. The difference between the math and scientific theorems being false is in principle. Yes our mental faculties make it so that we can mess up math proofs, but in principle math proofs are absolute. Scientific "truths" are not and cannot even in principle be absolute, they are always just accurate to some degree and that is all you can say. Well, I'm not a fictionalist about math (and certainly don't think axioms are true by definition), but that's not really relevant. As long as you acknowledge a way in which axioms can go wrong (which you do in the form of inconsistency), you have already acknowledged what matters for my point. I have throughout this thread agreed that there is an in principle difference between truths that follow from deduction and truths that follow from induction. What I have been disagreeing with is the claim that this makes the mathematical truths certain in a way that empirical truths are not. Since you've already acknowledged that our faculties for knowing mathematical truths are fallible, we should be on the same page here. Scientific "truths" are absolute in the sense that if we luck on to the right scientific theory, it is true regardless of what anyone says. We evolved from apes regardless of what anyone says. Sometimes the degree to which they are accurate is 100%. We haven't gotten there in most places, and maybe never will. But that difference is not a principled one. Ok, we probably mostly agree anyway So just few things. In my opinion it is principled difference in that in science there is no way for us to know even in principle if we have the 100% accurate theory, whereas in math even with our fallible senses, some proofs are absolute in principle and in practice as our fallibility comes into play only with more complex proofs. And you can always just make a deducing machine (and yes I know we can fuck up the machine and still not have 100% certainty ). As for axioms not being true by definition. This is the definition of an axiom : "An axiom is a proposition regarded as self-evidently true without proof".
Well, I'll just throw in one last point: dictionaries don't settle philosophical disputes (or attempt to do so).
But it sounds like we are at least close enough to just get ready for some primary action.
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On January 09 2012 11:43 sc4k wrote:Still waiting for someone to answer these points? Show nested quote +On January 06 2012 09:15 sc4k wrote:
Libertarianism just feels so jarring, I can't believe it's actually gaining traction. I guess the allure of having to pay less taxes will win almost anyone over. But the whole de-regulation thing just seems so dangerous. It's hard enough to deal with monopolies now in the modern world. How does a libertarian society deal with monopolies? I mean, companies just buying out all the competition aggressively, tying up all possible distribution outlets...all that sort of crap?
Also, I think the general criticism of the FDA seems a bit weird to me. Getting rid of that sort of regulation just seems so reckless as to the health of people in your society. You are happy to stand by and allow the possibility that people will be seriously harmed and damaged by drugs which aren't tested to any standard of care...until it's found that the damage has been done and everyone keeps away from it...I know that food and drugs regulation can't stop everything but it just seems crazy to actually reduce society's ability to protect itself from that...things like the thalidomide tragedy have taught us some serious lessons about regulation and to back off from that seems crazy.
Same goes for...how does a libertarian society effectively administer disease control? For example, a spread amongst livestock of a certain disease...how does it deal with culling animals? Seeing as it's not supposed to have coercive power to cull livestock...does that mean you are happy for BSE burgers to be floating around the country?
If someone doesn't respond I've learnt it's usually because you've made a good point.
That said I think you've twisted what it means to be a Libertarian. I consider myself a libertarian because I consider individual liberty vital for society. I want to maximise individual liberty and political freedom. My philosophy is this, 'An individual should be able to do whatever they please as long as it does not adversely effect another individual'
That doesn't mean I'm an anarcho-capitalist. Most governments (and all left wing governments) naturally trend towards greater control and centralisation and it is all our responsibility as individuals to fight against that. The recent SOPA/PIPA laws and internet regulation is a classic example of a government trying to control something it doesn't understand and fears.
In the UK we recently fought off a government attempt to introduce ID cards and huge national databases with all our personal information stored within them. You've probably read 1984 I don't need to say any more.
I don't believe there should be no government or no taxes but government should be small and taxes not excessive. I am actually a strong supporter or our National Health Service in the UK which offers free health care to everyone.
It also doesn't mean I'm against regulation. Certainly some regulation is vital, drinking water standards etc And I'd have no problem culling animals if they posed a threat as long as the individuals were compensated. Monopolies are of course very inefficient and again I would have no problem regulating them.
