The nature of truth

[solicitr]

Is Hulme's "post-normal science" really science? Is it just a new label on a political or philosophical response to science, the likes of which date back for centuries at least?

No, I don't think it is. It's political propaganda tricked out in scientific regalia. But it's being sold as "science," which from my fuddy-duddy perspective is very problematic, even dangerous. That way lieth Lysenkoism.

[Primula Baggins]

Whereas plenty of people would say precisely the same thing about deniers of anthropogenic warming.

But that's a topic for another forum.

[vison]

Whereas plenty of people would say precisely the same thing about deniers of anthropogenic warming.

But that's a topic for another forum.

At this point, AFAIC, the "truth" of AGW isn't the issue at all.

Summers are hotter everywhere, oceans warmer and deeper - which means more violent storms - glaciers and ice sheets melting, desertification and/or salination destroying millions of acres of farmland, pine beetles devastating the western pine forests, river flows decreasing, continental interior great lakes shrinking, fish stocks vanishing, tundra sinking, permafrost melting (and releasing yet MORE CO2) - and we sit and argue about what's causing it.

Personally, I don't think it can be stopped or changed, I think we've gone beyond the tipping point, and we better get our s**t together and start planning for the inevitable. Otherwise, Hurricane Katrina is going to be but the first of many catastrophes.

And, of course, we should stop spewing uncountable tons of poison into the air, the water, and the earth.

[solicitr]

As Jack Nicholson's Joker asked, "Who do you trust?"

This is I think a very interesting question. As Ax observed, only in the purely ideal realms like mathematics and formal logic is there Absolute Truth. But setting that aside, the only things we "know" are those things we observe personally, with our own senses. Everything else we "know" comes from something somebody else told us. Mostly, we believe them. This is essential to humanity; we are who and what we are precisely because thanks to the unique gift of language experience can be shared and knowledge concatenated.

But believing 'knowledge' that comes from others, often strangers, is really a matter of trust, only partially leavened by critical thinking. When we dismiss the Troofer claim that "fire can't melt steel," most of us, those who aren't ourselves blacksmiths or firemen, reject it as spurious because we are more disposed to trust blacksmiths and firemen (whom we assume know what they're talking about, and aren't lying), and the material properties which we derive from engineering and science.

Science, in particular, is that which we moderns are very conditioned to trust, or believe (which amounts to much the same thing). Lawyers and judges have observed the "CSI effect," where thanks to the TV show jurors are now more insistent on "scientific" evidence.... and more trusting of it, as well.

Now, we aren't in the same boat as our ancestors, who took what the Church said on faith, on no firmer ground than the Argument from Authority ("because we say so," or its rather more insidious version, "because we're the experts.") We don't take science on blind faith; science has spent 350 years earning the trust we place in it. Partly of course because it has produced the wonders of the technological age. But more to the point, because science has a method and a process, a series of protocols based around concepts like falsifiablity, verifiability, reproducibility, transparency- a "marketplace of ideas," if you will, where the ideas are not mere opinion but propositions which can be checked. Therefore we are disposed to accept that, sooner or later, what "science" tells us is true: we trust its vetting process.

But then there is Lysenko: "science" with the self-corrective process disabled. Lysenkoism didn't become a horror of needless deaths because it was a crappy theory, but because it was a crappy theory immunized from skepticism and critique, which are the driving forces of scientific truthseeking. No Soviet scientist dared speak a word, lest he fancied the Gulag or the Lubyanka. Science without its self-corrective dynamics becomes no more than religion.

[yovargas]

I still don't know what this thread is about.
But I've noticed in the past that people often confuse "knowledge" with "truth".

[axordil]

But I've noticed in the past that people often confuse "knowledge" with "truth".

Indeed. Or truth with reality, or truth with rightness, or truth with certainty. The concepts all overlap, and not only semantically.

[Inanna]

But I've noticed in the past that people often confuse "knowledge" with "truth".

Indeed. Or truth with reality, or truth with rightness, or truth with certainty. The concepts all overlap, and not only semantically.

I would need definitions of all of them. Then we can see whether they overlap, and how. How can we discuss constructs till we have defined them?

[axordil]

That's the point. In defining them we shade the discussion. Definitions are an attempt to pin down bits of truth, aren't they?

[Inanna]

That's the point. In defining them we shade the discussion. Definitions are an attempt to pin down bits of truth, aren't they?

Interesting. I don't know what you exactly mean by "pin down bits of truth", however.

(Neither did I understand the context of solicitr's mutliple posts in the last page, but well... )

[axordil]

A definition of a word is an attempt to say: this word means THIS, and not something else. All other meanings are false, while this one (or more usually these ones) are true.

[Primula Baggins]

Is there any word in the English language for which that is true?

[River]

That's the point. In defining them we shade the discussion. Definitions are an attempt to pin down bits of truth, aren't they?

Interesting. I don't know what you exactly mean by "pin down bits of truth", however.

(Neither did I understand the context of solicitr's mutliple posts in the last page, but well... )

What we have here is a classic case of science people trying to talk to humanities people. The science people are going and the humanities people are going .

Seriously though, how does one move forward without defining terms?

[axordil]

Seriously though, how does one move forward without defining terms?

Depends on how high you want to build on the foundation of meringue we normally accept as "given."

[Inanna]

Seriously though, how does one move forward without defining terms?

Depends on how high you want to build on the foundation of meringue we normally accept as "given."

Oh, please, answer in English. This is driving me insane.

[axordil]

Look at a dictionary, which is a collection of words and their definitions, which depend on words. There's no escape.

As it happens, since words usually get used in reference to objects and actions in the concrete, empirical world, the underpinnings are invisible and it's not that big a deal. But when you start trying to define logical/philosophical/semantic/epistemological terms, which don't have concrete referents as a rule, it gets sticky.

Mathematics has the same issue, as Kurt Godel pointed out.

[JewelSong]

When this thread started, I thought that I had no idea what it was about.

Now I am certain.

[axordil]

Well, then, my work here is finished.

[Primula Baggins]

Sounds as if it's time to go make cookies.

[Frelga]

What we have here is a classic case of science people trying to talk to humanities people. The science people are going and the humanities people are going .

[vison]

Is there any word in the English language for which that is true?

Belief.