Perhaps not technically, but in practice the distinction is largely semantic. The former tends toward the latter, which is a special case of it.
No, it's really not just semantic. See http://lesswrong.com/lw/ss/no_logical_positivist_i/. (You might also take a look at some other posts on that site, such as "But There's Still A Chance, Right?", "Religion's Claim to be Non-Disprovable," "Mysterious Answers to Mysterious Questions," or "Beyond the Reach of God." )
I recognize and agree with most of that, except for the critical first statement that "there is no such thing as 100% certainty." Not only does 100% certainty exist, there is no other kind; that is what distinguishes certainty from probability. We know everything with different amounts of confidence, and while many of them do have a confidence level approaching the absolute, empiricism alone does not allow them to reach it. If you are in the habit of treating limits as constants I will worry a lot more about those miniature black holes. 
Unless we can observe all possible states we cannot claim true certainty without taking a leap of faith; that the leap is often no more than a short hop does not change that. That is not induction but an assumption, however likely.
Unless we can observe all possible states we cannot claim true certainty without taking a leap of faith; that the leap is often no more than a short hop does not change that. That is not induction but an assumption, however likely.Now who is playing semantics? The reformulation of probability as log-odds makes it explicitly clear that 100% certainty requires infinite evidence. That was the entire point of that section: nothing allows us to reach 100% certainty, so while it exists conceptually, it does not exist in practice, and comparisons to it are therefore useless. As I said, any finite number looks like zero compared to infinity.
Induction tells ME empiricism has already hit many supernatural walls, most notably in Aristotles 2300 year old inductive demonstration that SOME First Cause is necessary. Uncertainty about it is natural since it defies direct investigation (making it anathema to logical positivism and all other empiricism) but denying it is illogical. Just because humans crave certainty in all matters does not make it possible.
Aristotle was a hack when it came to physics, and the "First Cause" is no exception. See http://preposterousuniverse.com/writings/dtung/ for much more.
ESP studies interest me not for whether what is understood by "ESP" might be real, but the frequency of studies with results significantly better than chance, combined with the inability to reproduce those results. There is replicability in terms of overall results, but not in terms of particular subjects and experiments. The studies indicate some phenomenon is operating, but the same experiments under the same conditions do not produce the same results.
Personally, I am inclined to think that since most of the studies deal largely or entirely with natural phenomena (e.g. the physical images on physical cards and their physical perception by test subjects) a natural explanation exists for the plethora of studies with results significantly better than chance. Dismissing them as fantasy ignores an opportunity to identify that unknown natural cause. I would compare it to the case of Kirlian photography, where what were initially thought to be photos of "auras" eventually renewed awareness of a previously discovered natural phenomenon of which most people were ignorant. Auras could account for the effect, but are not required for it, so there is no reason to accept a supernatural explanation, but dismissing the observed phenomenon as irrational fantasy would have left the natural cause to languish in obscurity.
Bad studies are bad studies, and obviously we must seek to eliminate bias to the extent possible. However, arguing that the unreasonably high standards applied to ESP studies are valid and should be extended to all science generally (essentially your position here) opens a massive can of worms (and an unreasonable one, IMHO.) Again, global warming skeptics have already embraced that position, but I reject it, not from bias against their particular position, but "bias" against denial rather than skepticism as a default position. There is a critical difference between saying, "prove it," and saying, "BS;" saying, "prove it to an impossibly high standard" is effectively the latter. Strict standards are both valid and necessary, and stricter ones might be advisable, but strictness to a level requiring the absolute certainty already well established to be impossible is self defeating. Requiring propositions be proven with absolute certainty, when absolute certainty is impossible, forces us to reject all propositions, which is pointless.
Personally, I am inclined to think that since most of the studies deal largely or entirely with natural phenomena (e.g. the physical images on physical cards and their physical perception by test subjects) a natural explanation exists for the plethora of studies with results significantly better than chance. Dismissing them as fantasy ignores an opportunity to identify that unknown natural cause. I would compare it to the case of Kirlian photography, where what were initially thought to be photos of "auras" eventually renewed awareness of a previously discovered natural phenomenon of which most people were ignorant. Auras could account for the effect, but are not required for it, so there is no reason to accept a supernatural explanation, but dismissing the observed phenomenon as irrational fantasy would have left the natural cause to languish in obscurity.