Back on topic
For me Ron Paul is the only candidate raising the vital issue of individual freedom although I certainly don't agree with him 100%. I think the Patriot Act, Guantanamo, SOPA/PIPA and the NDAA laws are extremely worrying developments and people should be extremely concerned. Corporations are far to involved in the political process, corruption is rife and the US is starting to lose everything that made it so great and people wonder why its going down hill.
Things need to be shaken up and all the other candidates are very poor from what I have seen.
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On January 11 2012 08:59 frogrubdown wrote:Show nested quote +On January 11 2012 08:49 mcc wrote:On January 11 2012 08:20 frogrubdown wrote:On January 11 2012 08:12 mcc wrote:On January 11 2012 06:13 frogrubdown wrote:On January 11 2012 06:04 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On January 11 2012 05:40 frogrubdown wrote:On January 11 2012 05:19 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On January 11 2012 04:33 frogrubdown wrote:On January 11 2012 04:26 Krikkitone wrote:
[quote]
A "True" scientific theory can be false (newton's theories, the separate theories of the conservation of matter and energy, etc.). a "True" mathematical theorem cannot. Ah, you've clarified your view in parentheses. This largely confirms my diagnosis of what you were saying. Newton's theories were once considered true, but it turns out that they are false. Do you honestly think this doesn't and couldn't happen in math/logic? Do you want me to tell you what Euler thought the sum from n=0 to infinity of (-1)^n was? People get stuff wrong in every discipline. This is not unique to science. There is a huge difference between math/ logic and science. You can prove things with absolute certainty in math and logic, because you use formal abstract proofs. Science uses empirical evidence, and the theories remain falsifiable. Mathematicians could certainly make conjectures (in the same way that scientists make initial hypotheses) and get them wrong, but once a formal proof is established, you can go to sleep at night and not have to worry about a fossil or atom or planet being discovered that will shatter the theorem. It's airtight and proven, in all forms of the word "proof". Science's validity and level of proof is "mountains of observable data", which should be enough for most people to accept with no problem, although the theories remain falsifiable. They're never 100% proven, but it's enough for the common man to trust, once they've done the proper research. Math and science are both trustworthy, and the experts can certainly guess things wrong, but the levels of proof are not equivalent (nor do they have to be). I realize that if there is a proof that P, then P. This is just because 'proved that' is factive. But we have to trust our own judgments about whether or not a supposed proof succeeds, and these judgments are clearly fallible as has been shown many times throughout history. Because of this fallibility, math does not offer certainty. So much the worse for certainty, I'm inclined to say. If you're arguing the difference between simple tautological claims and proofs that require axioms, I have no problem with that. All non-tautological knowledge, empirical or abstract, require axioms. That's not really what I'm arguing, or what you're arguing either. Math is still different than science in the exact same respect that I explained above- they're both dependent on axioms, but math still creates proofs that- assuming you accept the given axioms- prove things with absolute certainty (and then refer back to everything else I wrote beforehand regarding math and science). And of course, there's no reason why you shouldn't accept mathematical axioms either >.> We should accept mathematical axioms, but our faculty for picking out the true ones is fallible. See, for instance, the appeal of the naive comprehension axiom. Quite frankly, this now-known-to-be-false axiom is at least as appealing to my and most other's axiom judging faculties as any of the current axioms we accept. Because of all this, our knowledge of the truth of the axioms is fallible, i.e., not certain. Further, I agree that if the axioms are true, whatever follows from them is true. This doesn't have much to do with the certainty of what follows from them. For one thing, as I've already said, knowledge of the axioms themselves is not certain. For another, our faculties for deriving logical conclusions from axioms are imperfect (fallible). See any undergrad's math homework; I've graded plenty. So even though the truth