Occam vs. Parsimony

[jan]

First example:

Assume we have a very easy theory to predict/explain all the observable kinds of particles. Unfortunatly, our theory also predicts a particle called "bogon" that has no mass, no charge, no color &c. and is undetectable and will be forever, regardless of any future scientific progress.

We could modify our theory to avoid the assumption of the existence of those metaphysical bogons, but that alternative theory would be more complicated and completely ad hoc, since we don't know of any reason why the bogons shouldn't exist.

Second example:

It seems as if some of the fundamental physical constants are fine-tuned to enable life. A usual explanation is that our universe is just one among many, probably infinite many other universes, and that most (whatever "most" may mean in this context) universes don't contain life. Of course, chances to observe those other universes are dim, so the assumption of the existence of those other universes is just a metaphysical one.

And now: stand and deliver!

So the question I am asking is this: should we favour parsimony of entities, or parsimony of explanation? There might be a short and elegant theory that requires infinite many universes to work, or a clumsy, roundabout theory smelling of ad-hocs that requires just those entities we are able to observe. Which kind of parsimony is the right one?

[Chaos]

First example: Question ill posed
If there is no way to detect "bogons", they obviously exert no influence whatsoever on the universe. SO, why are they necessary for our theory?


Second example: Question ill posed
If we have no way examining other universes, and if these universes do in no way interact with other universe, we can never prove either theory, but on the other hand it does not matter which theory is right. This is not about Occam, this is more like Zen - "what is the sound of one hand clapping", and so on...

[Stimpson J. Cat]

jan,

I chose "ill-posed". If a scientific theory is posed properly, then parsimony of explanation and parsimony of entities are equivalent. I will explain, but first I will address your examples.

First example:

Assume we have a very easy theory to predict/explain all the observable kinds of particles. Unfortunately, our theory also predicts a particle called "bogon" that has no mass, no charge, no color &c. and is undetectable and will be forever, regardless of any future scientific progress.

We could modify our theory to avoid the assumption of the existence of those metaphysical bogons, but that alternative theory would be more complicated and completely ad hoc, since we don't know of any reason why the bogons shouldn't exist.

Is the existence of the bogon necessary to logically derive the testable predictions of the theory? If not, then it should be eliminated. Furthermore, if it is not, then eliminating them cannot possibly make the explanation more complicated. The idea that eliminating them would require additional complication implies that they play some logical role in the predictions, which would have to be taken over by something else in order to eliminate them.

If they are necessary to logically derive the predictions of the theory, then they are not unverifiable. On the contrary, verification of the predictions of the theory would constitute verification of the bogons. In fact, this is exactly how much of modern particle physics works.

Second example:

It seems as if some of the fundamental physical constants are fine-tuned to enable life. A usual explanation is that our universe is just one among many, probably infinite many other universes, and that most (whatever "most" may mean in this context) universes don't contain life. Of course, chances to observe those other universes are dim, so the assumption of the existence of those other universes is just a metaphysical one.

The above is not a scientific theory. Science currently has no explanation for the apparent "fine-tuning" of those constants, although there are many ideas of the form such a theory might take.

And now: stand and deliver!

So the question I am asking is this: should we favour parsimony of entities, or parsimony of explanation? There might be a short and elegant theory that requires infinite many universes to work, or a clumsy, roundabout theory smelling of ad-hocs that requires just those entities we are able to observe. Which kind of parsimony is the right one?

First of all, I should mention that there is a subtle difference between the principle of parsimony, and Occam's razor as it is currently used in science. The principle of parsimony is essentially that, when presented with multiple possible explanations, you should go with the simplest one, until such time as it is shown to be inadequate. I believe this is essentially what Occam had in mind when he made his statement about multiplying entities unnecessarily.

But, of course, that is far too vague to be useful in something rigorous like science. It leads to ambiguity over what constitutes an "entity", as well as what constitutes "necessary". This ambiguity appears to be what your questions are getting at.

Fortunately, when we start looking at the epistemology of science, and seeing why it actually works, it becomes clear exactly what "entity" and "necessary" mean, in the context of a scientific theory.

Consider that the way science works, is that we construct falsifiable theories, and then set about trying to falsify them. The theory must make testable predictions. When those predictions turn out to be correct, we accept that as supporting evidence for the theory.

But why are we able to do that? The mere fact that the predictions turned out to be correct does not prove that the theory is true. Clearly we need some sort of logical connection between the theory, and the predictions, in order to draw any conclusions about the validity of the theory from the success of the predictions.

In fact, what is necessary is exactly what I referred to before, in my response to your first example. If there are any claims within the theory which are not required to logically derive the predictions, then clearly success of the predictions says nothing about the validity of those claims.

So essentially this means that what constitutes an "entity" is a claim which is logically necessary to derive the predictions of the theory. Hence my prior claim that parsimony of entities and parsimony of explanation are, within the context of science, equivalent.

Another way to think of it is in terms of the idea of formal languages. For any logical framework, it is possible to construct a formal language, in which everything is defined solely in terms of the axioms of that framework. Any statement or question which can be considered meaningful within that system, must be constructible in that language. For science, this means that every component of the language must be completely defined in terms of observations. This means that if your theory includes claims which are not necessary to logically deduce the observational predictions of the theory, then your theory can not be expressed within that formal language. It is meaningless.

This approach also has the nice aspect of resolving all those nagging issues about whether you could have two different theories, both of which make the same predictions, and both of which are equally parsimonious. Since two such theories would have to be identical when translated into the formal language of science, it is clear that any apparent differences between them must be purely semantic.


Dr. Stupid

[Phil]

Stimpy copied all that off my paper.:)

Actually I don't think I would have explained it as thoroughly as he did, Jan, or as clearly, but I'm going with ill-posed.

[Yahzi]

Originally posted by jan
So the question I am asking is this: should we favour parsimony of entities, or parsimony of explanation?
Parsimony of entities. Parsimony of explanation is just silly. There is no metaphysical reason to prefer a simple explanation over a complex one.

However, there is a metaphysical reason to assume that objects which are indistinguishable from non-existant objects are in fact non-existant.