Bad studies are bad studies, and obviously we must seek to eliminate bias to the extent possible. However, arguing that the unreasonably high standards applied to ESP studies are valid and should be extended to all science generally (essentially your position here) opens a massive can of worms (and an unreasonable one, IMHO.) Again, global warming skeptics have already embraced that position, but I reject it, not from bias against their particular position, but "bias" against denial rather than skepticism as a default position. There is a critical difference between saying, "prove it," and saying, "BS;" saying, "prove it to an impossibly high standard" is effectively the latter. Strict standards are both valid and necessary, and stricter ones might be advisable, but strictness to a level requiring the absolute certainty already well established to be impossible is self defeating. Requiring propositions be proven with absolute certainty, when absolute certainty is impossible, forces us to reject all propositions, which is pointless.
I am not sure what you mean by the global warming comparison; that theory is frequently validated, even by its critics. (See the study completed by recently scientists at Berkeley.)
You'll have to clarify what you mean by the "frequency of studies with results significantly better than chance," because right now it seems like you're just ignoring my previous point about publication bias. I expect that for every "significant" study you've seen, ten other researchers found nothing and correspondingly didn't publish. ESP "results" are just statistical deviations that occur due to small sample sizes, nothing more. This phenomenon occurs in medicine, psychology, biology, etc., so we must expect that it also occurs in ESP studies. The difference is that real sciences are based on real results and supported theories, so deviations will correct themselves over time; ESP does not have such a foundation to fall back on. For a recent example of such correction, see http://www.genomesunzipped.org/2011/11/size-matters-and-other-lessons-from-medical-genetics.php.
And vice versa. I do not claim authority on recent cognitive science, but neither am I entirely ignorant of it.
What parts of human nature does religion explain so well? What predictions do those explanations make, and have those predictions occurred?
I agree with your assessment of postmodernism, but it was the inevitable result of assuming scientific explanations are universally sufficient and consequently removing all others. When we assume we can and soon will know everything yet problems persist, while meaning vanishes, the resulting perspective is rather bleak. I am saying we have never understood everything so, empirically, there is no reason to think we ever will. Unless knowledge is finite that is not even possible, and while you are free to believe it both can and will happen, that is a belief; it may also be fact, but is not proven fact. There is nothing wrong with that provided we recognize it as such, but treating it as some special (dare I say, sacrosanct, 
) type of belief constituting proof is illogical and inconsistent.
We keep returning to this central problem of logical positivism: It insists we reject everything not empirically proven, yet empirically "proving" empiricism is circular, and logical positivism accepts no other proof. Much of the reason I accept an ultimately supernatural basis for reality is that that kind of bootstrap levitation is ultimately necessary, and since natural laws preclude it, only the supernatural, which allows it, remains. The problem is similar to accepting the strict standards to which ESP studies are held and simply extending them to all science: While supernatural claims fail that standard, so do natural ones, because nothing meets such an absolute standard, hence it is useless at best and unreasonable at worst.
) type of belief constituting proof is illogical and inconsistent.We keep returning to this central problem of logical positivism: It insists we reject everything not empirically proven, yet empirically "proving" empiricism is circular, and logical positivism accepts no other proof. Much of the reason I accept an ultimately supernatural basis for reality is that that kind of bootstrap levitation is ultimately necessary, and since natural laws preclude it, only the supernatural, which allows it, remains. The problem is similar to accepting the strict standards to which ESP studies are held and simply extending them to all science: While supernatural claims fail that standard, so do natural ones, because nothing meets such an absolute standard, hence it is useless at best and unreasonable at worst.
You misinterpreted my purpose in that paragraph. It was a reductio ad absurdum of the postmodernist mantra "if science is so great, what about the world wars?". I am not claiming that we will definitely know everything at some future point.
