#philosophyofscience — Public Fediverse posts

“Reality is a very subjective affair”*…

As Nathan Gardels reports, the Berggruen Institute recently gathered religious scholars, philosophers, quantum physicists, AI technologists, neuroscientists and science fiction novelists at Casa dei Tre Oci in Venice to ponder the nature of consciousness. Noting that “it is fascinating to see how their ideas correspond to the long-ago musings of Medieval mystics and even the “pagan masters” of antiquity'” Gardels observes that “the great question then, as now, and probably forever, is whether there is a metaphysical gap between the body and the soul, or if they are made of the same substance, symbiotic aspects of a singular reality that entail each other.” He concludes…

…The quantum physicist Carlo Rovelli argues that the much-discussed metaphysical gap between body and soul, subjective and objective, doesn’t exist. 

As he has written in Noema, “We, subjects of knowledge and understanding, are not outside the world. We are part of it. Our theories and knowledge are embodied tools to help us navigate the real world, not disembodied views on reality from the outside. They are themselves aspects of the very world they describe. Our understanding, like our feelings, perceptions and experience, is a natural phenomenon.”

For Rovelli, the notion of a metaphysical gap “contradicts everything we have learned about nature in the last centuries. The mind is the behavior of the brain, properly described in a high-level language. Neither my own experience of myself nor an external experience of me is primary: They are two distinct perspectives on the same events. We do not need to assume that the circle between epistemology (how we get knowledge) and ontology (what exists) requires a starting point. There is nothing wrong with its circularity: The world I access is the information I have about it, and I am part of that world.

“Nor do we need to require that there is any ultimate or fundamental account of reality. Any account is approximate, has blind spots and is realized within reality, so it is embodied in a part of that same reality. 

“If we do not fall into the error of dualism upfront, we can safely speak of soul and emotions just as we speak of a kitchen table, even if the table is also a collection of atoms. It is time to give up the pernicious dualism introduced by the debate on consciousness and embrace the reality that our soul, or our spiritual life, is consistent with our fundamental physics. 

“Earth is not metaphysically different from the heavens, living beings are not metaphysically different from inanimate matter, humans are not metaphysically different from other animals. The soul is not metaphysically different from the body. We are all parts of nature.” 

Rovelli’s scientific case that we humans are not outside the world of reality, but constitutive participants in it and constructors of it, tracks with the intuition of Medieval thinkers like the 14th-century Christian mystic Meister Eckhart. 

For Eckhart, consciousness was being aware we are not apart from, but both inhabit and are inhabited by, the mind of God — that is, “objective reality.” 

As stated in the New Testament’s Gospel of John, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God.” In biblical terms, the Word, or Logos, is divine reason. Eckhart interpreted this passage as meaning that the incarnation of the divine in man was not a one-time event of Christ’s birth in Bethlehem, but takes place through continuous human participation in the unfolding Logos of the Word, making us part of and conjoining with the mind of God; co-essences, so to speak.” If God is the pure thought of divine reason, then, as Sloterdijk has put it, ‘To think is to give birth to God.’”

That Medieval insight is another way of saying, in Rovelli’s words, that “objectivity without a subject is an abstract construct, of little relevance — it is the illusion of a science now belonging to the past.”

Consciousness, then, can be said to be the perspective of the aware self in a world where there is no outside. The “I” is not detached from some order of objective reality, but in all the diversity of personal experience, part of what makes it “everywhere whole.” Not only is “the universe disclosed by a knowing subject;” the knowing subject is its co-creator from within…

Eminently worth reading in full.

Striving to understand the nature of consciousness: “Subjective Perspective Makes Objective Reality ‘Everywhere Whole’,” from @noemamag.com.

Pair with: “Everything is not itself.”

* Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire

###

As we muse on our minds, we might spare a thought for a man who wrestled with these same issues, Auguste Comte; he died on this date in 1857. A philosopher (and mathematician), he is remembered as the father of the doctrine of positivism. He developed the Law of Three Stages to describe the historical evolution of human thought and consciousness, arguing that the human mind, in its search for understanding, progresses through three distinct intellectual phases (the theological, the metaphysical, and the positive (or scientific), each with a different method of explaining reality.

Comte is widely regarded as the first “philosopher of science” in the modern sense, and as the forebearer of sociology (the name of which he coined, as he did the word “altruism”). He had a major impact on 19th-century thought, influencing the work of social thinkers like John Stuart Mill and George Eliot.  His concepts of “sociology” and social evolutionism set the tone for early social theorists and anthropologists including Harriet Martineau and Herbert Spencer, evolving into modern academic sociology (a la Émile Durkheim) as practical and objective social research.

source

“Reality is a very subjective affair”*…

As Nathan Gardels reports, the Berggruen Institute recently gathered religious scholars, philosophers, quantum physicists, AI technologists, neuroscientists and science fiction novelists at Casa dei Tre Oci in Venice to ponder the nature of consciousness. Noting that “it is fascinating to see how their ideas correspond to the long-ago musings of Medieval mystics and even the “pagan masters” of antiquity'” Gardels observes that “the great question then, as now, and probably forever, is whether there is a metaphysical gap between the body and the soul, or if they are made of the same substance, symbiotic aspects of a singular reality that entail each other.” He concludes…

…The quantum physicist Carlo Rovelli argues that the much-discussed metaphysical gap between body and soul, subjective and objective, doesn’t exist. 

