On 17 Nov 2014, at 07:21, meekerdb wrote:
On 11/16/2014 7:15 PM, Bruce Kellett wrote:
meekerdb wrote:
On 11/16/2014 10:51 AM, LizR wrote:
On 17 November 2014 00:31, Bruno Marchal <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]
>> wrote:
Heisenberg was influenced by the positivism of the time (The
Vienna circles, the young Wittgenstein, etc.). That was very bad
philosophy, and we can say that is is virtually abandoned.
Positivism is easily shown self-defeating or just an
instrumentalism which abandon fundamental research.
Isn't that the Popperian view - falsification and so on - that
David Deutsch is so keen on in FOR? Or am I getting my wires
crossed? If it is, I didn't know it had been abandoned.
I think Deutsch takes the view that explanation is the important
function of science, whereas positivist eschew explanation and aim
for prediction. Being falsifiable in principle is still
considered an essential attribute of any scientific theory, but
"in principle" can be pretty broadly intepreted.
It is a while since I read Deutsch, but I think one could
categorize his position as that of a (super)realist. Positivism
does not really eschew explanation: the characteristic of
positivism is that observation is paramount and theoretical terms
are accepted only in so far as they can be reduced to observational
statements. This philosophy has gone out of fashion as people have
realized that not all theoretical terms can be so reduced. The
realist position is that the theoretical terms of well-established
scientific theories actually correspond to 'elements of reality',
or parts of 'the furniture of the world'. Deutsch takes this to
extremes with his claim that quantum computing 'proves' the
existence of the many worlds of MWI.
I agree. And there's a good reason not to use terms like "proves",
when there are alternative explanations (e.g. t'Hooft's
superdeterminism). The scientist's reason for entertaining
different formulations and interpretations of a theory is that they
may suggest extensions of the theory, not because he wants the
certainty of "proof".
Concerning positivism and Popper (and Deutsch) I agree with you and
with Bruce. I hope this answers Liz, and John Clark.
I also avoid use of "proof" in applied science (especially when
applied in the search of reality). I use proof only relative to a
theory, and in that case, the notion of "proof" is itself an object of
a theory (even if embeddable in arithmetic).
But even in math, "proof" is not related to certainty, because we
would be obliged to assume our own correctness, which is impossible to
do at the level of a theory. About reality, science is agnostic, and
can only give plausibilities, never certainties.
It is one of the lesson of incompleteness: proof = belief. A proof,
per se, is not an indication of truth, even if miraculously you could
know that the axioms of your theory is true. May be I doubt this
personally for elementary arithmetic (the so-called separable part of
math where all scientists agree), but I am not sure.
Bruno
Brent
"As an adolescent I aspired to lasting fame, I craved factual
certainty, and I thirsted for a meaningful vision of human life-- so
I became a scientist. This is like becoming an archbishop so you
can meet girls."
-- Matt Cartmill
Falsification is seen as an important element of science, but not
necessarily the final touchstone. Naive Popperian falsificationism
is clearly wrong, but there are no universally accepted
generalizations of falsifiability that measure up to all that one
might want. In sum, the Popperian quest for a clear demarcation
between science and non-science has assumed a less prominent role
in recent philosophy of science.
Bruce
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