Again, I am not arguing for logical positivism. I do not feel the need to "prove" empiricism because it is just a codification of how we interact with and observe the universe. We make conclusions based on data because phenomena which do not generate any data, by definition, have no effect on us or the universe. The particulars of the scientific method arise only in order to deal with the uncertainty that is inherent in any realistic collection of data.
No, the manner in which it affects the universe can be known, because those are natural phenomena that admit natural measurement; anything outside the scope of natural phenomena cannot be known by natural means, by definition. Strict logical positivism merely recognizes that fact and consequently dispenses with conclusions about things it cannot investigate--WITHOUT taking a position on the existence of such things either way. Categorically denying them, however, is just as much a bridge too far as affirming them.
It is also worth noting that even when mystery can be eliminated that often means only a process rather than outcome is known. We need not even go to the subatomic level for that to be true; if simply knowing the mechanism were enough to establish outcomes, physicists would be banned from Vegas roulette wheels and craps tables just as often as mathematicians are thrown out for counting cards. Certainty is the dogmatists security, but as completely improper for scientists as for theologians and all other philosophers. Inherent mystery has been sensible to humanity throughout our history, even to those who rejected it; it can be rejected, but to call it nonsense suggests hubris or limited perspective.
It is also worth noting that even when mystery can be eliminated that often means only a process rather than outcome is known. We need not even go to the subatomic level for that to be true; if simply knowing the mechanism were enough to establish outcomes, physicists would be banned from Vegas roulette wheels and craps tables just as often as mathematicians are thrown out for counting cards. Certainty is the dogmatists security, but as completely improper for scientists as for theologians and all other philosophers. Inherent mystery has been sensible to humanity throughout our history, even to those who rejected it; it can be rejected, but to call it nonsense suggests hubris or limited perspective.
At this point, it seems as though you have admitted that supernatural things do not interact with the universe. I am not sure what else really needs to be said, after that.
Known uncertainty is not mystery. The distribution of cards in a deck in Vegas can be known to very high precision; determining all the physical parameters involved in a specific roulette wheel is much more work, and the equations must often be solved numerically. It's not impossible, though: see http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2004/mar/23/sciencenews.crime and http://books.google.com/books/about/The_eudaemonic_pie.html.
Well, I have already referenced the greatest and most pervasive evidence; your statement below that "after [the Big Bang,] symmetries broke, and the effective laws of nature changed" is just another way of saying that it represents an exception to natural laws (i.e. is supernatural) which are therefore inadequate to analyzing it. If natural laws are themselves subject to change they cannot reliably and reproducably predict anything. No quantity or quality of knowledge will alter that: If you want a "supernatural wall" natural investigations can never penetrate, that remains by the far the best.
However, the Uncertainty Principle provides another excellent one; while we can accept that probability makes uncertainty vanishingly small at macroscopic scales, it is still there, grows inversely with scale and can never be eliminated. A fundamental aspect of the Uncertainty Principle is that it is not a limitation of measurement: No matter how precise our observation ability becomes, it will NEVER be possible to simultaneously know a particles position and momentum.
At macroscopic scales, a perfectly balanced coin represents an analagous (though distinct) situation: It is impossible to predict flips with certainty, despite knowing the factors involved, because their precise values cannot be known. Of course, that would change if we knew those values, but there Uncertainty DOES come back into play (joined by Chaos,) and we will never be able to precisely know all of them. Indeed, precision is limited in general, as you well know, hence the importance of significant figures in measurement. There will always be a "certain amount of uncertainty," things we literally CANNOT know, however much knowledge we acquire. That is not limited to purely random things either: What color were Julius Caesars eyes?
However, the Uncertainty Principle provides another excellent one; while we can accept that probability makes uncertainty vanishingly small at macroscopic scales, it is still there, grows inversely with scale and can never be eliminated. A fundamental aspect of the Uncertainty Principle is that it is not a limitation of measurement: No matter how precise our observation ability becomes, it will NEVER be possible to simultaneously know a particles position and momentum.
