Sometimes very active discussions about peripheral issues overwhelm a thread, so this is a permanent home for those conversations.
I’ve opened a new “Sandbox” thread as a post as the new “ignore commenter” plug-in only works on threads started as posts.
As TSZ asks at the top, can you think it possible that you may be mistaken? I think it’s entirely possible that I might be mistaken, but you? Could there possibly be a flaw in your position? Or is that beyond what you can comprehend?
If experience is any indication, we could be waiting a long time — weeks, months, perhaps forever — for Flint to answer my questions.* Hopefully not. But given that possibility, I’ll go ahead and post my next batch of questions now rather than waiting for him to answer the first batch.
* Still waiting for him to respond to my argument, first stated in January, showing that exact numbers can be used, and in fact are used, to express inexact measurements. A recent restatement of the argument can be found here and here.
Flint,
Here are some more questions to help me understand your position and to get you to think more deeply about it:
6. Do you believe you have a body? You don’t experience your body any more directly than you do other things such as the screen you’re staring at right now. You experience both your body and your screen through your senses. If you doubt the existence of your screen on that basis, do you also doubt the existence of your body?
7. If reality doesn’t exist, what do our senses do, exactly? Are they sensing nothing at all?
8. You are presumably sure of your own existence, at least as a mind — cogito ergo sum and all that — but apart from that, you question the existence of reality. Yet I, and all of the people with whom you interact, are part of your (possibly nonexistent) reality. You don’t experience us directly; you experience us indirectly through your senses, in the same way that you experience the (possibly nonexistent) chair you’re sitting on. Do you truly question the existence of all the people in your life?
9. You’ve written:
You’ve argued against my position and labeled me a cognitive cripple. Are you truly comfortable with the idea that you are arguing against, and criticizing, a nonexistent person — a phantom? Or do you actually believe that I exist, as I strongly suspect you do?
10. If I don’t exist, what accounts for the fact that I seem to be presenting arguments against your claims? Do those arguments come literally from nowhere?
Flint:
Of course! I’m not infallible!
That’s why I want us to have an actual discussion, in which each of us presents arguments and asks questions, and in which each of us addresses the other’s arguments and responds to the other’s questions.
Can you do that, or will you continue to obstruct the discussion by refusing?
keiths:
Flint:
I haven’t said that it must. I’m asking why it doesn’t. That’s what question #2 is about.
By all appearances, something is constraining my measurements of scrap #1 so that the result is always roughly 14.9 inches, and something is constraining my measurements of scrap #2 so that the result is always roughly 5.2 inches. If reality doesn’t exist, what is doing the constraining?
Or if nothing is doing the constraining, then what accounts for the consistency? Sheer luck?
I’ve been trying to discuss. Hopefully, you can see some difference between refusing to discuss, and not agreeing with your viewpoint.
But let me see if I have this right. Your position is that there is an actual, “real” objective underlying reality, even if we don’t perceive it perfectly (but we’re working on that). And the reason you take that position is, it is far and away the best fit for a pretty damn compelling body of evidence. So for you, reality is something more than simply an extremely well supported model for which there are no known exceptions (with the possible exception of holes in the standard model of quantum mechanics?) And there is always a lot of stuff we can’t explain and/or don’t understand. We now believe that our measurements and measuring devices are inherently “local” and consistent only within our locality.
I’ll think I understand that you do not consider gods or the supernatural or the paranormal or any of the various religious faiths to be part of your reality. Devout adherents to most religious faiths may be as convinced their gods are real as you are convinced that length is real, but you have good solid evidence to support you, and they don’t. Their god-based model is fundamentally flawed because it fails to meet your standards of intersubjective experience, consistent repeatability, etc. Is that about right?
Now, I happen to think that your model is perfectly valid. In fact, I think it’s a better model than any competing model. It’s not provable, of course, but perhaps that’s not important. What I’ve been trying to say is that trotting out one piece of consistent evidence after another is missing the point. All that evidence is why we use the notion of an underlying reality as our working model. But I consider our model as one hell of a good map, and we can never truly know what if anything lies beneath it. It might very well BE an objective underlying reality. I can take that as a given, on faith, but I can’t really know and I don’t think you can either.
Flint:
A more accurate statement would be for you to say “I am trying to steer the discussion away from arguments and questions that are difficult for my position and that make me uncomfortable. I want to control the discussion and keep it focused solely on areas in which I feel I have a leg to stand on.”