[ReasonableDoubt]

Originally posted by Yahzi

However, there is a metaphysical reason to assume that objects which are indistinguishable from non-existant objects are in fact non-existant. I'm curious as to what that reason might be. In the interim, some may find the following to be of interest:These considerations led me in the winter of 1919-20 to conclusions which I may now reformulate as follows. It is easy to obtain confirmations, or verifications, for nearly every theory-if we look for confirmations. Confirmations should count only if they are the result of risky predictions;that is to say, if, unenlightened by the theory in question, we should have expected an event which was incompatible with the theory-an event which would have refuted the theory. Every "good" scientific theory is a prohibition: it forbids certain things to happen. The more a theory forbids, the better it is. A theory which is not refutable by any conceivable event is nonscientific. Irrefutability is not a virtue of theory (as people often think) but a vice. Every genuine test of a theory is an attempt to falsify it, or to refute it. Testability is falsifiability; but there are degrees of testability; some theories are more testable, more exposed to refutation, than others; they take, as it were, greater risks. Confirming evidence should not count except when it is the result of agenuine test of the theory; and this means that it can be presented as a serious but unsuccessful attempt to falsify the theory. (I now speak in such cases of"corroborating evidence.") Some genuinely testable theories, when found to be false, are still upheld by their admirers-for example by introducing ad hoc some auxiliary assumption, or by re-interpreting theory ad hoc in such a way that it escapes refutation. Such a procedure is always possible, but it rescues the theory from refutation only at the price of destroying, or at least lowering, its scientific status. (I later described such a rescuing operation as a "conventionalist twist" or a "conventionaliststratagem. ")One can sum up all this by saying that the criterion of the scientific status of a theory is its falsifiability, or refutability, or testability.

- see Science: Conjectures and Refutations (http://www.olemiss.edu/courses/psy621/Readings/Sir%20Karl%20Popper.htm), by Sir Karl Popper

[jan]

Originally posted by Chaos
If there is no way to detect "bogons", they obviously exert no influence whatsoever on the universe. SO, why are they necessary for our theory?


I will make a little toy universe to explain what I had in mind. In our toy universe, there are n different features a particle either can have or not have. If a particle has a certain feature, this can be used to detect the particle. Now a naïve theory claims that all 2^n possible combinations of features exist. Some of them are already known to the inhabitants of the toy universe, some are discovered after the theory was first published. Finally, all 2^n particles have been discovered except the "bogon", the particle that lacks each and any of the n features.

It is easy to come up with another theory, "there are exactly 2^n-1 different kinds of particles, all possible combinations of features except the bogon". The problem is: the first theory makes a metaphysical claim, the second needs more words.

Of course the bogons are not necessary for a theory to work (the second theory doesn't have them). But that sounds more like the "bogons suck" than the "ill-posed" option.

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat

The above [parallel universes] is not a scientific theory. Science currently has no explanation for the apparent "fine-tuning" of those constants, although there are many ideas of the form such a theory might take.


I agree, it is clearly not science, but metaphysics. Hey, this is a post in the R&P-section :wink:. And it is unlikely that it will ever become a scientific theory. But I would say that metaphysics is not on the same level as eating small children. Sometimes something that started as a metaphysical theory can become a scientific theory.


Consider that the way science works, is that we construct falsifiable theories, and then set about trying to falsify them. The theory must make testable predictions. When those predictions turn out to be correct, we accept that as supporting evidence for the theory.


But usually not all predictions can be tested immidiatly. That is, I use to use the word "testable" with the meaning "testable with present tools". I am aware that others prefer the meaning "testable in principle", but my imagination seems to be insufficient to grasp what this could include and what not. That's why I said that a metaphysical claim may become a scientific claim one day. So it seems to me that any scientific theory has more or less some metaphysical excess.


But why are we able to do that? The mere fact that the predictions turned out to be correct does not prove that the theory is true. Clearly we need some sort of logical connection between the theory, and the predictions, in order to draw any conclusions about the validity of the theory from the success of the predictions.

In fact, what is necessary is exactly what I referred to before, in my response to your first example. If there are any claims within the theory which are not required to logically derive the predictions, then clearly success of the predictions says nothing about the validity of those claims.


If we have our theory as a set of axioms, we could ask what axioms we could omit without losing any of the empirical content of that theory. Of course, if we eliminate all those axioms, we have a smaller theory that is also a theory with less metaphysical claims. In this case, you are right: both kinds of parsimony are identical.

What I had in mind was a theory with a content that is partly empirical, partly metaphysical, but you also can't give up any of the axioms without losing some of the empirical content. Is such a case impossible? In its unformalized and rather naïve state, my first theory about my toy universe has only one axiom, makes some empirical predictions (the discovery of further particles), and if you eliminate its only axiom, it becomes void.

Now what happens if I try to restate that naïve theory as a scientific theory? Let's see...


Another way to think of it is in terms of the idea of formal languages. For any logical framework, it is possible to construct a formal language, in which everything is defined solely in terms of the axioms of that framework. Any statement or question which can be considered meaningful within that system, must be constructible in that language. For science, this means that every component of the language must be completely defined in terms of observations. This means that if your theory includes claims which are not necessary to logically deduce the observational predictions of the theory, then your theory can not be expressed within that formal language. It is meaningless.

This approach also has the nice aspect of resolving all those nagging issues about whether you could have two different theories, both of which make the same predictions, and both of which are equally parsimonious. Since two such theories would have to be identical when translated into the formal language of science, it is clear that any apparent differences between them must be purely semantic.


I am not sure if I understand you correct. Since I am not trying to defeat a strawman (at least not yet, being not yet that desperate), I will try to restate what I think to have understood.

A claim like "bogons exist" is unscientific the same way a prediction like "electrons exist" is just an abbreviation for "electrons are observable" which is just an abbreviation for "we are able to make certain observations that are organized by using the word 'electrons'." So to reformulate my naïve theory as a scientific theory, it would be impossible to say "all 2^n possible combinations of particles do exist". I could, instead, state, that "all 2^n possible combinations of particles are observable". This would be problematic, since it is an existence claim, but we could heal it by saying "that-and-that particle will be observed if we use accelerators with that-and-that energy", and so on. But besides that, the theory that all 2^n particles are observable is obviously false (the bogons are not observable). If I try to reformulate my two competing theories strictly in terms of what can be observed, than it turns out that their reformulations are identical.

That means, statements like "String Theory predicts electrons" or "String Theory predicts gravity" are just loose speaking.

I am not certain if I buy that. It seems to imply that there was no science before modern formal logic. I also doubt that scientists are that much concerned wether their theories can be formulated strictly in terms of observability (being lucky enough if just some parts of their theories are testable). And would you say that science is an attempt to find out how the real world out there works, or a tool to be able to predict observations? (Sorry if you have been asked this time and again, I'm just a sholar)

[jan]

Originally posted by Yahzi

However, there is a metaphysical reason to assume that objects which are indistinguishable from non-existant objects are in fact non-existant.