of the axioms guarantee something, we don't have any certain access to what it is they guarantee. Once again, I'm not being skeptical here. I think we have all kinds of knowledge of both math and science. I just don't think that there is any principled difference in terms of certainty between the kinds of knowledge. What does it mean true axiom ? Axioms are true by definition Picking axioms is arbitrary (except when you make the system inconsistent by contradiction) and then what follows follows. You can pick specific axioms because they create a formal system that is useful in describing real world, but that is also arbitrary. There is no necessary correspondence between math/logic and reality. As there is no such correspondence between a novel and reality. In science no axioms are actually necessary as no proofs are done. And just to clarify I am in no way saying that this fact makes science in any way less useful and not worthy of trusting. The design of scientific method is still the best way to gain knowledge about physical reality and science in this day and age is so accurate (note that I do not use true) that denying its results on any base other than existing evidence is folly. The difference between the math and scientific theorems being false is in principle. Yes our mental faculties make it so that we can mess up math proofs, but in principle math proofs are absolute. Scientific "truths" are not and cannot even in principle be absolute, they are always just accurate to some degree and that is all you can say. Well, I'm not a fictionalist about math (and certainly don't think axioms are true by definition), but that's not really relevant. As long as you acknowledge a way in which axioms can go wrong (which you do in the form of inconsistency), you have already acknowledged what matters for my point. I have throughout this thread agreed that there is an in principle difference between truths that follow from deduction and truths that follow from induction. What I have been disagreeing with is the claim that this makes the mathematical truths certain in a way that empirical truths are not. Since you've already acknowledged that our faculties for knowing mathematical truths are fallible, we should be on the same page here. Scientific "truths" are absolute in the sense that if we luck on to the right scientific theory, it is true regardless of what anyone says. We evolved from apes regardless of what anyone says. Sometimes the degree to which they are accurate is 100%. We haven't gotten there in most places, and maybe never will. But that difference is not a principled one. Ok, we probably mostly agree anyway So just few things. In my opinion it is principled difference in that in science there is no way for us to know even in principle if we have the 100% accurate theory, whereas in math even with our fallible senses, some proofs are absolute in principle and in practice as our fallibility comes into play only with more complex proofs. And you can always just make a deducing machine (and yes I know we can fuck up the machine and still not have 100% certainty ). As for axioms not being true by definition. This is the definition of an axiom : "An axiom is a proposition regarded as self-evidently true without proof". Well, I'll just throw in one last point: dictionaries don't settle philosophical disputes (or attempt to do so). But it sounds like we are at least close enough to just get ready for some primary action.
In case of definitions they often do. If you do no agree with that definition then I fail to see how are axioms different from any other proposition and how do you create a formal system in that case ?
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On January 11 2012 09:08 mcc wrote:Show nested quote +On January 11 2012 08:59 frogrubdown wrote:On January 11 2012 08:49 mcc wrote:On January 11 2012 08:20 frogrubdown wrote:On January 11 2012 08:12 mcc wrote:On January 11 2012 06:13 frogrubdown wrote:On January 11 2012 06:04 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On January 11 2012 05:40 frogrubdown wrote:On January 11 2012 05:19 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On January 11 2012 04:33 frogrubdown wrote:
[quote]
Ah, you've clarified your view in parentheses. This largely confirms my diagnosis of what you were saying. Newton's theories were once considered true, but it turns out that they are false.
Do you honestly think this doesn't and couldn't happen in math/logic? Do you want me to tell you what Euler thought the sum from n=0 to infinity of (-1)^n was? People get stuff wrong in every discipline. This is not unique to science.