I am asking instead for an open discussion, as I described here:
You are strenuously trying to avoid my questions. They clearly make you uncomfortable, because to answer them requires that you deal with some of the awkwardness and weakness of your position. That’s precisely why you should address them. Perhaps you can answer them persuasively, in a way that buttresses your position. Perhaps you can’t, and your position appears weaker. Either way, the discussion progresses.
By refusing to answer my questions, you are preventing that from happening.
It goes both ways. If you can come up with arguments or questions that I find difficult or that point to weaknesses in my position, then we should absolutely discuss those. I heartily encourage you to present them. Make the best possible case for your position and against what you consider to be the weaknesses of mine.
I will continue to address your arguments and questions, as I’ve been doing all along. I’m asking you to return the favor. Can you commit to that?
Flint:
Yes. However, I hasten to emphasize that I don’t think we’ll ever arrive at a perfect understanding of reality.
Absolutely! Reality is not a model. As you like to point out, the map is not the territory. The model is not reality. We live in the territory, not in the map. We live in reality, not in the model.
Yes, and that’s a crucial point. If reality amounted to nothing more than our model, then we would never observe anything that was inconsistent with it, and thus we would never have a reason to modify the model. In fact, we do see stuff that conflicts with our model, and that stuff comes from outside the model. It comes from reality.
Why did I stub my toe? My model said the path was clear. If reality were nothing more than my model, then the path really would have been clear and I wouldn’t have stubbed my toe. My model said the chair was under the table, but in reality someone had left it pulled out. I stubbed my toe on the real chair, and that forced me to update the location of the chair in my model. The corrective information came from outside my model. It came from reality.
The original definition of the nautical mile had to be updated. Why? Because the earth was spherical inside the model, but the real earth — the one outside the model — was non-spherical. We got information from outside the model that alerted us of the need to modify it. That information came from reality.
Reality is way more than just our model.
Flint:
I would describe it this way: To take just one religious example, Mormon doctrine, scripture, and history fit poorly with the evidence. That’s putting it mildly. The Mormon worldview is hopelessly deficient in explanatory power and fit, so I reject it. I don’t believe that six-foot men dressed like Quakers live on the moon* (though in fairness, many Mormons would agree that their prophet, Joseph Smith, got that one wrong). I don’t believe that Native Americans are descended from a lost tribe of Israel. I don’t believe that sticking his head into a hat along with a magic rock enabled Joseph Smith to translate a set of golden plates he had dug up.
There are far better explanations of the evidence, and I prefer those over the ridiculous Mormon mythology.
Some religious worldviews are more ridiculous than Mormonism, others less so, but all that I’ve encountered seem inferior to my atheistic worldview, which is why I haven’t adopted any of them.
It it’s the best model, why do you consider it a “cognitive crutch” that isn’t needed by “minds that aren’t crippled”?
What is our model a map of, if not of reality? What accounts for the consistency if reality doesn’t exist?
Also, you keep switching between the view that the model is merely a map (as you just asserted) vs the view that the model is reality:
It can’t be both, so which is it? I say the model is the map and reality is the territory. I’ll assume for the moment that you’ll decide to go along with that. If so, the question is this: If the territory (reality) doesn’t exist, then what is the map (the model) a map of?
If you take it on faith, then you have once again inadvertently labeled yourself a cognitive cripple:
I think you should go easier on yourself. 😛
Anyway, it isn’t a question of proof. We can’t absolutely prove that intelligent design is wrong and evolutionary theory right — it’s just that evolutionary theory is a (vastly) superior explanation. It’s the same with the question of whether reality exists.
* Oliver B. Huntington wrote:
Flint,
Please note that I have carefully addressed your questions and responded to your comments, as I normally do. I am asking you to return the favor.
The unanswered questions are accumulating. Please answer them now. For your convenience:
1. If reality doesn’t exist, what did I stub my toe on?
2. If reality doesn’t exist, why do repeated measurements of this wood scrap give answers that are all close to 14.9 inches, while repeated measurements of this other scrap give answers that are all close to 5.2 inches? Those numbers aren’t built into my model. Where do they come from, if not from reality?
3. If reality doesn’t exist, why do we have to update our models in light of new discoveries? Why doesn’t every observation match what is already predicted by our models?
4. When I run an experiment, what am I interacting with, if not reality?
5. If reality doesn’t exist, what exactly are we modeling? If there’s nothing to model, how can we speak of improving our models?
6. Do you believe that you have a body? You don’t experience your body any more directly than you do other things such as the screen you’re staring at right now. You experience both your body and your screen through your senses. If you doubt the existence of your screen on that basis, do you also doubt the existence of your body?