At macroscopic scales, a perfectly balanced coin represents an analagous (though distinct) situation: It is impossible to predict flips with certainty, despite knowing the factors involved, because their precise values cannot be known. Of course, that would change if we knew those values, but there Uncertainty DOES come back into play (joined by Chaos,) and we will never be able to precisely know all of them. Indeed, precision is limited in general, as you well know, hence the importance of significant figures in measurement. There will always be a "certain amount of uncertainty," things we literally CANNOT know, however much knowledge we acquire. That is not limited to purely random things either: What color were Julius Caesars eyes?
I am not sure how any of this relates to "Secrets Man Cannot Know." I have already described what the Heisenberg Uncertainty principle really tells us about position and momentum, i.e. that they do not really exist as independent quantities at the fundamental level. Your interpretation of my statement about the Big Bang is simply incorrect, but I will address that below. If the nth decimal place in a measurement is your only example of "Secrets Man Cannot Know," I do not see any support in that for the supernatural.
I could come up with a rough probability distribution for Caesar's eye color by investigating histories of his life, as well as general histories of the time to get an idea of how prominent different eye colors were among the Romans. I could improve this by funding gene sequencing of DNA found at relevant archaeological sites, which is certainly plausible if we can do it for Neanderthals. The amount of information we can find about that question is far greater than zero. The answer would not be known to the confidence of, say, President Obama's eye color, given the wealth of recorded footage of him, but neither would it be entirely uncertain.
One of my Pithy Pet Phrases is "few things are difficult, but many complicated;" while that can be annoying, I am not unaware of it, and it is not my complaint here. If the whole of rainbows were merely the sum of their parts, they would amaze me far less. Once the novelty wears off, knowing everything about everything is more apt to produce boredom than amazement (perhaps the reason we can not possess such knowledge.) The deterministic world you seem to advocate eliminates wonderment with wondering, and any wonder that did exist would be no more noteworthy than popping a tab of acid to produce the same purely physical response to a different purely physical reaction: Existence becomes no more than a catalogue of pre-determined events with no more "wonder" than a multiplication table. I am not responsible for that, but do recognize it.
Calling oxytocin a love potion strikes me as on the level of calling sodium pentethol truth serum: It is an oversimplification, because, while both can be catalysts or produce symptoms, the former cannot create love any more than the latter can create honesty.
Existence has meaning, and each of us the option of deciding whether we consider it awful, awe inspiring or something between the two. Were your contention valid, my attitude toward murder in conformance to a universal meaning would be pre-set by a pill I had effectively already taken, because existing neurochemical stimuli determined my choices as effectively as any subsequent ones could alter them. That is why I need add nothing to that equation for it to be a fairly depressing one: According to that philosophy, neither of us hold our positions because of logic, understanding or anything else except easily altered (if not easily understood) neurochemistry. The right pill would convince each of us of either position, that 2+2=5 or anything else.
Calling oxytocin a love potion strikes me as on the level of calling sodium pentethol truth serum: It is an oversimplification, because, while both can be catalysts or produce symptoms, the former cannot create love any more than the latter can create honesty.
Existence has meaning, and each of us the option of deciding whether we consider it awful, awe inspiring or something between the two. Were your contention valid, my attitude toward murder in conformance to a universal meaning would be pre-set by a pill I had effectively already taken, because existing neurochemical stimuli determined my choices as effectively as any subsequent ones could alter them. That is why I need add nothing to that equation for it to be a fairly depressing one: According to that philosophy, neither of us hold our positions because of logic, understanding or anything else except easily altered (if not easily understood) neurochemistry. The right pill would convince each of us of either position, that 2+2=5 or anything else.
It must be a fragile worldview indeed, predicated on such assumptions as that things have innate qualities which cannot be matched by "mere" symptoms or "mere" summation of parts. Where does such a worldview turn, when these assumptions are invalidated? My senses of wonder, meaning, and love do not depend on such things, and I much prefer it that way. My view could survive a proof of the existence of ontologically basic "innate qualities", because it updates with new observations. Will yours survive when the evidence against such things, currently massive, truly reaches the point of being overwhelming?