As he has written in Noema, “We, subjects of knowledge and understanding, are not outside the world. We are part of it. Our theories and knowledge are embodied tools to help us navigate the real world, not disembodied views on reality from the outside. They are themselves aspects of the very world they describe. Our understanding, like our feelings, perceptions and experience, is a natural phenomenon.”

For Rovelli, the notion of a metaphysical gap “contradicts everything we have learned about nature in the last centuries. The mind is the behavior of the brain, properly described in a high-level language. Neither my own experience of myself nor an external experience of me is primary: They are two distinct perspectives on the same events. We do not need to assume that the circle between epistemology (how we get knowledge) and ontology (what exists) requires a starting point. There is nothing wrong with its circularity: The world I access is the information I have about it, and I am part of that world.

“Nor do we need to require that there is any ultimate or fundamental account of reality. Any account is approximate, has blind spots and is realized within reality, so it is embodied in a part of that same reality. 

“If we do not fall into the error of dualism upfront, we can safely speak of soul and emotions just as we speak of a kitchen table, even if the table is also a collection of atoms. It is time to give up the pernicious dualism introduced by the debate on consciousness and embrace the reality that our soul, or our spiritual life, is consistent with our fundamental physics. 

“Earth is not metaphysically different from the heavens, living beings are not metaphysically different from inanimate matter, humans are not metaphysically different from other animals. The soul is not metaphysically different from the body. We are all parts of nature.” 

Rovelli’s scientific case that we humans are not outside the world of reality, but constitutive participants in it and constructors of it, tracks with the intuition of Medieval thinkers like the 14th-century Christian mystic Meister Eckhart. 

For Eckhart, consciousness was being aware we are not apart from, but both inhabit and are inhabited by, the mind of God — that is, “objective reality.” 

As stated in the New Testament’s Gospel of John, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God.” In biblical terms, the Word, or Logos, is divine reason. Eckhart interpreted this passage as meaning that the incarnation of the divine in man was not a one-time event of Christ’s birth in Bethlehem, but takes place through continuous human participation in the unfolding Logos of the Word, making us part of and conjoining with the mind of God; co-essences, so to speak.” If God is the pure thought of divine reason, then, as Sloterdijk has put it, ‘To think is to give birth to God.’”

That Medieval insight is another way of saying, in Rovelli’s words, that “objectivity without a subject is an abstract construct, of little relevance — it is the illusion of a science now belonging to the past.”

Consciousness, then, can be said to be the perspective of the aware self in a world where there is no outside. The “I” is not detached from some order of objective reality, but in all the diversity of personal experience, part of what makes it “everywhere whole.” Not only is “the universe disclosed by a knowing subject;” the knowing subject is its co-creator from within…

Eminently worth reading in full.

Striving to understand the nature of consciousness: “Subjective Perspective Makes Objective Reality ‘Everywhere Whole’,” from @noemamag.com.

Pair with: “Everything is not itself.”

* Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire

###

As we muse on our minds, we might spare a thought for a man who wrestled with these same issues, Auguste Comte; he died on this date in 1857. A philosopher (and mathematician), he is remembered as the father of the doctrine of positivism. He developed the Law of Three Stages to describe the historical evolution of human thought and consciousness, arguing that the human mind, in its search for understanding, progresses through three distinct intellectual phases (the theological, the metaphysical, and the positive (or scientific), each with a different method of explaining reality.

Comte is widely regarded as the first “philosopher of science” in the modern sense, and as the forebearer of sociology (the name of which he coined, as he did the word “altruism”). He had a major impact on 19th-century thought, influencing the work of social thinkers like John Stuart Mill and George Eliot.  His concepts of “sociology” and social evolutionism set the tone for early social theorists and anthropologists including Harriet Martineau and Herbert Spencer, evolving into modern academic sociology (a la Émile Durkheim) as practical and objective social research.

source

“Reality is a very subjective affair”*…

As Nathan Gardels reports, the Berggruen Institute recently gathered religious scholars, philosophers, quantum physicists, AI technologists, neuroscientists and science fiction novelists at Casa dei Tre Oci in Venice to ponder the nature of consciousness. Noting that “it is fascinating to see how their ideas correspond to the long-ago musings of Medieval mystics and even the “pagan masters” of antiquity'” Gardels observes that “the great question then, as now, and probably forever, is whether there is a metaphysical gap between the body and the soul, or if they are made of the same substance, symbiotic aspects of a singular reality that entail each other.” He concludes…

…The quantum physicist Carlo Rovelli argues that the much-discussed metaphysical gap between body and soul, subjective and objective, doesn’t exist. 