There is a huge difference between math/ logic and science. You can prove things with absolute certainty in math and logic, because you use formal abstract proofs. Science uses empirical evidence, and the theories remain falsifiable. Mathematicians could certainly make conjectures (in the same way that scientists make initial hypotheses) and get them wrong, but once a formal proof is established, you can go to sleep at night and not have to worry about a fossil or atom or planet being discovered that will shatter the theorem. It's airtight and proven, in all forms of the word "proof". Science's validity and level of proof is "mountains of observable data", which should be enough for most people to accept with no problem, although the theories remain falsifiable. They're never 100% proven, but it's enough for the common man to trust, once they've done the proper research. Math and science are both trustworthy, and the experts can certainly guess things wrong, but the levels of proof are not equivalent (nor do they have to be). I realize that if there is a proof that P, then P. This is just because 'proved that' is factive. But we have to trust our own judgments about whether or not a supposed proof succeeds, and these judgments are clearly fallible as has been shown many times throughout history. Because of this fallibility, math does not offer certainty. So much the worse for certainty, I'm inclined to say. If you're arguing the difference between simple tautological claims and proofs that require axioms, I have no problem with that. All non-tautological knowledge, empirical or abstract, require axioms. That's not really what I'm arguing, or what you're arguing either. Math is still different than science in the exact same respect that I explained above- they're both dependent on axioms, but math still creates proofs that- assuming you accept the given axioms- prove things with absolute certainty (and then refer back to everything else I wrote beforehand regarding math and science). And of course, there's no reason why you shouldn't accept mathematical axioms either >.> We should accept mathematical axioms, but our faculty for picking out the true ones is fallible. See, for instance, the appeal of the naive comprehension axiom. Quite frankly, this now-known-to-be-false axiom is at least as appealing to my and most other's axiom judging faculties as any of the current axioms we accept. Because of all this, our knowledge of the truth of the axioms is fallible, i.e., not certain. Further, I agree that if the axioms are true, whatever follows from them is true. This doesn't have much to do with the certainty of what follows from them. For one thing, as I've already said, knowledge of the axioms themselves is not certain. For another, our faculties for deriving logical conclusions from axioms are imperfect (fallible). See any undergrad's math homework; I've graded plenty. So even though the truth of the axioms guarantee something, we don't have any certain access to what it is they guarantee. Once again, I'm not being skeptical here. I think we have all kinds of knowledge of both math and science. I just don't think that there is any principled difference in terms of certainty between the kinds of knowledge. What does it mean true axiom ? Axioms are true by definition Picking axioms is arbitrary (except when you make the system inconsistent by contradiction) and then what follows follows. You can pick specific axioms because they create a formal system that is useful in describing real world, but that is also arbitrary. There is no necessary correspondence between math/logic and reality. As there is no such correspondence between a novel and reality. In science no axioms are actually necessary as no proofs are done. And just to clarify I am in no way saying that this fact makes science in any way less useful and not worthy of trusting. The design of scientific method is still the best way to gain knowledge about physical reality and science in this day and age is so accurate (note that I do not use true) that denying its results on any base other than existing evidence is folly. The difference between the math and scientific theorems being false is in principle. Yes our mental faculties make it so that we can mess up math proofs, but in principle math proofs are absolute. Scientific "truths" are not and cannot even in principle be absolute, they are always just accurate to some degree and that is all you can say. Well, I'm not a fictionalist about math (and certainly don't think axioms are true by definition), but that's not really relevant. As long as you acknowledge a way in which axioms can go wrong (which you do in the form of inconsistency), you have already acknowledged what matters for my point. I have throughout this thread agreed that there is an in principle difference between truths that follow from deduction and truths that follow from induction. What I have been disagreeing with is the claim that this makes the mathematical truths certain in a way that empirical truths are not. Since you've already acknowledged that our faculties for knowing mathematical truths are fallible, we should be on the same page here. Scientific "truths" are absolute in the sense that if we luck on to the right scientific theory, it is true regardless of what anyone says. We evolved from apes regardless of what anyone says. Sometimes the degree to which they are accurate is 100%. We haven't gotten there in most places, and maybe never will. But that difference is not a principled one. Ok, we probably mostly agree anyway So just few things. In my opinion it is principled difference in that in science there is no way for us to know even in principle if we have the 100% accurate theory, whereas in math even with our fallible senses, some proofs are absolute in principle and in practice as our fallibility comes into play only with more complex proofs. And you can always just make a deducing machine (and yes I know we can fuck up the machine and still not have 100% certainty ). As for axioms not being true by definition. This is the definition of an axiom : "An axiom is a proposition regarded as self-evidently true without proof". Well, I'll just throw in one last point: dictionaries don't settle philosophical disputes (or attempt to do so). But it sounds like we are at least close enough to just get ready for some primary action. In case of definitions they often do. If you do no agree with that definition then I fail to see how are axioms different from any other proposition and how do you create a formal system in that case ?
Well, here's one of my problems with the definition. Although we don't require proof of our axioms, we are frequently less confident in them than in the results that we use them to prove. For instance, we are less certain of the ZF axioms than we are about the fact that 1+1=2, even though we use the former to prove latter. If the ZF axioms returned a result other than 1+1=2, we wouldn't alter our beliefs about the latter fact, but rather we would change our perception of the ZF axioms.