Originally posted by ReasonableDoubt
I'm curious as to what that reason might be.

Me too. The fact that I added a poll to this thread shouldn't be taken too seriously; it doesn't mean that I am much interested in your opinion without your reasons (hope that doesn't sound rude).


In the interim, some may find the following to be of interest: [...]

I guess a quote from Conjectures and Refutations is always welcome. But what might Popper have said about the current problem? What if we have a theory with brave empirical but also completly metaphysical claims and have no clue how to drive the knife to cut the good from the evil?

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Jan,

The above [parallel universes] is not a scientific theory. Science currently has no explanation for the apparent "fine-tuning" of those constants, although there are many ideas of the form such a theory might take.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I agree, it is clearly not science, but metaphysics. Hey, this is a post in the R&P-section . And it is unlikely that it will ever become a scientific theory.

No problem there. My point was simply that Occam's razor, as it is currently used in science, is specific and unambiguous, whereas the principle of parsimony is not. This means that if we consider your questions from the framework of science, they can be answered. If we do not, then they can not. Instead, all we can do is discuss the various ways that parsimony can be interpreted.

But I would say that metaphysics is not on the same level as eating small children.

No, I would put it more on the level of eating kittens. :p

Sometimes something that started as a metaphysical theory can become a scientific theory.

I would say that sometimes aspects of metaphysical theories end up being incorporated into scientific theories. There is not problem with this. On the contrary, I think it is exactly the approach which should be taken with respect to philosophy. Philosophy cannot answer questions, but it can help us figure out which questions to ask, and how to ask them in such a way that science can answer them. It is when this happens that metaphysical speculation becomes part of a scientific theory.

Consider that the way science works, is that we construct falsifiable theories, and then set about trying to falsify them. The theory must make testable predictions. When those predictions turn out to be correct, we accept that as supporting evidence for the theory.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

But usually not all predictions can be tested immidiatly.

That's no problem. Until such time as the theory can be tested, it is simply neither accepted nor rejected.

That is, I use to use the word "testable" with the meaning "testable with present tools". I am aware that others prefer the meaning "testable in principle", but my imagination seems to be insufficient to grasp what this could include and what not.

You can't always tell, but there are many hypothesis which, by construction, could never possibly be tested. Those are the ones which typically earn the label "metaphysical". Likewise, any hypothesis which does not at least propose some method for testing, no matter how technologically unfeasible, should not be considered a viable theory. Aspects of it may be incorporated into actual theories at a later date, but for right now, it is just speculation.

That's why I said that a metaphysical claim may become a scientific claim one day. So it seems to me that any scientific theory has more or less some metaphysical excess.

Not really. Such excesses are very commonly read into the interpretation of such theories, but that is not the same thing.

If we have our theory as a set of axioms, we could ask what axioms we could omit without losing any of the empirical content of that theory. Of course, if we eliminate all those axioms, we have a smaller theory that is also a theory with less metaphysical claims. In this case, you are right: both kinds of parsimony are identical.

What I had in mind was a theory with a content that is partly empirical, partly metaphysical, but you also can't give up any of the axioms without losing some of the empirical content. Is such a case impossible?

Exactly. Like I said, that is the beauty of the formal language approach. It makes it quite clear that empirical and non-empirical parts can be separated.

In its unformalized and rather naïve state, my first theory about my toy universe has only one axiom, makes some empirical predictions (the discovery of further particles), and if you eliminate its only axiom, it becomes void.

In its unformalized state, it cannot meaningfully be said to have any axioms. I guarantee you that, in order to create a formal theory with the characteristics you described, you will need many axioms. I am also quite confident that it can be formalized in such a way as to completely separate the empirical axioms from the non-empirical ones.

I am not sure if I understand you correct. Since I am not trying to defeat a strawman (at least not yet, being not yet that desperate), I will try to restate what I think to have understood.

A claim like "bogons exist" is unscientific the same way a prediction like "electrons exist" is just an abbreviation for "electrons are observable" which is just an abbreviation for "we are able to make certain observations that are organized by using the word 'electrons'." So to reformulate my naïve theory as a scientific theory, it would be impossible to say "all 2^n possible combinations of particles do exist". I could, instead, state, that "all 2^n possible combinations of particles are observable". This would be problematic, since it is an existence claim, but we could heal it by saying "that-and-that particle will be observed if we use accelerators with that-and-that energy", and so on. But besides that, the theory that all 2^n particles are observable is obviously false (the bogons are not observable). If I try to reformulate my two competing theories strictly in terms of what can be observed, than it turns out that their reformulations are identical.

It is even simpler than that. Once you forget about metaphysical notions of "existence", and concern yourself only with observable effects, the bogon is no longer even a viable state. It simply does not mean anything, within the context of science, to say that a particle exists which has no observable characteristics.

That means, statements like "String Theory predicts electrons" or "String Theory predicts gravity" are just loose speaking.

Basically, yeah. Human beings are not exactly designed to converse in the formal language of science. Instead, we use normal language, with specific formal definition when necessary, and simply do our best to make sure that our theories don't have any metaphysical baggage in them.

I am not certain if I buy that. It seems to imply that there was no science before modern formal logic.

Not at all. It simply means that we understand science better now than we used to. It is on a much more solid logical foundation now, then it was 100 years ago.

I also doubt that scientists are that much concerned wether their theories can be formulated strictly in terms of observability (being lucky enough if just some parts of their theories are testable).

In my experience, they definitely are. I know I certainly am. How strictly they adhere to this tends to vary with the discipline. For example, it is extremely important in physics. It is pretty much trivial in chemistry (not a lot of room for metaphysics there). It is often overlooked in biology, which is actually a big problem for that field. In psychology, it is either strictly adhered to, or pretty much ignored. I probably don't need to tell you my opinion of the research done by those who ignore it.

And would you say that science is an attempt to find out how the real world out there works, or a tool to be able to predict observations? (Sorry if you have been asked this time and again, I'm just a sholar)

Both. The only way we have to learn how the real world works, is by making predictions and testing them.


Dr. Stupid

[Dancing David]

Bogons? Bogons!

Now it is all clear!

They are the particle that makes qualia irreducible and metaphysics opaque!

They are in fact a p-particle!

[Suggestologist]

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat
[BThe only way we have to learn how the real world works, is by making predictions and testing them. [/B]

What about socially communicated information? Is that not a way to know how the world really works without testing predictions?

[espritch]

jan:
It seems as if some of the fundamental physical constants are fine-tuned to enable life.