7. If reality doesn’t exist, what do our senses do, exactly? Are they sensing nothing at all?
8. You are presumably sure of your own existence, at least as a mind — cogito ergo sum and all that — but apart from that, you question the existence of reality. Yet I, and all of the people with whom you interact, are part of your (possibly nonexistent) reality. You don’t experience us directly; you experience us indirectly through your senses, in the same way that you experience the (possibly nonexistent) chair you’re sitting on. Do you truly question the existence of all the people in your life?
9. You’ve written:
You’ve argued against my position and labeled me a cognitive cripple. Are you truly comfortable with the idea that you are arguing against, and criticizing, a nonexistent person — a phantom? Or do you actually believe that I exist, as I strongly suspect you do?
10. If I don’t exist, what accounts for the fact that I seem to be presenting arguments against your claims? Do those arguments come literally from nowhere?
11. By all appearances, length measurements of wood scrap #1 are constrained to give answers of roughly 14.9 inches, and measurements of wood scrap #2 are constrained to give answers of roughly 5.2 inches. If reality doesn’t exist, what is doing the constraining?
Or if nothing is doing the constraining, then what accounts for the consistency? Sheer luck?
From One-minute Answers to Anti-Mormon questions:
keiths,
I suggest you need to offer a definition or some sort of hint about what you think you mean by “reality”. Without having some common ground about what is meant by a word you are using in a sentence, little progress (insofar as that is possible) will be made and little useful will emerge and you will remain lost in a semantic fog of repetition.
Ditto for existence.
Ditto for measurement.
Edited
Thinking about this for a moment (need to get into gear soon as folks are coming for al fresco lunch and plancha needs cleaning), can the statement “reality exists” be either questioned or supported? Is it worth asking? Why or why not if we cannot agree what either reality or existence entail?
Have to say this bizarre use of the Sandbox thread reminds me of the late Professor Emeritus John A. Davison and his single-thread blogs.
Plus ça change…
Why did you not suggest it as soon as somebody was adamant about that somehow it’s important to avoid the error of thinking that length is real?
Now it is too little, too late, and addressed at the wrong person.
It’s pretty simple. You acknowledge you could be incorrect. Therefore whatever it is you are doing is speculation.
If you think this is a non-sequitur, then you are just adding more nonsense to your hitherto accumulated nonsense that has been proven to be nonsense.
It was easy to demonstrate that Neil World and similar positions are not coherent. You have not demonstrated anything to the contrary, and you have not demonstrated anything wrong with my position.
Just demonstrations focused on the topic please. No other blather.
I take philosophical positions very seriously. Neil, as an educator, should take his positions seriously too, not be sloppy, always be focused on the pedagogical value of his statements. But he prefers to be dogmatic nonsensicalist, bringing up the concept of “real” where it had no bearing to the discussion at hand and was outside his area of expertise.
Anyway, the topic has exhausted itself. It went as badly as usual in TSZ.
Alan,
Definitions aren’t the issue here. What’s in dispute is the viability of the hypothesis that nothing exists beyond our conceptual and perceptual models. I find that hypothesis untenable, for reasons already given. Flint disagrees.
This relates to the question of whether it is reasonable to refer to the “true length” of an object, as I do in my argument regarding exact numbers and inexact measurements (the argument that Flint and Jock have been avoiding, literally for months).
I think that objects exist and have objective properties including length, and that it is therefore perfectly reasonable to speak of the “true length” of something. Ultimate reality might be quite different from how we perceive it, but I maintain that there is something “out there” in objective reality that corresponds to what we refer to as length, and that this accounts for the fact that repeatedly measuring the length of an object gives consistent results.
Flint and Neil see length as merely a convenient fiction that we employ in our models. I await an explanation from Flint of why, if there is nothing “out there” beyond our models, length measurements nevertheless produce consistent results. See questions #2 and #11 in my list.
Sorry I’ve disappointed you, Erik. On the other hand, questions on reality and existence provided great entertainment at lunch, chez Fox. Someone even said I should try an act at the Edinburgh fringe.
I’ll try, but I think by now that it’s futile.
OK, I see a problem already. I have never said reality doesn’t exist. I said that IF it exists, we can’t know it. Our models operate on the assumption that reality does exist, and as such are subject to constant extension and refinement. But I don’t need to be convinced that our models and reality are the same thing, or approaching the same thing. An underlying reality, as I’ve said, is an excellent, useful working hypothesis which might be true.