A second problem I have with it is that not requiring proof is not the same thing as being true by definition, at least not how I was using "true by definition." I was using it to mean something along the lines of "true solely in virtue of meaning," which I don't think axioms are.
edit: for the most part, these problems are not with the accuracy of the definition, but with whether or not the definition amounts to axioms being true by definition. But I also believe that dictionaries often get definitions wrong. This is because they don't care about conceptual nuances and are instead in the business of just giving a good enough idea of the sense of a term to allow someone to use it competently.
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On January 11 2012 09:08 yarders wrote:Show nested quote +On January 09 2012 11:43 sc4k wrote:Still waiting for someone to answer these points? On January 06 2012 09:15 sc4k wrote:
Libertarianism just feels so jarring, I can't believe it's actually gaining traction. I guess the allure of having to pay less taxes will win almost anyone over. But the whole de-regulation thing just seems so dangerous. It's hard enough to deal with monopolies now in the modern world. How does a libertarian society deal with monopolies? I mean, companies just buying out all the competition aggressively, tying up all possible distribution outlets...all that sort of crap?
Also, I think the general criticism of the FDA seems a bit weird to me. Getting rid of that sort of regulation just seems so reckless as to the health of people in your society. You are happy to stand by and allow the possibility that people will be seriously harmed and damaged by drugs which aren't tested to any standard of care...until it's found that the damage has been done and everyone keeps away from it...I know that food and drugs regulation can't stop everything but it just seems crazy to actually reduce society's ability to protect itself from that...things like the thalidomide tragedy have taught us some serious lessons about regulation and to back off from that seems crazy.
Same goes for...how does a libertarian society effectively administer disease control? For example, a spread amongst livestock of a certain disease...how does it deal with culling animals? Seeing as it's not supposed to have coercive power to cull livestock...does that mean you are happy for BSE burgers to be floating around the country? If someone doesn't respond I've learnt it's usually because you've made a good point. That said I think you've twisted what it means to be a Libertarian. I consider myself a libertarian because I consider individual liberty vital for society. I want to maximise individual liberty and political freedom. My philosophy is this, 'An individual should be able to do whatever they please as long as it does not adversely effect another individual' That doesn't mean I'm an anarcho-capitalist. Most governments (and all left wing governments) naturally trend towards greater control and centralisation and it is all our responsibility as individuals to fight against that. The recent SOPA/PIPA laws and internet regulation is a classic example of a government trying to control something it doesn't understand and fears. In the UK we recently fought off a government attempt to introduce ID cards and huge national databases with all our personal information stored within them. You've probably read 1984 I don't need to say any more. I don't believe there should be no government or no taxes but government should be small and taxes not excessive. I am actually a strong supporter or our National Health Service in the UK which offers free health care to everyone. It also doesn't mean I'm against regulation. Certainly some regulation is vital, drinking water standards etc And I'd have no problem culling animals if they posed a threat as long as the individuals were compensated. Monopolies are of course very inefficient and again I would have no problem regulating them. Back on topic For me Ron Paul is the only candidate raising the vital issue of individual freedom although I certainly don't agree with him 100%. I think the Patriot Act, Guantanamo, SOPA/PIPA and the NDAA laws are extremely worrying developments and people should be extremely concerned. Corporations are far to involved in the political process, corruption is rife and the US is starting to lose everything that made it so great and people wonder why its going down hill. Things need to be shaken up and all the other candidates are very poor from what I have seen.
Wouldn't a better goal than fighting regulations in general be fighting harmful and useless regulations ? As for SOPA I think it is not really a government in this case that wants to control things, more like interest groups using government to do their bidding.
Also why would you put freedom (extremely vague word btw) as your core principle. I feel from your text like your real core principles are actually ethical ones based on minimization of suffering and increasing prosperity or similar. Why not just use them as core principles as they seem to be so anyway, unconsciously at least. I always wondered why would people use as their core principles something so derivative as freedom instead of things that come directly from our humanity like empathy. If you use freedom as your core values, unless you are a psychopath, you will arrive on logical conclusions of that choice that are contrary to your actual beliefs. For example your support for NHS means that your core principles are not actually freedom, but empathy as I said, since existence of NHS is hard to justify based on freedom alone.