I really don't see why this requires any special theory to explain. The universe had to be tuned some way. If it had been tuned differently, we just wouldn't be around to note the fact. From the point of view of bread mold, the piece of bread might appear to be remarkably fine-tuned to enable bread mold, but bread mold isn't the reason for bread.

Suggestologist:
What about socially communicated information? Is that not a way to know how the world really works without testing predictions?

Socially communicated information may be true or false. If the information is false, it doesn't really tell us anything about how the world works, only about how some people mistakenly think the world works. The only way to determine if socially communicated information is true or false is to test it.

[Yahzi]

Originally posted by ReasonableDoubt
I'm curious as to what that reason might be.
So you don't see any obvious, self-evident, indispensable reason why objects which are defined to be non-existant should be considered not to exist?

What, precisely, does it mean to assert than an object has certain qualities unless you mean to assert that said object has said qualities?

You can throw out the law of identity if you want, but you can't pretend that the resulting word salad means anything, or should be taken seriously by anyone.

[jan]

Thanks to all who had replied.

ReasonableDoubt

After sleeping a night over your Popper quote, I am now inclined to vote "Planet X". We should

1. Maximize the falsifiable content of our theories.
2. Minimize the unfalsifiable content of our theories, as long as this can be done without harming the falsifiable content.
3. After doing so, we don't have to care about parsimony, it is already done.

If we explain it in terms of falsifiable content, we don't need the term "parsimony" any more.

Stimpson J. Cat

Of course we may argue that the detection of a parallel universe is impossible per definition, since if we can detect it, it is not really a foreign universe, but a part of our universe. So it seems to be irrecoverable metaphysics. And since you don't claim to always be able to decide wether a claim will be untestable forever, its hard for me to disagree with you.

I also tend to agree with your views about philosophy. As far as I see, many theories are not published in a formalized way, and they may be considered as chimeras of science and philosophy (and sometimes the connection between the two parts is so delicate that a formal approach may be helpful to separate them).

Let's see if I got it:

There is a yound chap who puts forward a new theory. This new theory makes a prediction about an observation we will be able to make the next time we see a solar eclipse. It also makes a prediction about a strange behaviour of one of our planets (since we already know that strange behaviour, it is not really a prediction, but an explanation). Unfortunatly, the theory also predicts some strange entities that nobody will ever be able to see, therefor being called "black holes".

Now these black holes seem to be metaphysical, unnecessary entities. Should we get rid of them?

No. They are not really that metaphysical at all. Our observation of the solar eclipse is in fact a corrobation of the existence of black holes, so the black holes are pretty falsifiable.

On the other hand, adding another axiom with the effect "black holes don't exist" would not make the falsifiable content of our theory any larger (if it doesn't have any other side effect). So in fact, such an additional axiom (whatever it may look like) would be the real "unnecessary entity", although it doesn't look like an entity and seems to reduce the number of entities.

In fact, black holes are not completly hopeless. Nobody can see them, but they have traits that make them empirical. And in fact, the further history of science show that black holes can be used to predict some effects that are observable. While first being addressed as something weird, uncertain and a bit speculative, they are now quite regular citizens of science.

And what about our bogons? If they are an absolutely unavoidable part of our theory, they should be okay (and corrobation of our theory should be corrobation of the bogons). But in such a case, one would expect the bogons to serve some purpose within our theory. Since this can't be said about the bogons in my toy universe, they should be dropped, I guess.

Dancing David

You mean the bogons are just the long searched for "gravitons"?

Suggestologist

You mean, like reading a book about physics? I would say that is the way our knowledge is propagated, not gathered.

espritch

I agree that this theory is metaphysics. But honestly, are you really not even one bit curious why our universe exists and contains life? "If it wouldn't exist and contain life, you wouldn't ask that question". Okay. Not curious at all?

Yahzi

Am I getting this right, you mean to exist means the same as being observable? When, would you say, the universe started to exist? With Thales, Aristotle, Newton or Berkeley, or did the universe start to exist with the first publications of the Neopositivists? Or did it start two million years ago, with the first human beings, slowly fading into existence? Or with the first cells?

[ReasonableDoubt]

Originally posted by jan

If we explain it in terms of falsifiable content, we don't need the term "parsimony" any more. The problem, of course, is that parsimony isn't as simple as it use to be. Best I can tell, people who speak of 'Occam's Razor as it is applied to science' are simply perpetuating an urban myth. Not that Occam's Razor has been simply orphaned. It has become the beloved and necessary rationale of fundamentalists masqeurading as ID proponents.

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Jan,

There is a yound chap who puts forward a new theory. This new theory makes a prediction about an observation we will be able to make the next time we see a solar eclipse. It also makes a prediction about a strange behaviour of one of our planets (since we already know that strange behaviour, it is not really a prediction, but an explanation). Unfortunatly, the theory also predicts some strange entities that nobody will ever be able to see, therefor being called "black holes".

It appears you are referring to Einstein's relativity. If so, I do not see why you would claim that black holes are not, in principle, observable. On the contrary, General Relativity makes some very specific predictions about the observable characteristics of black holes.

In fact, black holes are not completly hopeless. Nobody can see them, but they have traits that make them empirical. And in fact, the further history of science show that black holes can be used to predict some effects that are observable. While first being addressed as something weird, uncertain and a bit speculative, they are now quite regular citizens of science.

Exactly. But I do not see why you think that they were ever otherwise? The original predictions of black holes quite clearly attributed observable characteristics to them. They were never metaphysical entities.

And what about our bogons? If they are an absolutely unavoidable part of our theory, they should be okay (and corrobation of our theory should be corrobation of the bogons). But in such a case, one would expect the bogons to serve some purpose within our theory. Since this can't be said about the bogons in my toy universe, they should be dropped, I guess.

Exactly.


Dr. Stupid

[shemp]

I think you are focusing on the wrong particle. More important than the "Bogon" is the "Booger" particle, which is small and green, tends to appear at the most embarrassing moment, and is sometimes hard to get rid of.

[gnome]

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat
Another way to think of it is in terms of the idea of formal languages. For any logical framework, it is possible to construct a formal language, in which everything is defined solely in terms of the axioms of that framework. Any statement or question which can be considered meaningful within that system, must be constructible in that language. For science, this means that every component of the language must be completely defined in terms of observations. This means that if your theory includes claims which are not necessary to logically deduce the observational predictions of the theory, then your theory can not be expressed within that formal language. It is meaningless.


As a mathematician (or at least a wanna-be with a B.A. hanging on my wall) I have to disagree here. Kurt Gödel's work with formal systems led to his Incompleteness Theorem, in which he proved that any sufficiently complex axiomatic formal system contains meaningful propositions which cannot be judged true or false.