In other words, if it's true that a pill could make us think anything, I'm prepared for that: I already think we should be very careful with the information content which makes up our "selves." (It probably is true; see, e.g., http://www.ted.com/talks/rebecca_saxe_how_brains_make_moral_judgments.html, which uses magnetic fields rather than pills, but the idea is the same.) I disagree with your contention that we cannot use reason in our morality. Yes, it all eventually comes down to terminal values, but we can come up with "murder is bad" as a joint agreement if we try.
"Sophistry" is an interesting choice of terms; to say the Big Bang obeyed but altered natural law is unacceptable slight of mind. To your specific questions:
The universal singularity must have been motionless because it had no space in which to move (given it contained the universe, which, as a point, lacked space.) It must have been static because it had no energy of motion (else no singularity.) The second fact requires entropy to have been maximal; it may not have been infinite, but was greater that at any time subsequent to the Big Bang, at least as high as it would be even at the stage of eventual heat death.
To be clear, I still find a gravitational Big Crunch more plausible than the common understanding of "heat death." That permits a Big Bounce if we ignore the Second Law of Thermodynamics when convenient, assume, for no better reason than our model requiring it, natural law is inexplicably altered at that stage, but invoking supernatural explanations and ignoring the Second Law at will places all supernatural explanations equally on the table. I am, however, gratified you spoke of "pockets of the universe" rather than "pocket universes" that attempt an end run around the root of the problem. There is, by definition, only one universe, and even if hyperdimensionality is valid the result is either a single Big Bang responsible for all, or multiple singularities complicating, without resolving, the problem.
The universal singularity must have been motionless because it had no space in which to move (given it contained the universe, which, as a point, lacked space.) It must have been static because it had no energy of motion (else no singularity.) The second fact requires entropy to have been maximal; it may not have been infinite, but was greater that at any time subsequent to the Big Bang, at least as high as it would be even at the stage of eventual heat death.
To be clear, I still find a gravitational Big Crunch more plausible than the common understanding of "heat death." That permits a Big Bounce if we ignore the Second Law of Thermodynamics when convenient, assume, for no better reason than our model requiring it, natural law is inexplicably altered at that stage, but invoking supernatural explanations and ignoring the Second Law at will places all supernatural explanations equally on the table. I am, however, gratified you spoke of "pockets of the universe" rather than "pocket universes" that attempt an end run around the root of the problem. There is, by definition, only one universe, and even if hyperdimensionality is valid the result is either a single Big Bang responsible for all, or multiple singularities complicating, without resolving, the problem.
I was very careful and specific in my choice of terms; as I have said numerous times, you really ought to learn more physics before discussing these things. The effective laws of nature are the ones we can easily observe in the current conditions of the universe. Getting at the real theories, of which the current ones are approximations under today's conditions, requires more effort (such as the work that I'm doing with the Large Hadron Collider to reproduce and study high energy conditions). At no point did I say, nor do I agree, that the Big Bang in any way violates the actual laws of nature.
You also seemed to have missed my point about the terms "motionless" and "static"; these are both terms we have defined in the presence of spatial and temporal dimensions, which did not exist, or at least were not present in a recognizable form, in the universal singularity. The Big Bang is not necessarily a state of maximal entropy or even close to it; I am not sure why you think so. See http://preposterousuniverse.com/eternitytohere/faq.html for more, including a dismissal of "bouncing" cosmologies.
An unfalsifiable claim is not necessarily pointless, particularly those both fundamental and self evident; empiricism is a fine (though only NEARLY fundamental) example, because its self evident nature precludes falsifiability and thus prevents it being absolute. Unfalsifiable claims may have evidence that precludes experimental examination, and most religion falls into that category. Humanity and nature provide a wealth of such evidence for religion in the form of phenomena attributed to and interactions with the supernatural for which no natural explanation exists except dismissing the observers as frauds, lunatics and/or idiots. THAT is sophistry of the worst kind: Dismissing otherwise intelligent, rational and honest people who claim to have experienced supernatural events, solely on the grounds such claims automatically disqualify claimants as intelligent, rational and/or honest, is merely a circular ad hominem attack.