Again, I don’t say reality doesn’t exist. I think our models are approximating your view of reality, and your view may be correct. It certain works well.
Offhand, I can’t think of any model of anything which cannot be updated, modified, extended, refined, improved, etc. If that were not possible, models would be useless.
As I understand it, you are interacting with a well-supported body of perceptions, mediated by increasingly appropriate instrumentation. But think back to our discussion about error ranges, and realize that you are interacting with an approximation of reality at the very least, with margins of error.
By proposing that reality actually does exist, and refining our models on that basis. This works. I think we are constantly approaching “reality” but can never fully reach it. So we have to believe it exists, but not go overboard in our beliefs. My neighbors believe they talk to Jesus every day, and for them Jesus is more real than any mere earthly object or phenomenon. They have found a compatible reality their model fits perfectly. Their belief in Jesus rests on evidence fully as convincing as your belief in your own reality.
I don’t understand this question. I know about solipsism. I don’t find it persuasive. I think it’s foolish, and ultimately useless, to doubt everything.
I do what everyone does – I assume reality exists. This assumption has a lot of advantages. That’s what I meant by a working model.
Of course not. Once again, I try to distinguish between there being no reality, and there being no knowable reality. I think our knowledge has limits beyond which we can go only by assuming.
I consider it a bit crippling to hold any beliefs which one cannot challenge. Maybe it would help to consider reality to be a theory. Theories can never be proved, because they are not facts. They can be forever increasingly well supported, but they remain theories regardless of the support level. The support for the theory of an underlying objective reality is comprehensive, but theories are not facts.
Hopefully I’m making it clear that you are not presenting arguments against my position, and never have. You are objecting to a misunderstanding. So I do think if I claim that an underlying reality is a theory, that theories can only be supported but never proved, providing more and more support changes nothing.
Gould wrote that most people have a sort of gradient of certainty running downhill from fact to theory to speculation to guess. He tried to explain that facts and theories are NOT different levels of certainty at all. They are qualitatively different things.
Of course not. As I said, trotting out more and more support for your theory doesn’t “prove” your theory.
Flint,
That was an impressive attempt at avoiding questions while trying to make it appear that you were answering them. Did you really think I wouldn’t notice?
Regarding #1, you wrote:
You said “IF it exists”. You consider the nonexistence of reality to be a reasonable, live possibility. And not just a reasonable possibility — you’ve actually disparaged people who believe the opposite — that reality does exist — as “crippled minds” leaning on a “cognitive crutch”.
Thus it makes perfect sense for me to begin questions with “If reality doesn’t exist…” I’m not misrepresenting you in the slightest.
You didn’t answer the question, which was simple and direct:
Fill in the blank: If reality doesn’t exist, Keith stubbed his toe on ___________.
Did I stub my toe on the model? Did I stub my toe on nothing at all? My own answer is that I stubbed my toe on a chair, which exists in reality. What’s your answer?
Regarding #2, you wrote
…which doesn’t answer the question.
The question was simple and direct:
Fill in the blank: If reality doesn’t exist, those repeatable numbers come from ____________.
Regarding #3, you wrote
…which doesn’t answer the question.
The question was simple and direct:
Please answer the question.
keiths:
Flint:
Thank you! That was an actual answer. It leads to a couple of follow-up questions:
4a. A “well-supported body of perceptions” of what? If reality doesn’t exist, they can’t be perceptions of reality. Are they perceptions of the model? Of nothing at all? Something else?
4b. If reality doesn’t exist, then our instruments don’t exist. You are suggesting that we use nonexistent instruments to make observations of… something, or maybe nothing. How do you make sense of that? How does one go about using nonexistent instruments?
The “approximation of reality” is my model. I am not performing experiments on my model; I’m performing them on reality and updating my model accordingly. If I were performing the experiments on my model, I would never get results that contradicted it, and there would never be a reason to update it.
keiths:
Flint:
So we are modeling a nonexistent reality by pretending that it exists? How does that work? If reality doesn’t exist, there is nothing to model, and nothing to judge our models against.
If reality doesn’t exist, what is this “reality” in quotation marks that we are approaching? How do we know that we are approaching it?
So you now count yourself among the “crippled minds” leaning on the “cognitive crutch” of a belief in the existence of reality? You now believe that we have to be cognitive cripples?