Is it possible you're confusing the construction of a proposition with the construction of its proof (or disproof)?

[evildave]

The bogons might be necessary to the formula, just as a "carry" or "borrow" is necessary to adding or subtracting.

There is no i, after all, but you can solve eqations that need an even root of a negative number using it.

The "bogons" may or may not necessarily exist, but could serve a useful purpose in sorting out the details of the math elegantly.

As long as the overall system was better than what exists now in most ways, use it in those ways that it's superior.

Someone will eventually figure out just what the "bogon" part of it is, and either eliminate it or discover something new because of it, and then that will replace the math with bogons in it..

Pragmatism Rules

[ReasonableDoubt]

Originally posted by Yahzi

So you don't see any obvious, self-evident, indispensable reason why objects which are defined to be non-existant should be considered not to exist?

What, precisely, does it mean to assert than an object has certain qualities unless you mean to assert that said object has said qualities?

You can throw out the law of identity if you want, but you can't pretend that the resulting word salad means anything, or should be taken seriously by anyone. I asked for reason and I get word play, rhetoric, and hyperbole. You go to a great deal of effort to avoid answering the question.

[Yahzi]

Originally posted by jan
Am I getting this right, you mean to exist means the same as being observable?
Yes.

Mind you, the object doesn't have to be observed, it just has to be in principle observable. If you define an object that cannot interact with the material universe in any way (like your bogons), then that object - lacking the property of material interaction - is indistinguishable from objects that don't exist (because to not exist means to not interact in any way with the material universe). Therefore, your bogons do not exist. You have assigned them the property of non-existance (although you didn't call it that), and then asked if they could exist. Well, the answer is no.

If the existence of a thing is indistinguishable from its non-existence, then we say that thing does not exist. This is called "Reason."

Note that I, however handy it is, does not actually exist.


Originally posted by jan
I asked for reason and I get word play, rhetoric, and hyperbole. You go to a great deal of effort to avoid answering the question.
Discussing metaphysics without word-play is probably impossible.

In any case: the definition of existance is to have material properties. To have material properties means to interact with other material objects. Therefore, to define something as not having the possiblity of interacting with other material objects is to define it as not existing.

[Stimpson J. Cat]

gnome,

Another way to think of it is in terms of the idea of formal languages. For any logical framework, it is possible to construct a formal language, in which everything is defined solely in terms of the axioms of that framework. Any statement or question which can be considered meaningful within that system, must be constructible in that language. For science, this means that every component of the language must be completely defined in terms of observations. This means that if your theory includes claims which are not necessary to logically deduce the observational predictions of the theory, then your theory can not be expressed within that formal language. It is meaningless.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As a mathematician (or at least a wanna-be with a B.A. hanging on my wall) I have to disagree here. Kurt Gödel's work with formal systems led to his Incompleteness Theorem, in which he proved that any sufficiently complex axiomatic formal system contains meaningful propositions which cannot be judged true or false.

I am well aware of Godel's incompleteness theorem. I do not see why you think it invalidates my argument. The point is that within the formal system of science, the entire vocabulary of its formal language is in terms of observations. I think that Godel's incompleteness theorem clearly shows that there must be meaningful statements which can be constructed within the formal system of science, but whose answers cannot be derived from the axioms of science. The fact still remains that in order for such a statement to be meaningful within that system, it must be constructed completely in terms of observations. That is a necessary requirement for it to simply be a meaningful statement, much less an actual scientific theory.

Is it possible you're confusing the construction of a proposition with the construction of its proof (or disproof)?

I don't think so.


Dr. Stupid

[ReasonableDoubt]

Originally posted by Yahzi
In any case: the definition of existance is to have material properties. No. Your definition of existance is "to have material properties". At least Humpty Dumpty paid words extra to mean what he wanted them to mean:Circulus in demonstrando

This fallacy occurs if you assume as a premise the conclusion which you wish to reach. Often, the proposition is rephrased so that the fallacy appears to be a valid argument. ...
Circular arguments are surprisingly common, unfortunately. If you've already reached a particular conclusion once, it's easy to accidentally make it an assertion when explaining your reasoning to someone else.

[gnome]

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat
gnome,

I am well aware of Godel's incompleteness theorem. I do not see why you think it invalidates my argument. The point is that within the formal system of science, the entire vocabulary of its formal language is in terms of observations. I think that Godel's incompleteness theorem clearly shows that there must be meaningful statements which can be constructed within the formal system of science, but whose answers cannot be derived from the axioms of science. The fact still remains that in order for such a statement to be meaningful within that system, it must be constructed completely in terms of observations. That is a necessary requirement for it to simply be a meaningful statement, much less an actual scientific theory.



I don't think so.


Dr. Stupid

I think I read more into what you said than you intended, when you said "everything is defined solely in terms of the axioms of that framework." -- When I think of what derives from axioms, I think of theorems and not definitions, which is what led me astray.

Carry on.

[jan]

Originally posted by gnome
As a mathematician (or at least a wanna-be with a B.A. hanging on my wall) I have to disagree here. Kurt Gödel's work with formal systems led to his Incompleteness Theorem, in which he proved that any sufficiently complex axiomatic formal system contains meaningful propositions which cannot be judged true or false.

Is it possible you're confusing the construction of a proposition with the construction of its proof (or disproof)?

I can't see a problem here. You use rules of inference to construct some falsifiable content. You will not be able to settle all questions that way (there will always be some formaly undecidable sentences). But a theory of empirical science doesn't allow you to decide all possible questions anyway. I would say Darwinism is true, but it is obviously incomplete as a theory of the empirical world, since it doesn't tell me everything about, say, anorganic chemistry or economy. If you formalize it, it will not tell you everything there is about mathematics, but who would have expected that anyway?

Originally posted by Yahzi
Mind you, the object doesn't have to be observed, it just has to be in principle observable.

If you like to, you may define existence as being "in principle" observable. It should be obvious that I didn't used this word with this meaning, otherwise asking about the existence of unobservable bogons would be pointless. You may explain why you think that any alternative definition is foolish, useless or inconsistent (I assume you take something like "useless"?).

Would you say that an electron is observable = exists? It is part of a complicated theory that explains our observations, but I failed yet to see a single electron with my naked eye. And the bogon is predicted by a theory that also predicts observable particles.

And, more important, I would be interested to know how you know wether something is in principle observable. In the case of bogons or parallel universes, it is quite clear that they will never be observable. But there may be other cases not so easily decidable.