As he has written in Noema, “We, subjects of knowledge and understanding, are not outside the world. We are part of it. Our theories and knowledge are embodied tools to help us navigate the real world, not disembodied views on reality from the outside. They are themselves aspects of the very world they describe. Our understanding, like our feelings, perceptions and experience, is a natural phenomenon.”

For Rovelli, the notion of a metaphysical gap “contradicts everything we have learned about nature in the last centuries. The mind is the behavior of the brain, properly described in a high-level language. Neither my own experience of myself nor an external experience of me is primary: They are two distinct perspectives on the same events. We do not need to assume that the circle between epistemology (how we get knowledge) and ontology (what exists) requires a starting point. There is nothing wrong with its circularity: The world I access is the information I have about it, and I am part of that world.

“Nor do we need to require that there is any ultimate or fundamental account of reality. Any account is approximate, has blind spots and is realized within reality, so it is embodied in a part of that same reality. 

“If we do not fall into the error of dualism upfront, we can safely speak of soul and emotions just as we speak of a kitchen table, even if the table is also a collection of atoms. It is time to give up the pernicious dualism introduced by the debate on consciousness and embrace the reality that our soul, or our spiritual life, is consistent with our fundamental physics. 

“Earth is not metaphysically different from the heavens, living beings are not metaphysically different from inanimate matter, humans are not metaphysically different from other animals. The soul is not metaphysically different from the body. We are all parts of nature.” 

Rovelli’s scientific case that we humans are not outside the world of reality, but constitutive participants in it and constructors of it, tracks with the intuition of Medieval thinkers like the 14th-century Christian mystic Meister Eckhart. 

For Eckhart, consciousness was being aware we are not apart from, but both inhabit and are inhabited by, the mind of God — that is, “objective reality.” 

As stated in the New Testament’s Gospel of John, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God.” In biblical terms, the Word, or Logos, is divine reason. Eckhart interpreted this passage as meaning that the incarnation of the divine in man was not a one-time event of Christ’s birth in Bethlehem, but takes place through continuous human participation in the unfolding Logos of the Word, making us part of and conjoining with the mind of God; co-essences, so to speak.” If God is the pure thought of divine reason, then, as Sloterdijk has put it, ‘To think is to give birth to God.’”

That Medieval insight is another way of saying, in Rovelli’s words, that “objectivity without a subject is an abstract construct, of little relevance — it is the illusion of a science now belonging to the past.”

Consciousness, then, can be said to be the perspective of the aware self in a world where there is no outside. The “I” is not detached from some order of objective reality, but in all the diversity of personal experience, part of what makes it “everywhere whole.” Not only is “the universe disclosed by a knowing subject;” the knowing subject is its co-creator from within…

Eminently worth reading in full.

Striving to understand the nature of consciousness: “Subjective Perspective Makes Objective Reality ‘Everywhere Whole’,” from @noemamag.com.

Pair with: “Everything is not itself.”

* Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire

###

As we muse on our minds, we might spare a thought for a man who wrestled with these same issues, Auguste Comte; he died on this date in 1857. A philosopher (and mathematician), he is remembered as the father of the doctrine of positivism. He developed the Law of Three Stages to describe the historical evolution of human thought and consciousness, arguing that the human mind, in its search for understanding, progresses through three distinct intellectual phases (the theological, the metaphysical, and the positive (or scientific), each with a different method of explaining reality.

Comte is widely regarded as the first “philosopher of science” in the modern sense, and as the forebearer of sociology (the name of which he coined, as he did the word “altruism”). He had a major impact on 19th-century thought, influencing the work of social thinkers like John Stuart Mill and George Eliot.  His concepts of “sociology” and social evolutionism set the tone for early social theorists and anthropologists including Harriet Martineau and Herbert Spencer, evolving into modern academic sociology (a la Émile Durkheim) as practical and objective social research.

source

All new in SEP, Philosophy of Psychotherapy, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/psychotherapy/

#terapia #psykoterapia #psychotherapy #filosofia #philosophy #mentalhealth #wellbeing #therapy #psychology #harm #epistemicInjustice #biomedicine #cognitiveScience #disability #self #medicine #psykiatria #psychiatry #mentalDisorder #mieli #mielenhäiriö #tieteenfilosofia #philosophyOfScience #sep

Tommaso Piazza reviews Gabriele Contessa's book Science Denial in SERRC, https://social-epistemology.com/2026/06/12/a-review-of-gabriele-contessas-science-denial-tommaso-piazza/

An eralier review was by Maya Goldenberg, https://social-epistemology.com/2026/04/29/science-denial-post-trust-and-epistemic-blame-a-review-of-contessas-science-denial-maya-goldenberg/

