From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Reply-To: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Regression to first principles versus efficiency
Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2008 16:51:57 EST
In a message dated 11/14/08 12:11:02 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
> are there terms which would involve hard phrases which you
> would recommend to us, to pursue the discussion which Chris initiated?
>
It's a good assignment you put to me, Geoff, but it's comparable in length
and bulk to Carnap's attempt to save logical positivism. And it would
probably
complexify rather than simplify. For example, my easy phrase 'sense data'
would
have to be modified.
I wrote: "I'll call
>"soft" as opposed to "hard" -- i.e. it doesn't come attached to current
or
>potential sense data."
For example, 'boring' is a soft term. My effort to reduce it to current or
potential 'sense data' would end with a feeling -- the feeling of ennui,
boredom. Well, boredom and excitement and fear and yearning are "feelings"
as
vividly
conscious as smells, tastes, sounds. Some such feelings I like, some I
loathe. The reduction of "value" would take many steps, and would
ultimately
end
with feelings I like. I can imagine listers saying, "Oh? And which of the
five
senses is the one that delivers fear or boredom?" The truth seems to be
that
the
"feeling" of fear is a compound of what's delivered by, say, the sight of a
car speeding towards me, plus the delivery of the mind/brain as it
processes
the unpleasant implications. Boredom is more complicated, and as one thinks
about it, it becomes clear 'sense data' is not enough.
If someone points at a gem and says to me, "It's very valuable," I'll
assume
he means it could be sold for lots of money. But money's value consists not
in
itself, but in its utilty to buy things that ultimately occasion desirable
feelings -- nice tastes, warmth, good tickets to the concert and thus the
pleasure-feeling I get from music, etc.
Consider Chris's line: "Some artifacts serve as better scientific evidence
than others." The word with "value" built into it is 'better'. What makes
"evidence" more valuable to a scientist? Sometimes it's the "satisfaction"
--
a
feeling! -- it occasions. For example, suppose a given scientist doubts the
validity of a thesis, a universal that's commonly accepted. If he finds an
instance that's incontrovertibly pertinent and contrary to the universal,
he
has
"proven" his point, and it gives him satisfaction. He may also get a
"good
feeling" from realizing he has saved scientists from a fruitless avenue of
search.
Of course, a scientist may be bent on finding evidence that corroborates a
theory -- as Pasteur was in pursuing the germ theory of disease. The
value-feeling for him was not confined to satisfaction from being proven
right, but in
its subsequent use to prevent infection -- i.e. he (and Semmelweis before
him)
gained satisfaction from hard evidence that they had reduced human
suffering
by preventing infection.
Much earlier, Anton van Leeuwenhoek claimed that there were single-celled
organisms in this world. The British Royal Society was skeptical -- until
they
went to Holland and looked through a microscope van Leeuwenhoek had built
--
and they saw microorganisms for the first time. Very satisfying for van
Leeuwenhoek.
And it wasn't all mere ego. To contribute to "human knowledge" can be very
satisfying. Consider pure mathematicians who work on problems, looking for
solutions with no perceivable practical use. The "value" to them in "hard"
terms is
the peculiarly satisfying feeling a pure mathematician can get from simply
solving the thing. But why does it satisfy? Well, interesting though it is,
that's not the question here. We "value" certain feelings without ever
pondering
why.
Notice: this means nothing has absolute value. What ultimately brings a
cherishable feeling to one person may not do it for the next. We may preach
that
reducing human suffering is an absolute good, but I see no way to prove it
so
without accepting a premise that assumes the point at issue. The man who
tortures and kills would value that suffering -- or at least be indifferent
about it
-- if he believes it defends or advances his religion.
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