Since Popper has already been quoted, I would like to mention that falsifiability, according to Popper, is a matter of degree. That doesn't mean that you can assign a statement a real number between 0 and 1 as its falsifiability, it is a bit more complicated, the degree of falsifiability is identified with the set of testable conclusions, and this set can be greater or smaller. In the case of bogons or parallel universe, it is easy to see that this set is the empty set. But this is just because I tried to come up with easy examples. In other cases, you might not be able to compute the falsifiable content of a theory so efortless (what is the falsifiable content of Superstring theory? I guess it has some, but nobody seems to know what is part of it).

I agree that black holes always had some empirical content. But one that can be difficult to test. Being only a small distance apart from a big black hole would leave little doubt wether they are empirical or not. But that doesn't mean that if your theory predicts a certain phenomenom, that you are immediatly be able to figure out a prediction that can be tested with present day tools (and perhaps you even don't need bigger tools, you just need more time to figure out all the logical consequences of your theory you don't see at first glance).

Originally posted by shemp
I think you are focusing on the wrong particle. More important than the "Bogon" is the "Booger" particle, which is small and green, tends to appear at the most embarrassing moment, and is sometimes hard to get rid of.

I agree that the Booger particle is of much more practical importance for the wellbeing and wellfare of mankind. But since it appears to be pretty empirical, it is a subject for the science department.

Originally posted by ReasonableDoubt
The problem, of course, is that parsimony isn't as simple as it use to be. Best I can tell, people who speak of 'Occam's Razor as it is applied to science' are simply perpetuating an urban myth. Not that Occam's Razor has been simply orphaned. It has become the beloved and necessary rationale of fundamentalists masqeurading as ID proponents.

I am not an Occam expert, so this is a bit conjectural and guess-work, but perhaps Occam had a problem situation a bit different from the one we are addressing today, since he could assume that the body of observations is a rather closed one: everything that will be observed will be more or less equal to those things that have been observed in the past. So science is not needed to predict exciting new experiences, but just to explain all the old and well known experiences, and it should do its job with the least number of entities possible, that means, "Thou shallst not multiply entities in vain". We would say adding new entities is a good thing, as long as those entities are observable/testable/falsifiable. So the term "necessary" is a bit misleading (and the term "entity" too): a good scientific theory should introduce new entities not strictly necessary needed to explain our past experiences, but part of the new experiences we will make.

If Intelligent Design proponents would be able to show me that some traits of living creatures can't be explained with adaptive evolution, I would say we should search for a new theory. Besides that they have failed so far, I can't see that the bible is the most frugal theory to explain the diversity of life. But perhaps the reasoning goes like this: "Since we believe in god anyway, and god can be used to explain the diversity of life, evolution is an unnecessary entity. Occams Razor please!".

[Peter Soderqvist]

Not only contains formal systems undecidable propositions, it contains truth statements which is not derivable from the axioms of the system, hence; theorems are incomplete! Godel has proved 1931 that Bertrand Russell's and Alfred Whitehead's Principia Mathematica and related systems are incomplete!


Hofstadter, Gödel, Escher, Bach!
All consistent axiomatic formulations of number theory include undecidable propositions ...
Gödel showed that provability is a weaker notion than truth, no matter what axiom system is involved ...
http://www.miskatonic.org/godel.html

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by jan
First example:

Assume we have a very easy theory to predict/explain all the observable kinds of particles. Unfortunatly, our theory also predicts a particle called "bogon" that has no mass, no charge, no color &c. and is undetectable and will be forever, regardless of any future scientific progress.

We could modify our theory to avoid the assumption of the existence of those metaphysical bogons, but that alternative theory would be more complicated and completely ad hoc, since we don't know of any reason why the bogons shouldn't exist.

Second example:

It seems as if some of the fundamental physical constants are fine-tuned to enable life. A usual explanation is that our universe is just one among many, probably infinite many other universes, and that most (whatever "most" may mean in this context) universes don't contain life. Of course, chances to observe those other universes are dim, so the assumption of the existence of those other universes is just a metaphysical one.

And now: stand and deliver!

So the question I am asking is this: should we favour parsimony of entities, or parsimony of explanation? There might be a short and elegant theory that requires infinite many universes to work, or a clumsy, roundabout theory smelling of ad-hocs that requires just those entities we are able to observe. Which kind of parsimony is the right one?

Jan,

I voted bogons exist.

One is detecting bogons in the very fact that the theory accurately describes part of reality. There is no dichotomy between direct and indirect observations. If an entity plays a fruitful role in a theory then by definition we can detect it.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat
I chose "ill-posed". If a scientific theory is posed properly, then parsimony of explanation and parsimony of entities are equivalent. I will explain, but first I will address your examples.



quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
First example:

Assume we have a very easy theory to predict/explain all the observable kinds of particles. Unfortunately, our theory also predicts a particle called "bogon" that has no mass, no charge, no color &c. and is undetectable and will be forever, regardless of any future scientific progress.

We could modify our theory to avoid the assumption of the existence of those metaphysical bogons, but that alternative theory would be more complicated and completely ad hoc, since we don't know of any reason why the bogons shouldn't exist.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Is the existence of the bogon necessary to logically derive the testable predictions of the theory? If not, then it should be eliminated. Furthermore, if it is not, then eliminating them cannot possibly make the explanation more complicated. The idea that eliminating them would require additional complication implies that they play some logical role in the predictions, which would have to be taken over by something else in order to eliminate them.

If they are necessary to logically derive the predictions of the theory, then they are not unverifiable. On the contrary, verification of the predictions of the theory would constitute verification of the bogons. In fact, this is exactly how much of modern particle physics works.


Yes I am in absolute agreement with this.

[Yahzi]

Originally posted by ReasonableDoubt
No. Your definition of existance is "to have material properties". At least Humpty Dumpty paid words extra to mean what he wanted them to mean:
Allright, I'll bite. What is your definition of existance? Does i exist? Do square circles? Do unicorns exist? If these objects do not exist, then please explain why they don't.

The traditional differentation between imaginary and real has always been material properties. It is the idealists, who have taken to asserting that a thing can exist while lacking any of the properities that normally separate real objects from imaginary ones, that are commiting Humpty-Dumptyism.

[ReasonableDoubt]

Originally posted by Yahzi

Allright, I'll bite. That is entirely up to you.

Originally posted by Yahzi

Does i exist? Do square circles? Do unicorns exist? If these objects do not exist, then please explain why they don't.This is peurile wordplay and a not-so-subtle attempt to shift the burden of proof. (At the same time, I would find it both interesting and humorous to watch you struggle with why unicorns don't exist.)