So why not just drop the whole freedom thing and build your views on other more natural principles. In the end you will find that what will naturally and logically come from that is much more closer to what you feel is right and just and also that support for freedom (not absolute, but significant) will follow from those premises anyway.
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On January 11 2012 09:13 frogrubdown wrote:Show nested quote +On January 11 2012 09:08 mcc wrote:On January 11 2012 08:59 frogrubdown wrote:On January 11 2012 08:49 mcc wrote:On January 11 2012 08:20 frogrubdown wrote:On January 11 2012 08:12 mcc wrote:On January 11 2012 06:13 frogrubdown wrote:On January 11 2012 06:04 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On January 11 2012 05:40 frogrubdown wrote:On January 11 2012 05:19 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
[quote]
There is a huge difference between math/ logic and science. You can prove things with absolute certainty in math and logic, because you use formal abstract proofs. Science uses empirical evidence, and the theories remain falsifiable. Mathematicians could certainly make conjectures (in the same way that scientists make initial hypotheses) and get them wrong, but once a formal proof is established, you can go to sleep at night and not have to worry about a fossil or atom or planet being discovered that will shatter the theorem. It's airtight and proven, in all forms of the word "proof".
Science's validity and level of proof is "mountains of observable data", which should be enough for most people to accept with no problem, although the theories remain falsifiable. They're never 100% proven, but it's enough for the common man to trust, once they've done the proper research. Math and science are both trustworthy, and the experts can certainly guess things wrong, but the levels of proof are not equivalent (nor do they have to be). I realize that if there is a proof that P, then P. This is just because 'proved that' is factive. But we have to trust our own judgments about whether or not a supposed proof succeeds, and these judgments are clearly fallible as has been shown many times throughout history. Because of this fallibility, math does not offer certainty. So much the worse for certainty, I'm inclined to say. If you're arguing the difference between simple tautological claims and proofs that require axioms, I have no problem with that. All non-tautological knowledge, empirical or abstract, require axioms. That's not really what I'm arguing, or what you're arguing either. Math is still different than science in the exact same respect that I explained above- they're both dependent on axioms, but math still creates proofs that- assuming you accept the given axioms- prove things with absolute certainty (and then refer back to everything else I wrote beforehand regarding math and science). And of course, there's no reason why you shouldn't accept mathematical axioms either >.> We should accept mathematical axioms, but our faculty for picking out the true ones is fallible. See, for instance, the appeal of the naive comprehension axiom. Quite frankly, this now-known-to-be-false axiom is at least as appealing to my and most other's axiom judging faculties as any of the current axioms we accept. Because of all this, our knowledge of the truth of the axioms is fallible, i.e., not certain. Further, I agree that if the axioms are true, whatever follows from them is true. This doesn't have much to do with the certainty of what follows from them. For one thing, as I've already said, knowledge of the axioms themselves is not certain. For another, our faculties for deriving logical conclusions from axioms are imperfect (fallible). See any undergrad's math homework; I've graded plenty. So even though the truth of the axioms guarantee something, we don't have any certain access to what it is they guarantee. Once again, I'm not being skeptical here. I think we have all kinds of knowledge of both math and science. I just don't think that there is any principled difference in terms of certainty between the kinds of knowledge. What does it mean true axiom ? Axioms are true by definition Picking axioms is arbitrary (except when you make the system inconsistent by contradiction) and then what follows follows. You can pick specific axioms because they create a formal system that is useful in describing real world, but that is also arbitrary. There is no necessary correspondence between math/logic and reality. As there is no such correspondence between a novel and reality. In science no axioms are actually necessary as no proofs are done. And just to clarify I am in no way saying that this fact makes science in any way less useful and not worthy of trusting. The design of scientific method is still the best way to gain knowledge about physical reality and science in this day and age is so accurate (note that I do not use true) that denying its results on any base other than existing evidence is folly. The difference between the math and scientific theorems being false is in principle. Yes our mental faculties make it so that we can mess up math proofs, but in principle math proofs are absolute. Scientific "truths" are not and cannot even in principle be absolute, they are always just accurate to some degree and that is all you can say. Well, I'm not a fictionalist about math (and certainly don't think axioms are true by definition), but that's not really relevant. As long as you acknowledge a way in which axioms can go wrong (which you do in the form of inconsistency), you have