#science #tiede #denial #scienceDenial #epistemology #socialScience #climateDenial #pseudoscience #postTruth #truth #misinformation #trust #motivatedInquiry #evidence #reasoning #motivatedReasoning #harm #egoism #collectiveResponsibility #society #futures #planetEarth #resistance #belief #ideology #epistemicSecurity #psychology #philosophyOfScience #philosophy #filosofia

Paaljon onneeaa vaan! 🎵 🤗 🍀

https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilkka_Niiniluoto

#juhla #80 #niiniluoto #filosofia #philosophy #philosophyOfScience #philosophyOfTechnology #university #yliopisto #professor #valistus #sivistys #tiede #culture #anniversary #science #mathematics #logic #reasoning #criticalThinking #teaching #learning #oppiminen #opetus #happy #ajattelu #thinking #pseudo_science

"We find that three key measures of scientific progress—major discoveries, methods and fields—each demonstrate that science evolves cumulatively."

#kuhn
#PhilosophyOfScience

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rspa.2024.0141?af=R

#SamirOkasa - #Reductionism and #Emergence: Key #Concepts in #Biology and #Science

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khjTxDFYTaE

#Philosophy #PhilosophyOfScience #PhilosophyOfBiology #Metaphysics #StrongEmergence #WeakEmergence #Evolution #MolecularBiology #Systems #SystemsBiology #Holism #Ecology #Ecosystem #Ecosystems #Supervenience #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

#MichaelRuse - #Philosophy of #Reductionism & #Emergence

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S39nn-lKAtw

#PhilosophyOfScience #Science #Hierarchy #Hierarchies #Physics #Biology #WeakEmergence #StrongEmergence #MindBodyProblem #PhilosophyOfBiology #PhilosophyOfConsciousness #Consciousness #Panpsychism #Monism #Dualism #PhilosophyOfMind #Mind #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

#AlexanderVilenkin - How Did Our #Universe #Begin?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMJdt6UP90w

#Philosophy #PhilosophyOfScience #Science #PhilosophyOfCosmology #Cosmology #Astrophysics #Astronomy #BigBang #Inflation #InflationTheory #Singularity #Einstein #AlbertEinstein #Guth #AlanGuth #FalseVacuum #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

#AndrewLoke - Why is There '#Something' Rather Than '#Nothing'?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDp8hmtr9hc

#Philosophy #PhilosophyOfScience #Science #PhilosophyOfCosmology #Cosmology #Astronomy #Astrophysics #Universe #Metaphysics #Existence #Explanation #Contingence #Causation #Kalam #KalamCosmologicalArgument #InfiniteRegress #FirstCause #PrimumMobile #BruteFact #ModalReality #PossibleWorld #PossibleWorlds #BruteFacts #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

#AndrewLoke - Why is There '#Something' Rather Than '#Nothing'?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDp8hmtr9hc

#Philosophy #PhilosophyOfScience #Science #PhilosophyOfCosmology #Cosmology #Astronomy #Astrophysics #Universe #Metaphysics #Existence #Explanation #Contingence #Causation #Kalam #KalamCosmologicalArgument #InfiniteRegress #FirstCause #PrimumMobile #BruteFact #ModalReality #PossibleWorld #PossibleWorlds #BruteFacts #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

#AndrewLoke - Why is There '#Something' Rather Than '#Nothing'?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDp8hmtr9hc

#Philosophy #PhilosophyOfScience #Science #PhilosophyOfCosmology #Cosmology #Astronomy #Astrophysics #Universe #Metaphysics #Existence #Explanation #Contingence #Causation #Kalam #KalamCosmologicalArgument #InfiniteRegress #FirstCause #PrimumMobile #BruteFact #ModalReality #PossibleWorld #PossibleWorlds #BruteFacts #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

#AndrewLoke - Why is There '#Something' Rather Than '#Nothing'?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDp8hmtr9hc

#Philosophy #PhilosophyOfScience #Science #PhilosophyOfCosmology #Cosmology #Astronomy #Astrophysics #Universe #Metaphysics #Existence #Explanation #Contingence #Causation #Kalam #KalamCosmologicalArgument #InfiniteRegress #FirstCause #PrimumMobile #BruteFact #ModalReality #PossibleWorld #PossibleWorlds #BruteFacts #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

#AndrewLoke - Why is There '#Something' Rather Than '#Nothing'?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDp8hmtr9hc

#Philosophy #PhilosophyOfScience #Science #PhilosophyOfCosmology #Cosmology #Astronomy #Astrophysics #Universe #Metaphysics #Existence #Explanation #Contingence #Causation #Kalam #KalamCosmologicalArgument #InfiniteRegress #FirstCause #PrimumMobile #BruteFact #ModalReality #PossibleWorld #PossibleWorlds #BruteFacts #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

#IanBarbour - Why is #Emergence Significant?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3JwhKGcGUo

#Philosophy #PhilosophyOfScience #Reductionism #Physics #StrongEmergence #WeakEmergence #TopDownCausation #TopDownCausality #God #Theology #Theism #Atheism #Materialism #Determinism #Freedom #FreeWill #Mind #Body #Dualism #Holism #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