Originally posted by Yahzi

The traditional differentation between imaginary and real has always been material properties. Traditional? Always? Would you care to substantiate this? Is that the "traditional differentiation" held by Aquinas and Spinoza, or by the Deists and Daoists? Where do you find this "traditional differentiation" documented as anything approaching a consensus. Yahzi, your circular reasoning and baseless assertions become no less conic, nor more substantiated, by the simple act of repitition.

[jan]

Originally posted by Peter Soderqvist
Not only contains formal systems undecidable propositions, it contains truth statements which is not derivable from the axioms of the system, hence; theorems are incomplete! Godel has proved 1931 that Bertrand Russell's and Alfred Whitehead's Principia Mathematica and related systems are incomplete!



Yes. And the punch line?

Originally posted by Interesting Ian


Yes I am in absolute agreement with this.

Wow, my thread made Interesting Ian agree to something Stimpson said.

I would say, in my more detailed version of the bogon example, it is a bit doubtful whether the bogon really performs a useful purpose. Assumed it does, I would agree too.

Originally posted by Yahzi

Allright, I'll bite. What is your definition of existance? Does i exist? Do square circles? Do unicorns exist? If these objects do not exist, then please explain why they don't.


I understand you found the magic potion of "it's just word games". Let's see.

And jan spoke: there shall be another sample universe. And the universe shall be a house with two floors. The inhabitants of the upper floor shall be called angels, and the inhabitants of the lower floor shall be called mortals. And there shall be a one-way mirror between the upper and the lower floor, such that the angels can see and observe the mortals below, but not the other way round. And so it was. And the mortals discovered the laws of the physic of their world. They discovered that the walls of their floor are absolutely impenetrable, and so is the ceiling above them. And they wondered whether there could be something outside their floor. And one mortal called YouSee had a prophetic fit and was speaking in tongues: "to exist means the same thing as being observable by us mortals. Let us denote being observable by mortals as m-existence. It is not required that a thing is actually observed by a mortal to m-exist, it suffices that it is observable at least in principle. Now we may address the problem whether it is possible that there is something outside our floor, or not. The laws of physics we discovered show us that it is not possible for us to observe anything that is outside our floor. So this question is actually asking: can a thing exist that doesn't m-exist? Obviously, such a thing would be a contradiction, since existence and m-existence is the same. So we don't have to assume, conjecture or guess that there is nothing outside our floor: we have genuine knowledge that there can't m-be anything outside our floor." And his fellow mortals were very impressed.

Since there is no evidence for the existence of an upper floor for the mortals, and the mortals will never be able to observe anything outside their floor, I would concede that a sentence as "there is no upper floor", uttered by a mortal, is sensible and reasonable. But nevertheless it is not a true sentence.

Another universe: this universe is a house with infinite many floors: for every floor, there always is a lower and an upper floor. Between two floors is always a one-way mirror so that the inhabitants of one floor can see all the infinite many floors below them, but no floor above them.

Now the inhabitants of one floor discuss whether it is possible that there is a floor above them, although it is possible to proof that according to the laws of physics, such a floor can never be observed. They agree that the notion of such an upper floor would be metaphysical nonsense, since to exist means to be observable, and since no upper floor is observable, it can't exist.

The inhabitants of the floor above them also discuss whether it is possible that there is a floor above them. They know the results of the discussion of the inhabitants of the floor below them, and that they had chosen to deny the possibility of a floor above them. Now one of the inhabitants of the next floor claims: "To exist means to be observable by the inhabitants of our floor. The inhabitants of the floor below us err if they identify existence with the possibility of being observable by inhabitants of their floor. It is therefore not surprising that they make false predictions and claim that we do not exist. We exist, since we are observable by us. But it is impossible that there is another floor above us. For a naïve thinker, the fact that there are infinite many floors below us is tempting to assume that we are nothing special, a floor like any other floor, that means, that there is a floor above us. But this is just metaphysical nonsense. There is no floor above us: the term of such an unobservable floor above us is a contradiction, it is impossible. To say such a floor exists is to say that a floor exists that doesn't exist. It is as simple."

Would I be an inhabitant of such a floor, I would agree that talking about a floor above us is metaphysics. But I would not agree that the term of an upper floor is meaningless and therefore that we can know that there is no upper floor, since the term "upper floor" is supposed to be meaningless.

Let us further assume that we observe that our ceiling has a photon leakage, that means, the mirror above our heads does not reflect all photons, the same way all the one-way mirrors below us work. I would say, although it still is metaphysics, the explanation that there is a floor above us and the missing photons are traveling to this upper floor is not completely nuts. It is, at least, not meaningless.

The falsifiable content of the proposition of the existence of an upper floor is, of course, the empty set. But one could argue that it is a parsimony explanation. So perhaps parsimony is not really a principle of the methodology of science, but of the aesthetics of metaphysics...

http://www.janthor.de/schnoerkel.gif

A few words about observations: I think there is no "raw" observation, observation without theory. You need some knowledge to be able to see something. Therefore, the falsifiable content of one theories depend on other theories. If you have, for example, a theory of radio and radio astronomy, you can add new tests to some of your other theories, theories you perhaps couldn't test before. A theory that was testable only "in principle" might become a well tested and corroborated theory.

For example, "charge" is, strictly speaking, not observable. You may put your tongue on the contacts of a battery and "taste charge", but what you really have is just a taste that you attribute to charge. The charge itself is just a theoretical entity, something you infer from your observations. And since we know that we don't have a sense organ to sense charge (unlike some fish, for example), we know that charge will always be unobservable, that charge is unobservable in principle. Nevertheless, the theory of electricity makes so many corroborated predictions about things we are able to observe (what our tongue will taste, what we will see on the displays of our instruments, and so on) that this theory is well established, and we rarely doubt that charge exists.

Black holes always had empirical traits, say, the gravitational effect they have on their neighborhood. But gravity itself is just a theoretical concept, and you can't "see" gravity (well, there is a sense organ that allows you to find your balance, but it is not often used in astronomy). You observe how planets and stars move and infer what influence gravity may have. Black holes always had some potential to become observable. But as far as I see, they first have been considered to be speculative, hard to spot, something you should refer to with caution, until advancements in astronomy showed them to be quite useful.