Are you saying that you, of all people, think their religious beliefs are perfectly rational, based on the evidence? I don’t. I think they clash with the evidence and don’t make sense. That’s why I’m not a believer.
keiths:
Flint:
It’s a simple question, but allow me to rephrase it. If reality doesn’t exist, do you nevertheless believe that your body does exist? If so, why? What makes you think that your body exists, if the rest of reality doesn’t?
,
The question isn’t about solipsism, nor is it about doubting everything. I’m simply asking whether, if reality doesn’t exist, you still believe that your body exists.
keiths:
Flint:
I’m not asking about your assumptions. You’re avoiding the question, which is simple and direct. Let me try again: If reality doesn’t exist, what is it that our senses are sensing? Nothing at all? The model? Something else?
keiths:
Flint:
No, you’ve made it quite clear that you’re not merely questioning the knowability of reality — you’re questioning its very existence. For example, in the comment I’m responding to, you wrote:
That’s a big “IF”, so to speak. You’re questioning whether it actually exists, not merely whether it is knowable.
Please own your statements. You wrote them.
If you’re uncomfortable with the notion that the people in your life might not actually exist, then you’re uncomfortable with a (heretofore unrecognized) implication of your stated position.
keiths:
Flint:
That doesn’t answer the question, which was simple and direct. If reality doesn’t exist, are you arguing against an imaginary person? An imaginary “cognitive cripple”? How can I exist if reality doesn’t? Do you think I’m not a part of (the possibly nonexistent) reality?
keiths:
Flint:
You’re dodging the question. Let me try again: You are reading words on a (possibly nonexistent) screen, words that give every appearance of coming from a real, live person. If reality doesn’t exist, then that person doesn’t exist. In that case, where are the words coming from? Why do they form intelligible sentences in the English language, expressing thoughts regarding the topic at hand? Is it just a massive coincidence?
keiths:
Flint:
You haven’t answered the question, which was simple and direct. If reality doesn’t exist, what constrains repeated length measurements of scrap #1 to produce answers around 14.9 inches while those of scrap #2 produce answers around 5.2 inches? They can’t be constrained by a nonexistent reality, after all. Or if you think they aren’t constrained, then why are the results so consistent?
Look, Flint — it’s obvious that your position is a mess. It’s just not defensible. Your inability to answer my questions, and your determination to avoid many of them, makes it clear that you know that. Why not own up to that, and then change your position to something more solid?
If you ever grasp the notion of reading for comprehension and posting in good faith, maybe I’ll be back. But so far, you have been relentlessly dishonest.
You’re not fooling anyone, Flint. If you could actually defend your position, you would answer my questions instead of avoiding them.
I don’t get why this is so hard for you. You made an argument on an internet blog. It didn’t work out. Your argument had a lot of flaws that you were unaware of. They were pointed out to you, and now you know. Why not just acknowledge the problems, revise your position, and move on?
Someone once asked me:
Flint,
It appears that the point I made regarding the people in your life — namely, that to doubt the existence of reality means to doubt the existence of those people — hit home with you.
I wrote:
You responded:
For you to no longer question the existence of reality, but merely its knowability, would be significant progress. Can you go along with that?
That would be good. I would caution, however, that such a step can’t erase the awkwardness of your position with respect to the people in your life. If reality is unknowable, and the people in your life are part of reality, then the people in your life are also unknowable, which you presumably don’t believe. (I certainly don’t.)
In fact, there is still the question of whether those people exist at all. After all, to know that they exist is to know something about reality. If reality is unknowable, then you can’t know that they exist, or anything about them, which is awkward.
My own position is that reality exists, that the people (and other beings) in my life are part of reality, and that I can partially know it, and them. That friendly cashier at the local 7-11 exists. Shelley exists, and is a serious-minded libertarian. John exists, and he’s the guy I took that epic trip with after college. Kmart exists, and is the cat I found in the parking lot of the identically-named big-box retailer. And so on.
Don’t you agree that reality exists, that other beings exist, and that we can know things about both?
Circling back to the original question: if we can know that other people exist, and if we can know things about them such as the color of their eyes or the dryness of their sense of humor, why can’t we know that objects exist, and know things about them including their length?
I think we have a genuine example of incommensurability here.
From Wikpedia: “Commensurability is a concept in the philosophy of science whereby scientific theories are said to be “commensurable” if scientists can discuss the theories using a shared nomenclature that allows direct comparison of them to determine which one is more valid or useful. On the other hand, theories are incommensurable if they are embedded in starkly contrasting conceptual frameworks whose languages do not overlap sufficiently to permit scientists to directly compare the theories or to cite empirical evidence favoring one theory over the other.”