#AlexanderVilenkin - Did Our #Universe Have a #Beginning?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNCJAtAkOf4

#Philosophy #PhilosophyOfScience #Science #PhilosophyOfCosmology #Cosmology #Multiverse #BigBang #Origins #Cosmos #CMB #CosmicMicrowaveBackground #Inflation #InflationTheory #Matter #Energy #Plasma #EnergyDensity #Infinity #InfiniteRegress #InfiniteRegression #Gravity #Gravitation #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

#TimMaudlin - What is #StrongEmergence?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XH-3g8ztICQ

#Philosophy #PhilosophyOfScience #Science #Physics #Metaphysics #Laws #LawsOfNature #LawsOfPhysics #Emergence #Reductionism #SpecialScience #SpecialSciences #Matter #Motion #SpaceTime #QM #QuantumMechanics #QuantumPhysics #Biology #Consciousness #Qualia #Pain #Money #Prediction #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

Why #PhilosophyOfBiology? - Episode 2301 - #CloserToTruth

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBZ-8RVaUlM

#Philosophy #Biology #PhilosophyOfScience #Science #Evolution #EvolutionaryBiology #Life #Darwin #CharlesDarwin #Selection #Adaptation #Theory #Theories #Metaphysics #Genetics #Genes #Kuhn #ThomasKuhn #Paradign #Paradigms #MassimoPigliucci #RobertKuhn

#AlanGuth - Must the #Universe Contain #Consciousness?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a48Wd39JFQ8

#Philosophy #PhilosophyOfScience #Science #PhilosophyOfCosmology #Cosmology #Physics #Astrophysics #StringTheory #FineTuning #Multiverse #AnthropicPrinciple #Inflation #EternalInflation #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

#AlanGuth - What are #Observers?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y86FgGYV6cM

#Philosophy #PhilosophyOfScience #Science #Physics #QuantumMechanics #QuantumPhysics #QM #ManyWorlds #Observation #Measure #Measurement #MeasurementProblem #Probability #Cosmology #PhilosophyOfCosmology #BigBang #Inflation #EternalInflation #Infinity #WaveFunction #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

#ChristofKoch - Are #Brain and #Mind the Same Thing?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DX6nu7Qe3o

#Philosophy #PhilosophyOfScience #PhilosophyOfMind #Science #Neuroscience #Consciousness #Experience #Qualia #IntegratedInformation #IntegratedInformationTheory #IIT #Information #Phi #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

#FrankTipler - Why is the #Universe #Expanding?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvmwvhdOnRU&ab_channel=CloserToTruth

#Philosophy #PhilosophyOfScience #Cosmology #PhilosophyOfCosmology #Physics #Astrophysics #Astronomy #BigBang #HiggsField #StandardModel #CosmologicalConstant #InflationTheory #ExpandingUniverse #Matter #Antimatter #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

Integrated information theory as pseudoscience?

Some thoughts about recent discussions on IIT and accusations of pseudoscience.

https://selfawarepatterns.com/2023/09/17/integrated-information-theory-as-pseudoscience/
#consciousness #philosophy #PhilosophyOfMind #PhilosophyOfScience #neuroscience #IIT #IntegratedInformationTheory

#PaulDavies - Why the ‘Unreasonable Effectiveness’ of #Mathematics

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmgPoWZTOgo&ab_channel=CloserToTruth

#Philosophy #PhilosophyOfScience #PhilosophyOfMathematics #Math #Maths #Logic #Metaphysics #Physics #EugeneWigner #Wigner #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

#GiulioTononi - What's the #Essence of #Consciousness?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiS5i2d9zBA&ab_channel=CloserToTruth

#Philosophy #PhilosophyOfScience #Science #PhilosophyOfConsciousness #Consciousness #Mind #TheMind #Phi #Information #IntegratedInformation #Identity #PersonalIdentity #MindBodyProblem #Dualism #Monism #Qualia #HardProblem #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

#BarryLoewer - What Is Strong #Emergence?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ND6EwLcd6B0&ab_channel=CloserToTruth

#Philosophy #PhilosophyOfScience #Science #Physics #LawsOfPhysics #LawsOfNature #StrongEmergence #Emergentism #Reductionism #Hierarchy #Hierarchies #SpecialSciences #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

#GiulioTononi - Why is #Consciousness so #Baffling?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dK72pPa_gSE&ab_channel=CloserToTruth

#Philosophy #PhilosophyOfScience #Science #PhilosophyOfConsciousness #Consciousness #Mind #TheMind #Phi #Information #IntegratedInformation #Identity #PersonalIdentity #MindBodyProblem #Dualism #Monism #Qualia #HardProblem #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

#GeorgeEllis - What Is Strong #Emergence?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJ7id-sjiuI&ab_channel=CloserToTruth

