This weeks Soapbox is....

[Flying_Monkey]

The problem is that we are often talking from different perspectives and using different ideas about truth:

To use the classical definitions of philosophy, there is:

Epistemology - how we know things

Ontology - what is

Aesthetics - what we like (taste / feeling)

Ethics - what is 'good'

Politics - how we enact our aesthetics and ethics beyond ourselves


The problem is that outside of ontology, there is nothing that is factually 'correct', and even ontology depends on arguments about epistemology...

This is why 'truth' in philosophy has different components - one way of thinking about this is in terms of veracity, validity and verifiability.

Veracity is good faith. It is that something is true if someone says it honestly believing it to be the case with no attempt to deceive.

Validity is internal. It is that something is true if it conforms to a consistent set of agreed propostions.

Verifiability is external. It is that something is true if it conforms to what we already know to be true about something else.

In practice, as Alfred North Whitehead said, all truths are half-truths - we work with them insofar as they appear to 'work.' It is when we try to insist that working propositions are absolutely truethat we end up with apparently irreconcilable positions...

Most statements here are in fact only true in terms of veracity and validity - basically they work if you accept the good faith and the worldview of the person stating them. This cannot make them absolutely true, however much they are stated. And what's worse, often such statements are not even valid in the terms that people set them out (inconsistent worldviews)...

 

[Chuffy]

Ok, so I had to read that twice, but basically you agree with me that there is no absolute truth on most things, matters of fact aside?

I'm not looking for a pat on the back, I just want to be sure that I understood your post....

 

[Flying_Monkey]

Basically yes, but even 'matters of fact', ideed most common scientific hypotheses are often 'working propositions' when it comes down to it.

The problem with this is you then get numbskulls who think that this means 'global warming isn't true' when it is almost as 'true' as the theory of gravitation and I wouldn't recommend jumping out of a 50th-storey window to check that one...

 

[Chuffy]

Basically yes, but even 'matters of fact', ideed most common scientific hypotheses are often 'working propositions' when it comes down to it.

The problem with this is you then get numbskulls who think that this means 'global warming isn't true' when it is almost as 'true' as the theory of gravitation and I wouldn't recommend jumping out of a 50th-storey window to check that one...

Ta prof.
This theory of gravity then, shouldn't we replace 'true' for 'as accurate as we can be at the moment'?

 

[Flying_Monkey]

Ta prof.
This theory of gravity then, shouldn't we replace 'true' for 'as accurate as we can be at the moment'?

Any scientist worth their salt will tell you that that is what facts are...

 

[Haitch]

Any scientist worth their salt will tell you that that is what facts are...

Science can never prove anything, only say that one thing is more likely than another. (And perhaps even that is not true.)

 

[Cycling Naturalist]

The problem with this is you then get numbskulls who think that this means 'global warming isn't true' when it is almost as 'true' as the theory of gravitation and I wouldn't recommend jumping out of a 50th-storey window to check that one...

Ahem....aren't you confusing observable fact and theory here FM? It is an observable fact that whenever you jump off a high building, you fall to the ground. However, the theory is what explains it and defines the forces involved.

 

[Flying_Monkey]

Ahem....aren't you confusing observable fact and theory here FM? It is an observable fact that whenever you jump off a high building, you fall to the ground. However, the theory is what explains it and defines the forces involved.

No, because 'global warming' is also both theory and observable fact.

Any theory works only so long as the facts involved continue to be observed in some way that it is agreed constitutes a reinforcement of the theory. The difference is that global warming is actually a lot more complicated than gravity (at least in the dimensions of the universe(s) that we experience)...

 

[Cycling Naturalist]

No, because 'global warming' is also both theory and observable fact.

Well, the observable fact is that temperatures have increased. The fact of that observation could be reduced to an equation, but it would not hold good for all cases. How do you state the theory of global warming then? Newton's theory of gravity is expressed in one equation, but I've never seen a similar expression for global warming.

 

[Flying_Monkey]

Well, the observable fact is that temperatures have increased. The fact of that observation could be reduced to an equation, but it would not hold good for all cases. How do you state the theory of global warming then? Newton's theory of gravity is expressed in one equation, but I've never seen a similar expression for global warming.

Just because something is not expressable simply as one equation (let alone a simple equation) does not mean it is not a theory. And no, not all theories equate to all cases, theories exist within stated conditions and contexts. Newton's applies to a very large context, global warming applies to earth's atmosphere, and possible other planetary atmospheres (there is evidence of it on Venus). The theory has to do with the relative proportions of various gasses in a planetary atmosphere subject to heating from an external source in vacuum, and the relationship to the radiation and/or retention of heat by this mixture. The contribution of the activities of human beings is a sub-theory which deals with the reasons for the changes to both the proportions and the effects of changes to them. These however are in a complex system...

As I said, Newtonian gravity is really quite simple as it deals with a different level of observation of our universe. Global warming is not as it deals with the complex systems and feedback. Basically, the finer grained you get in the universe the weirder things get...

 

[Fnaar]

Newton's theory of gravity is expressed in one equation, but I've never seen a similar expression for global warming.

CO2 +MS = O2

CO2 = Cold Outgoing squared
MS = Miniskirts
O2 = Ogling opportunities

 

[Kirstie]

I'd just like to point out that I've got more posts than Flying Monkey

Thank you.

 

[Flying_Monkey]

I'd just like to point out that I've got more posts than Flying Monkey

Thank you.

You've clearly got more time on your hands than me then!

 

[Crackle]

You've clearly got more time on your hands than me then!

Is that comment epistemological, ontological, neither or both?

 

[Chuffy]

I'd just like to point out that I've got more posts than Flying Monkey

Thank you.

Yes, but you use shorter words.