People with “starkly contrasting conceptual frameworks” can keep on talking around and around each other, but if their “languages do not overlap sufficiently to permit [them] to directly compare the theories or to cite empirical evidence favoring one theory over the other”, they will be forever getting no closer to any common understanding.
I think I can see bit of both of the incommensurable conceptual frameworks bumping into each other here, but I’m pretty sure they are philosophical perspectives for which there is not empirical evidence favoring one over the other.
aleta:
That isn’t what’s happening here. Our (Flint’s and my) conceptual frameworks and language do overlap sufficiently. It’s just that we disagree about what’s true. He thinks that reality may not exist, and that those of us who believe that it does are “crippled minds” relying on a “cognitive crutch”. I obviously dispute that. I understand what he’s saying. It isn’t gobbledygook. However, I disagree with it. Our views are commensurable, but different. Disagreement does not by itself indicate incommensurability.
To see that our frameworks and language are commensurable, look no further than the 11 questions I posed to him. Those questions get at the awkwardness and weaknesses of Flint’s position, and they do so precisely because I understand what he is claiming. Without that understanding, I would have been unable to discern those weaknesses and formulate questions that address them. My questions hit their target, which is why Flint is trying so hard to evade them.
Again, the problem is not incommensurability. We can in fact judge each others’ positions based on reason and evidence. This isn’t simply a matter of differing philosophical presuppositions.
Take the issue of other people. I’m sure you agree that other people exist and that you are interacting with some of them here at TSZ. In other words, you accept that other people are real. Flint and I also accept this. What Flint overlooked, when he proposed that reality might not exist (and that those of us who assert that it does are cognitive cripples), is that the nonexistence of reality would imply the nonexistence of other people. He doesn’t like that implication, now that he’s aware of it, which is a reason that he needs to rethink his position.
Note that I was able to understand his position, which is how I identified this flaw. He was able to understand my objection, which is why he responded as he did. And I predict that you are able to understand all of this as well. It isn’t difficult. It can be boiled down to a couple of sentences: “If people are real, they are part of reality. Therefore if reality doesn’t exist, people do not exist.”
It’s just a question of logic, and of the direct implication of Flint’s claims regarding reality. Any putative differences in our philosophical presuppositions aren’t relevant when the question is one of simple logic, as this one is.
We’re dealing with shared concepts and shared language here. It’s just that Flint didn’t understand what was implied by the position he took within that shared context, while I did.
True, but not the case in this discussion. In this discussion, some people use concepts and statements that are so far over their heads that they end up in atrocious inconsistency and incoherence. About such people you cannot say that they have a conceptual framework. They may use concepts, but there is no framework, no leg to stand on.
A review of how we got here:
Over a month ago, I commented on Jock’s peculiar explanation of why two real numbers (which he redundantly calls the “infinite precision reals”, or “IPRs”) can never be approximately equal. He wrote:
And:
My reaction:
The strangeness of Jock’s reasoning was not lost on aleta, who wrote:
As you can see, Jock had placed himself in the awkward position of denying that those two numbers are approximately equal, which is ridiculous. As a way out of the awkwardness, he proposed a new category of numbers, the “truncated numbers”, that exist in the domain of applied math, and are therefore inexact. (Lots of problems there, I know. My analysis of the entire mess can be found here.)
Anyway, Flint joined the fray:
Which led me to once again state my argument for why exact numbers can be (and are) used to express inexact measurements (here and here).
Neil then looked at my argument and commented:
That gave birth to the long discussion concerning lengths (distances), in which
a) Neil (and Flint, and Jock) argued that the SAM (the “subtended-angle method”) and the YSM (the “yardstick method”) don’t measure the same thing, which suggests to Neil that distance (or length) does not “come from nature”, and
b) Flint argued that reality might or might not exist, and that in either case length (or distance) was a concept in our models but not an attribute of things out there in objective reality.
Neither of those arguments panned out, and so here we are. It remains to be seen whether they can come up with a sound argument for why length isn’t an objective property and why it’s therefore wrong to speak of an object’s “true length”, as I do in my argument.
And I find that a persuasive way of regarding reality and our attempts at understanding, observing and modelling it.
What’s funny is that even if Neil and Flint had succeeded in showing that it was illegitimate for me to refer to “true length” in my argument, it would have made no difference.
N&F&J all accept the existence of measurement error. To the world at large, measurement error is defined as the difference between a measured value and the corresponding true value (or “actual value”), as shown by result after result when you google “measurement error”.