#Philosophyn #PhilosophyOfScience #Science #Physics #Causation #Realisation #Materialism #Idealism #Dualism #PropertyDualism #StrongEmergence #PhilosophyOfCosmology #Cosmology #Metaphysics #Evolution #BigBang #Inflation #CMB #CosmicMicrowaveBackground #Irreducibility #Reductionism #Emergentism #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

Here are 3 ways a #Multiverse could exist

"Is the multiverse possible? Yes! In fact, there are 3 different kinds: #ManyWorlds, #EternalInflation, and #Infinite Repeating #Space" - #TheScienceAsylum

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cfN-QxJkjU&ab_channel=TheScienceAsylum

#ScienceAsylum #NickLucid #Philosophy #PhilosophyOfScience #PhilosophyOfCosmology #Cosmology #Astrophysics #QM #QuantumMechanics #QuantumPhysics #WaveFunction #Inflation #Universe #Omniverse #Infinity

#PaulSteinhardt - How Does #DarkEnergy Drive the #Universe?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcACmz53LpU&ab_channel=CloserToTruth

#Physics #Science #Cosmology #PhilosophyOfScience #PhilosophyOfCosmology #BigBang #MassEnergy #CosmologicalConstant #GR #GeneralRelativity #GalaxyFormation #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

#KenOlum - What Would an #Infinite #Universe Mean?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Bqw9hBQup4&ab_channel=CloserToTruth

#Philosophy #PhilosophyOfScience #Physics #Cosmology #PhilosophyOfCosmology #Infinity #Cantor #InfiniteUniverse #Probability #MeasureProblem #Astrophysics #Astronomy #Inflation #InflationTheory #BigBang #TheBigBang #BigBangTheory #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

#MartinRees - How Vast is the #Cosmos?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKOSbKskVLw&ab_channel=CloserToTruth

#Philosophy #Science #Physics #PhilosophyOfScience #PhilosophyOfCosmology #Cosmology #Astronomy #Astrophysics #Multiverse #Infinity #Universe #Inflation #EternalInflation #LawsOfNature #LawsOfPhysics #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

#RaphaelBousso - What Would an #InfiniteUniverse Mean?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4LDn1P-lhA&ab_channel=CloserToTruth

#Philosophy #Science #PhilosophyOfScience #Cosmology #PhilosophyOfCosmology #Infinity #Universe #Cosmos #Inflation #EternalInflation #StringTheory #Probability #Measurement #MeasureProblem #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

Could One #Physics #Theory Unlock the #Mysteries of the #Brain?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjGFp7lMi9A&ab_channel=QuantaMagazine

#PerBak #PhilosophyOfScience #Science #Neuroscience #Biology #MolecularBiology #Thermodynamics #SellfSimilar #ScaleInvariance #Fractal #Fractals #CriticalPoint #Criticality #Ising #IsingModel #PhaseState #PhaseTransition #PhaseTransitions #Homeostasis #QuasiCrticality

#JosephLeDoux - What Makes #Brains #Conscious?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bp8BSpt3PIM&ab_channel=CloserToTruth

#Philosophy #PhilosophyOfMind #PhilosophyOfScience #Consciousness #Emotion #Emotions #Feelings #MindBodyProblem #TheMindBodyProblem #Neuroscience #Neurophysiology #Brain #TheBrain #Perception #IdentityTheory #Qualia #PreFrontalCortex #Cortex #Language #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

#JohnPeacock - #Philosophy of #Cosmology

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5dgkouyZfY&ab_channel=CloserToTruth

#Philosophy #Science #PhilosophyOfScience #PhilosophyOfCosmology #BigBang #Inflation #BigBangTheory #InflationTheory #UniversalExpansion #ExpandingSpace #Spacetime #Space #Time #Universe #GR #GeneralRelativity #CosmologicalConstant #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

#TomMcLeish - Is #Emergence #Fundamental?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXCvQXUhBUk&ab_channel=CloserToTruth

#Science #Philosophy #PhilosophyOfScience #Metaphysics #Reduction #Reductionism #Ontology #WeakEmergence #StrongEmergence #Causality #CauseAndEffect #Mind #Consciousness #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

#AndreasAlbrecht - What is #QuantumCosmology ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUzdHPT7B5w&ab_channel=CloserToTruth

#Science #Philosophy #PhilosophyOfScience #Quantum #Cosmology #QuantumMechanics #QM #QuatumPhysics #Physics #Astrophysics #Inflation #InflationTheory #BigBang #CMB #CosmicMicrowaveBackground #BigBangTheory #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

#PaulDavies - Why There is ‘#Something’ Rather than ‘#Nothing’?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MF5tTZrtUdY&ab_channel=CloserToTruth

#Philosophy #PhilosophyOfScience #PhilosophyOfCosmology #Cosmology #BigBang #BigBangTheory #TheBigBang #LawsOfPhysics #LawsOfNature #Platonism #Idealism #Metaphysics #Multiverse #TheMultiverse #MultiverseTheory #Inflation #InflationTheory #BackwardCausation #BackwardsCausation #QM #QuantumMechanics #QuantumPhysics #AlternativeHistories #Observation #Wheeler #JohnWheeler #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