already acknowledged what matters for my point. I have throughout this thread agreed that there is an in principle difference between truths that follow from deduction and truths that follow from induction. What I have been disagreeing with is the claim that this makes the mathematical truths certain in a way that empirical truths are not. Since you've already acknowledged that our faculties for knowing mathematical truths are fallible, we should be on the same page here. Scientific "truths" are absolute in the sense that if we luck on to the right scientific theory, it is true regardless of what anyone says. We evolved from apes regardless of what anyone says. Sometimes the degree to which they are accurate is 100%. We haven't gotten there in most places, and maybe never will. But that difference is not a principled one. Ok, we probably mostly agree anyway So just few things. In my opinion it is principled difference in that in science there is no way for us to know even in principle if we have the 100% accurate theory, whereas in math even with our fallible senses, some proofs are absolute in principle and in practice as our fallibility comes into play only with more complex proofs. And you can always just make a deducing machine (and yes I know we can fuck up the machine and still not have 100% certainty ). As for axioms not being true by definition. This is the definition of an axiom : "An axiom is a proposition regarded as self-evidently true without proof". Well, I'll just throw in one last point: dictionaries don't settle philosophical disputes (or attempt to do so). But it sounds like we are at least close enough to just get ready for some primary action. In case of definitions they often do. If you do no agree with that definition then I fail to see how are axioms different from any other proposition and how do you create a formal system in that case ? Well, here's one of my problems with the definition. Although we don't require proof of our axioms, we are frequently less confident in them than in the results that we use them to prove. For instance, we are less certain of the ZF axioms than we are about the fact that 1+1=2, even though we use the former to prove latter. If the ZF axioms returned a result other than 1+1=2, we wouldn't alter our beliefs about the latter fact, but rather we would change our perception of the ZF axioms. A second problem I have with it is that not requiring proof is not the same thing as being true by definition, at least not how I was using "true by definition." I was using it to mean something along the lines of "true solely in virtue of meaning," which I don't think axioms are. edit: for the most part, these problems are not with the accuracy of the definition, but with whether or not the definition amounts to axioms being true by definition. But I also believe that dictionaries often get definitions wrong. This is because they don't care about conceptual nuances and are instead in the business of just giving a good enough idea of the sense of a term to allow someone to use it competently.
Hm, from your second paragraph I feel that we just approach this topic somewhat differently and there lies the problem. Basically I approach it purely from the formal standpoint where "true solely in virtue of meaning" makes no sense as there is no meaning really. Just operations on formal mathematical structures. So if from ZF follows 1+1<>2, that would mean on the meta-level that we would stop using those axioms and probably start using other ones. But the only reason for that is that we often try to use math to describe the real world. But that is in itself arbitrary, the similarity of results of one axiomatic system to reality does not make that axiomatic system any better within math. Only using outside context of the real world can you judge one as "better" than the other one. But judgments about suitability to describe the real world do not have much to do with mathematical truth. So the definition remains quite accurate as it deals with a formal system, not meta-wonderings about it.
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It's time for New Hampshire hype! Another 'major' political event for all our enjoyment. Did Rick Perry's idea of re-invading Iraq lose him his last 4 voters too?
We all know Romney's gonna win, but here's a few numbers:
538 predictions:
New Hampshire VOTE PROJECTION CHANCE OF WIN
Mitt Romney 38.5% 99%
Ron Paul 18.6 1
Jon Huntsman 17.0 0
And a nice 2008 map of Romney's performance back then (he took 31% of the vote)
![[image loading]](http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/01/10/us/politics/fivethirtyeight-0110-romneycounty/fivethirtyeight-0110-romneycounty-blog480.png)
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Looks like the early rankings are in line with the polls. Hopefully this primary won't be much more boring than Iowa.
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The news isn't hat Romney will win 1st but who will come in 2nd.
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Ron Paul to finish second.
South Carolina should be very interesting. Reports are saying that Newt will endorse Santorum if/when he drops out after South Carolina.
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Ron Paul to finish second.
South Carolina should be very interesting. Reports are saying that Newt will endorse Santorum if/when he drops out after South Carolina.
Has there been speculation of him leaving? I've heard nothing other than he's been dropping somewhat in the polls.
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EPT