Since Neil and Flint deny the existence of true length, they were forced to come up with something to substitute for it in the measurement error equation. A bit of handwaving followed, but both of them claimed that there was some sort of reference value X that could stand in for true length in that equation.
Here’s the thing: I could easily substitute whatever “reference value X” they came up with for “true length” in my argument, and the argument would lose none of its force. So their long, failed attempt to show that length isn’t real would have been fruitless even if it had succeeded.
We’re left with an argument that I first made in January and which Flint and Jock have been too frightened to address, despite being asked repeatedly to do so, for months. The argument shows that exact numbers can be (and are) used to express inexact measurements. Therefore the new category of numbers that F&J invented — the “measurement-derived reals”, or “MDRs” — are completely unnecessary. They “solve” a nonexistent problem.
The point has been made exhaustively that context matters.
keiths:
Alan:
You’re welcome to explain how “context matters” leads to the conclusion that exact numbers — aka the real numbers — cannot be used to express inexact measurements.
Do you have an idea what the context was? Do you have an idea what the word means? Because, you see, in context it was completely unwarranted for Neil to start talking about length being unreal. As to about nautical mile and statute mile being incommensurate, this was both false and unwarranted by the context.
You evidently lack rudimentary reading comprehension.
Your repeated assertions of personal incredulity are given the weight they deserve.
keiths:
Jock:
Maybe so. If you have addressed my argument — and I mean addressed my argument, and the reasoning contained therein — then please provide a link (or links) and copy and paste the relevant parts here.
Again, I am talking about examples of where you have addressed the actual argument, not just references to places where you have argued for your position and against mine. You’ve obviously done the latter, but if you’ve done the former, it escaped my notice.
When I’ve asked you and Flint to address the argument, I’ve heard nothing in response but silence.
The difference between pure maths and number theory and pragmatic use of mathematical models in modelling “reality”. The elision between the two mid-sentence is tiresome.
Why you are surprised by this is a mystery.
The history and the development of mathematical models was at times quite interesting. People do not need to be bludgeoned over the head.
keiths, to Jock:
Alan:
I’m not surprised at all. It’s par for the course. That’s how F&J react when confronted with an argument they cannot refute.
They’d be engaged in a vigorous back-and-forth with me. I would ask them to address that argument. (This happened with other arguments of mine, too.) They would suddenly fall silent, or change the subject. It isn’t hard to figure out why.
Think about it. We’re talking about Jock and Flint here. If they had actually seen a flaw in my argument, they would have jumped on it immediately. Wild horses couldn’t have stopped them.
Instead… silence. Despite being asked repeatedly to address it. They might as well have hung signs around their necks reading “We can’t see anything wrong with your argument. Please don’t make us confront it.”
keiths,
You’re mistaken. People give up with you because you are, well, avoiding being too blunt, no fun.
Alan:
If that had been the reason, then F&J would have simply stopped interacting with me. They didn’t. The discussion continued full bore. They didn’t ignore me — they ignored the argument.
What was “no fun” for them was being confronted with an argument they couldn’t refute.
I don’t think anyone else here is as obsessed with refuting your arguments as you are with winning them.
Alan:
Alan, meet Flint and Jock. No objective person who’s been following this months-long discussion could have any doubts that F&J would love to be able to refute my arguments. Indeed, when they think they have spotted an error, they pounce. Which is fine. That’s exactly what they should do. TSZ is a site for discussion and debate, so it’s entirely appropriate for them to point out any errors they think I’ve made. I welcome that, and I reserve the right to reciprocate. That’s what TSZ is for.
What I won’t do is pretend that I’m wrong in order to mollify you or anyone else, if I don’t actually believe that. Nor will I refrain from debating at a site that is intended for that very purpose, simply because you don’t like it. I’ve known you for over a decade, and I’ve observed that it’s difficult for you to accept this, but everyone’s views, including yours, are subject to criticism here. No one is exempt, and anyone participating here should do so with the full awareness that others may disagree with them, may express that disagreement, and are not obligated to stay quiet just because someone finds it unpleasant to have their claims and arguments challenged. I hope you are someday able to come to terms with the fact that TSZ is actually intended to be a place for discussion and debate, and not a place for tiptoeing around people who don’t like criticism or can only tolerate it up to a point.
I will continue to treat TSZ as a, um, skeptical zone. You’ll just need to accept that. TSZ’s purpose is not to please you, but rather to serve as a place where discussion, disagreement, and debate are all expected and encouraged.