Where natural laws draw conclusions about natural phenomena it is presumptuous of outside authorities to dispute them, but the conceit all phenomena are natural and therefore the province of natural law does a disservice both to those laws and to our understanding. The founders of logical positivism recognized this, as well as the principal of "separate magisteria," by limiting their claims to the natural world while explicitly refusing to take any position on what, if anything, existed outside that. Unfortunately, many of their students presumptuously forsook that reasonable precaution and fell prey to the same sort of dogmatism that had long plagued so many religions, and of which Richard Dawkins is every bit as guilty as was Pope Urban; the main difference is that the latter never had to worry his own brother would ask whether he considers him a fraud, fool or lunatic.
Where science contradicts religion on science, the former wins; the latter should never venture a firm position on the former except in accordance with it. Yet the reverse is also true, and it is not only presumptuous but counterproductive for either to claim universal authority and sneer at the other as irrelevant nonsense.
Where natural laws draw conclusions about natural phenomena it is presumptuous of outside authorities to dispute them, but the conceit all phenomena are natural and therefore the province of natural law does a disservice both to those laws and to our understanding. The founders of logical positivism recognized this, as well as the principal of "separate magisteria," by limiting their claims to the natural world while explicitly refusing to take any position on what, if anything, existed outside that. Unfortunately, many of their students presumptuously forsook that reasonable precaution and fell prey to the same sort of dogmatism that had long plagued so many religions, and of which Richard Dawkins is every bit as guilty as was Pope Urban; the main difference is that the latter never had to worry his own brother would ask whether he considers him a fraud, fool or lunatic.
Where science contradicts religion on science, the former wins; the latter should never venture a firm position on the former except in accordance with it. Yet the reverse is also true, and it is not only presumptuous but counterproductive for either to claim universal authority and sneer at the other as irrelevant nonsense.
Supernatural phenomena are only one explanation for "religious experiences," and not necessarily the best one. Nothing indicates that religious experiences are caused by stimuli outside the brain rather than within it. Your own argument ought to make you supportive of the idea of alien abductions, since those who claim to have experienced them often give reports that are as vivid as religious experiences. Noting that people's brain may be playing tricks on them does not imply dismissing them as "frauds, lunatics and/or idiots."
Again, if something does not interact with the natural world, it might as well not exist.
I admit to sloppiness there, with no excuse for it: I confused Euclids First Postulate with his Fifth, which is the more embarrassing for being habitual; my apologies. The REASON is the wording of the similar (but distinct) Playfairs Axiom, but a reason is not an excuse. My basic point holds though, as does Euclids Fifth Postulate, in plane geometry: He never attempted the proof impossible for it, yet it remains as indisputable for plane geometry as when Euclid first stated it.
At this point, however, the similar issue of unproven yet accepted empiricism is a more relevant example of the unprovable axioms commonly accepted.
At this point, however, the similar issue of unproven yet accepted empiricism is a more relevant example of the unprovable axioms commonly accepted.
I accept empiricism because it works. That's all.
Scooby Doo and Secular Humanism.
- 02/12/2011 09:58:49 PM
711 Views
Paraphrasing G.K. Chestertons famous affirmation of Christianity to justify secular humanism, eh?
- 02/12/2011 11:02:54 PM
433 Views
Love has nothing to do with spirituality or the supernatural; there is no universal meaning of life.
- 03/12/2011 04:33:13 AM
503 Views
Those are legitimate beliefs, but not proven facts.
- 03/12/2011 10:05:44 PM
511 Views
Quite a combination of impossible standards, artificial categories, and misunderstandings of science
- 04/12/2011 02:53:44 AM
515 Views
I have a question about log-odds formulation.
- 04/12/2011 06:36:02 AM
303 Views
It depends on if that's a realistic example or a toy example.
- 04/12/2011 05:32:34 PM
346 Views
Scooby Doo is not about secular fucking humanism. It's a Gnostic allegory.
- 02/12/2011 11:57:37 PM
394 Views
I had all but forgotten that post, one of the first I read at wotmania.
- 03/12/2011 10:09:36 PM
326 Views
Comparing me to Santa selling crack has positively made my day. Thank you! 
- 05/12/2011 01:50:54 AM
443 Views
- 05/12/2011 01:50:54 AM
443 Views
*NM*