#SeanCarroll - The #Multiverse - #Science or #ScienceFiction ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mJSkvqICY8&ab_channel=Wondrium

#Physics #PhilosophyOfScience #PhilosophyOfPhysics #TheMultiverse #QM #QuantumMechanics #QuantumPhysics #Cosmology #AnthropicPrinciple #TheAnthropicPrinciple #Inflation #InflationTheory #EternalInflation #StringTheory #MeasureProblem #TheMeasureProblem

#SethLloyd - Theorem of Human #Unpredictability

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIWemQthcZg&ab_channel=SeriousScience

#Philosophy #Science #PhilosophyOfScience #FreeWill #HumanUnpredictability #Information #Computability #HaltingProblem #TheHaltingProblem #Programming #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #Recursion #SelfReference #Goedel #KurtGoedel #Incompleteness #IncompletenessTheorem

Since people seem to be doing re-introductions: I'm Ron McClamrock from the #Philosophy Department at the University at Albany, SUNY (#UAlbany). I work and teach primarily in #PhilosophyOfMind & #PhilosophyOfPsychology, including issues concerning #consciousness, but also have interests in #phenomenology, #MusicTheory, #AI, and #PhilosophyOfScience. Democratic Socialist, dad, mediocre guitarist. I've been on twitter (@profron) for years, but hoping that activity will segue over to Mastodon.

Looking at my stats I find that my recent introductory post about Bayesian probability has proved surprisingly popular with readers, so I thought I’d follow it up with a brief discussion of some of the philosophical issues surrounding it.

It is ironic that the pioneers of probability theory, principally Laplace, unquestionably adopted a Bayesian rather than frequentist interpretation for his probabilities. Frequentism arose during the nineteenth century and held sway until recently. I recall giving a conference talk about Bayesian reasoning only to be heckled by the audience with comments about “new-fangled, trendy Bayesian methods”. Nothing could have been less apt. Probability theory pre-dates the rise of sampling theory and all the frequentist-inspired techniques that modern-day statisticians like to employ.

Most disturbing of all is the influence that frequentist and other non-Bayesian views of probability have had upon the development of a philosophy of science, which I believe has a strong element of inverse reasoning or inductivism in it. The argument about whether there is a role for this type of thought in science goes back at least as far as Roger Bacon who lived in the 13th Century. Much later the brilliant Scottish empiricist philosopher and enlightenment figure David Hume argued strongly against induction. Most modern anti-inductivists can be traced back to this source. Pierre Duhem has argued that theory and experiment never meet face-to-face because in reality there are hosts of auxiliary assumptions involved in making this comparison. This is nowadays called the Quine-Duhem thesis.

Actually, for a Bayesian this doesn’t pose a logical difficulty at all. All one has to do is set up prior probability distributions for the required parameters, calculate their posterior probabilities and then integrate over those that aren’t related to measurements. This is just an expanded version of the idea of marginalization, explained here.

Rudolf Carnap, a logical positivist, attempted to construct a complete theory of inductive reasoning which bears some relationship to Bayesian thought, but he failed to apply Bayes’ theorem in the correct way. Carnap distinguished between two types or probabilities – logical and factual. Bayesians don’t – and I don’t – think this is necessary. The Bayesian definition seems to me to be quite coherent on its own.

Other philosophers of science reject the notion that inductive reasoning has any epistemological value at all. This anti-inductivist stance, often somewhat misleadingly called deductivist (irrationalist would be a better description) is evident in the thinking of three of the most influential philosophers of science of the last century: Karl Popper, Thomas Kuhn and, most recently, Paul Feyerabend. Regardless of the ferocity of their arguments with each other, these have in common that at the core of their systems of thought likes the rejection of all forms of inductive reasoning. The line of thought that ended in this intellectual cul-de-sac began, as I stated above, with the work of the Scottish empiricist philosopher David Hume. For a thorough analysis of the anti-inductivists mentioned above and their obvious debt to Hume, see David Stove’s book Popper and After: Four Modern Irrationalists. I will just make a few inflammatory remarks here.

Karl Popper really began the modern era of science philosophy with his Logik der Forschung, which was published in 1934. There isn’t really much about (Bayesian) probability theory in this book, which is strange for a work which claims to be about the logic of science. Popper also managed to, on the one hand, accept probability theory (in its frequentist form), but on the other, to reject induction. I find it therefore very hard to make sense of his work at all. It is also clear that, at least outside Britain, Popper is not really taken seriously by many people as a philosopher. Inside Britain it is very different and I’m not at all sure I understand why. Nevertheless, in my experience, most working physicists seem to subscribe to some version of Popper’s basic philosophy.