Agreed. How is one supposed to respond if a careful and good-faith effort to answer questions is rejected as a bunch of evasions? So we each see the other as posting in bad faith, basically due to the mutual inability to understand each other – which is rather naturally taken as the refusal to listen. We each regard our viewpoints as being so transparently obvious and correct that no honest (and intelligent) person could legitimately disagree. Eventually, the result is that attempted discussion devolves into mutual contempt.
I laugh sometimes thinking about how astonished Alan and some others here would be if they could observe how non-confrontational I am in my daily life. Why the difference? Confrontation is situational for me, and I suspect for most people. There are times and places where confrontation is productive and/or necessary, and there are times and places where it is not helpful and may even be counterproductive.
A classic example of the latter is when the relatives are over for dinner and your crazy uncle starts talking about QAnon or some other conspiracy theory. You know he’s wrong, and in other circumstances you might be inclined to argue with him, but you refrain in this instance because you suspect it will escalate and ruin what is otherwise a pleasant family dinner. Instead of arguing with your uncle, you change the subject. There are lots of times and places in real life where confrontation simply doesn’t make sense.
TSZ is not one of them. We are supposed to discuss and debate here, and I’m aligned with that purpose, so debate I do. If it upsets people like Alan, so be it. I prioritize the intended purposes of TSZ over his comfort.
As I’ve said, confrontation is situational, for me and probably for most people. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if I could sit down for a beer with Flint, or Jock, or even Alan, and actually have an enjoyable time. I have no more reason to assume that their behavior in real life matches their behavior at TSZ than they do to assume the same of me.
At TSZ, I’m here to discuss and debate. It bothers me when others try to obstruct the discussion, as when Flint and Jock refuse to address some of the arguments I make. That runs counter to the purpose of TSZ, it’s unhelpful, and that is why I criticize it.
It’s been over nine years. Recently, I’ve been more on the “Don’t be Frank Fontaine” side of this, and I try to cut keiths a break.
Flint:
How is the conversation supposed to progress if one party refuses to address the questions and arguments of the other? You have refused to address my argument regarding exact numbers and inexact measurements, literally for months. How is that operating in good faith?
You haven’t merely refused to address the argument. You’ve refused to even acknowledge it, or to explain why you won’t respond. That isn’t acting in good faith, and I won’t pretend that it is.
Similarly with the 11 questions I’ve posted regarding your views of reality. Had you just slightly skirted one or two of them, your denial might have some plausibility, but you blatantly evaded almost all of them, as I’ve shown. That isn’t good faith.
Still, I have a proposal for getting past this. Let’s assume that you weren’t trying to evade my questions, but merely misunderstood almost every one of them. In that case, allow me to rephrase the questions until you do understand them. Then you can answer, and I’ll have a much better understanding of your position. Let’s go over them one at a time, in order to make the discussion easier to read. Deal?
Here’s the first one:
You responded:
You seem to have misunderstood my question, because your response doesn’t address it. Here’s what I’m asking: I stubbed my toe on something, and it hurt. I believe that I stubbed my toe on a real chair — that is, a chair that exists in reality. If reality doesn’t exist, then that chair doesn’t exist. In that case, what did I stub my toe on? Please fill in the blank:
If reality doesn’t exist, Keith stubbed his toe on ________.
If you consider good faith well intentioned and careful answers to your “arguments” as being evasions or refusal to address, who is really obstructing the discussion? ALL of your questions have been answered ad nauseum by now, but unless these answers presume, are based on, support and ratify your convictions, you reject them as “refusal to answer”. It’s quite apparent you believe that there is only one correct way to see things, and anyone who sees anything differently is being obstructive. Along with words like “commensurate” and “number” and “reality”, it seems like “discussion” is a word for which there is no translation between viewpoints.
I carefully and fully answered every one of your questions, directly and after some thought, one by one. By doing so, I made it clear that I was willing to answer and discuss. And here you label every single answer a blatant evasion!!!
Needless to say, this is not good faith. This is flat-out disishonest. Why should anyone bother to try? To me, good faith at least requires some apparent EFFORT to understand the answers. I see knee-jerk rejection for dishonest reasons. Good faith? Good grief! Almost every question you asked simply could not be answered except in your terms. That’s cheating. Nearly every question blatantly mischaracterized what I have been saying, and then demanded that I defend your mischaracterization. That’s cheating. That is NOT discussion.
Flint,
As I said:
I rephrased question #1 at the end of this comment.