Among the things Popper has claimed is that all observations are “theory-laden” and that “sense-data, untheoretical items of observation, simply do not exist”. I don’t think it is possible to defend this view, unless one asserts that numbers do not exist. Data are numbers. They can be incorporated in the form of propositions about parameters in any theoretical framework we like. It is of course true that the possibility space is theory-laden. It is a space of theories, after all. Theory does suggest what kinds of experiment should be done and what data is likely to be useful. But data can be used to update probabilities of anything.

Popper has also insisted that science is deductive rather than inductive. Part of this claim is just a semantic confusion. It is necessary at some point to deduce what the measurable consequences of a theory might be before one does any experiments, but that doesn’t mean the whole process of science is deductive. He does, however, reject the basic application of inductive reasoning in updating probabilities in the light of measured data; he asserts that no theory ever becomes more probable when evidence is found in its favour. Every scientific theory begins infinitely improbable, and is doomed to remain so.

Now there is a grain of truth in this, or can be if the space of possibilities is infinite. Standard methods for assigning priors often spread the unit total probability over an infinite space, leading to a prior probability which is formally zero. This is the problem of improper priors. But this is not a killer blow to Bayesianism. Even if the prior is not strictly normalizable, the posterior probability can be. In any case, given sufficient relevant data the cycle of experiment-measurement-update of probability assignment usually soon leaves the prior far behind. Data usually count in the end.

The idea by which Popper is best known is the dogma of falsification. According to this doctrine, a hypothesis is only said to be scientific if it is capable of being proved false. In real science certain “falsehood” and certain “truth” are almost never achieved. Theories are simply more probable or less probable than the alternatives on the market. The idea that experimental scientists struggle through their entire life simply to prove theorists wrong is a very strange one, although I definitely know some experimentalists who chase theories like lions chase gazelles. To a Bayesian, the right criterion is not falsifiability but testability, the ability of the theory to be rendered more or less probable using further data. Nevertheless, scientific theories generally do have untestable components. Any theory has its interpretation, which is the untestable baggage that we need to supply to make it comprehensible to us. But whatever can be tested can be scientific.

Popper’s work on the philosophical ideas that ultimately led to falsificationism began in Vienna, but the approach subsequently gained enormous popularity in western Europe. The American Thomas Kuhn later took up the anti-inductivist baton in his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Kuhn is undoubtedly a first-rate historian of science and this book contains many perceptive analyses of episodes in the development of physics. His view of scientific progress is cyclic. It begins with a mass of confused observations and controversial theories, moves into a quiescent phase when one theory has triumphed over the others, and lapses into chaos again when the further testing exposes anomalies in the favoured theory. Kuhn adopted the word paradigm to describe the model that rules during the middle stage,

The history of science is littered with examples of this process, which is why so many scientists find Kuhn’s account in good accord with their experience. But there is a problem when attempts are made to fuse this historical observation into a philosophy based on anti-inductivism. Kuhn claims that we “have to relinquish the notion that changes of paradigm carry scientists ..closer and closer to the truth.” Einstein’s theory of relativity provides a closer fit to a wider range of observations than Newtonian mechanics, but in Kuhn’s view this success counts for nothing.

Paul Feyerabend has extended this anti-inductivist streak to its logical (though irrational) extreme. His approach has been dubbed “epistemological anarchism”, and it is clear that he believed that all theories are equally wrong. He is on record as stating that normal science is a fairytale, and that equal time and resources should be spent on “astrology, acupuncture and witchcraft”. He also categorised science alongside “religion, prostitution, and so on”. His thesis is basically that science is just one of many possible internally consistent views of the world, and that the choice between which of these views to adopt can only be made on socio-political grounds.

Feyerabend’s views could only have flourished in a society deeply disillusioned with science. Of course, many bad things have been done in science’s name, and many social institutions are deeply flawed. One can’t expect anything operated by people to run perfectly. It’s also quite reasonable to argue on ethical grounds which bits of science should be funded and which should not. But the bottom line is that science does have a firm methodological basis which distinguishes it from pseudo-science, the occult and new age silliness. Science is distinguished from other belief-systems by its rigorous application of inductive reasoning and its willingness to subject itself to experimental test. Not all science is done properly, of course, and bad science is as bad as anything.

The Bayesian interpretation of probability leads to a philosophy of science which is essentially epistemological rather than ontological. Probabilities are not “out there” in external reality, but in our minds, representing our imperfect knowledge and understanding. Scientific theories are not absolute truths. Our knowledge of reality is never certain, but we are able to reason consistently about which of our theories provides the best available description of what is known at any given time. If that description fails when more data are gathered, we move on, introducing new elements or abandoning the theory for an alternative. This process could go on forever. There may never be a final theory. But although the game might have no end, at least we know the rules….

https://telescoper.blog/2010/12/11/deductivism-and-irrationalism/

#BayesianProbability #DavidHume #epistemology #induction #KarlPopper #ontology #PaulFeyerabend #philosophy #philosophyOfScience #RudolfCarnap #Science #ThomasKuhn