By the way, the habit of using telescopes for astronomical observations is not self-evident. When Galileo discovered the Jupiter moons, other people were unable to see the moons, even if they looked trough the telescope. And without a corroborated theory of optics, nobody knew what the findings of this new instrument would indicate, how serious and meaningful they are. Unfortunately, optics remained a puzzling and unsettled field for investigations for quite a long time. And obviously, it is difficult to find direct evidence for, say, the existence of black holes if you don't even use a telescopes (it's tempting to say "impossible").

By formalizing a theory, you may be able to find out many useful things about that theory, and you may be able to determinate what you can formulate in terms of observation, and what not. But in real life, I would say, you have a lot of theories, and the dependencies of those theories can be complicated, things can be in the move, a theory about observations you used to use within your theory can be refuted, or a new theory may become established that makes some of the claims of your theory that seemed to be hard or impossible to test now quite easy to check.

So to decide once and for all time what kind of statements are metaphysical or empirical, you would need science to be available in a fixed, frozen state, so all those implicit and explicit theories about perception, psychology of perception, physiology of perception, statistics, the fundamentals of radio astronomy &c. &c. &c. can't change any more. But with a fixed and frozen science, the term "falsifiable" becomes quite meaningless.

Another example:
In this universe, scientists discovered n different features a particle can have or not have. If a particle has a certain feature, this can be used to detect the particle. One scientist develop a theory that claims that all 2^n possible combinations exist, and it gives hints about how to detect some of those particles. This theory is used to detect some previously unknown particles. Since the scientists of this universe don't have (yet) an "Ultimate Theory About Everything", they don't know whether there are any traits of particles besides the n already known features. At the present moment, the bogon (the particle that lacks all n features) can't be detected. But it is possible that one day somebody will detect further traits of particles, and it may be possible to detect the bogon using one of those traits.

If we try to formalize this theory, restricting ourselves to terms of observations, we find that it is difficult to maintain the bogon, since it is completely unknown how to express what an observation corroborating the existence of the bogon would be, since we have no idea what the additional traits of particles yet to discover might be. The problem is that we can't talk about those traits, since we don't know them yet and therefore can't express them accordingly.

[Yahzi]

Originally posted by ReasonableDoubt
This is peurile wordplay and a not-so-subtle attempt to shift the burden of proof. (At the same time, I would find it both interesting and humorous to watch you struggle with why unicorns don't exist.)
I offered my explanation. Objects that lack any material properties do not exist, because to exist means to be able to interact with the rest of the universe, and that requires material objects. Now it is true that this only hold for objects claimed to exist in this universe - it has nothing to say about objects in another universe. But since the presence of another universe is a unfalsifiable proposition, we need not consider it.

This is the second time I have replied with a substantive and meaningful response. So far all you have done is make insults and assert that I must prove everything. Do you have a definition of existance of your own? Or do you merely object to mine, with nothing to offer in its place? Do you have anything to actually contribute to this discussion?

[Yahzi]

Originally posted by jan
[B]And jan spoke: there shall be another sample universe.[/b
I cannot comment on the existance of objects in a universe utterly removed from our own. I assert that the ordinary meaning of "exist" means to exist in this universe. You can postulate other universes, but even if there are other universes, they are indistinguishable from imaginary ones, and since we know that imaginary things do not exist, it is reasonable to conclude that these other universes do not exist. If it is indistinguishable from non-existant, then it is non-existant. To assert otherwise is to assault the law of identity.

By the way, the habit of using telescopes for astronomical observations is not self-evident. When Galileo discovered the Jupiter moons, other people were unable to see the moons, even if they looked trough the telescope.
I belive this is incorrect. They saw the moons: they just accused Galileo of having painted them on (as I recall).

[ReasonableDoubt]

Originally posted by Yahzi

I offered my explanation. Objects that lack any material properties do not exist, because to exist means to be able to interact with the rest of the universe, and that requires material objects. Now it is true that this only hold for objects claimed to exist in this universe - it has nothing to say about objects in another universe. You confuse explanation with presupposition. All you've done (over and over and over and ...) is to assert that the supernatural does not exist because all things that exist are natural - a classic example of "circulus in demonstrando. If your happy with this mantra, fine, but please don't pretend that you've explained anything whatsoever.

[Yahzi]

Originally posted by ReasonableDoubt
You confuse explanation with presupposition. All you've done (over and over and over and ...) is to assert that the supernatural does not exist because all things that exist are natural - a classic example of "circulus in demonstrando. If your happy with this mantra, fine, but please don't pretend that you've explained anything whatsoever.
I offer only an explanation because that is all the problem requires. We are not determining empircal reality, but simply definition. The definition of a non-existant thing is that it does not exist. What does it mean for something to exist? It means for it to interact with material reality.

If you have a different definition of "existance," then by all means lets hear it. So far all you have done is object to my definition. I repeat: do you have anything to offer to the conversation?

[ReasonableDoubt]

Originally posted by Yahzi

If you have a different definition of "existance," then by all means lets hear it. In my opinion "exist" is a second level predicate - see, e.g., Existence (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/existence/).
Originally posted by Yahzi

So far all you have done is object to my definition. That is absolutely untrue. I do not object to you weaving whatever tautology you wish. I am simply suggesting that defining existence in such a way as to exclude the supernatural is the weakest possible argument against its existence. If you see no value in this observation, feel free to dismiss it.
Originally posted by Yahzi

I repeat: do you have anything to offer to the conversation? Yes - defining existence in such a way as to exclude the supernatural is a fallacious and entirely worthless argument against its existence.

[hypnotoad]

Originally posted by ReasonableDoubt
In my opinion "exist" is a second level predicate - see, e.g., Existence (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/existence/).
That is absolutely untrue. I do not object to you weaving whatever tautology you wish. I am simply suggesting that defining existence in such a way as to exclude the supernatural is the weakest possible argument against its existence. If you see no value in this observation, feel free to dismiss it.
Yes - defining existence in such a way as to exclude the supernatural is a fallacious and entirely worthless argument against its existence.
What can a theory that includes the supernatural explain that a natural explanation can't explain better? So many supernatural theories have been discarded in favor of natural ones because the natural ones produce results and increase knowledge. No natural theories have ever been discarded in favor of supernatural theories because there is no reason to.
How do you define supernatural?

[sorgoth]

Originally posted by jan
First example:

Assume we have a very easy theory to predict/explain all the observable kinds of particles. Unfortunatly, our theory also predicts a particle called "bogon" that has no mass, no charge, no color &c. and is undetectable and will be forever, regardless of any future scientific progress.

We could modify our theory to avoid the assumption of the existence of those metaphysical bogons, but that alternative theory would be more complicated and completely ad hoc, since we don't know of any reason why the bogons shouldn't exist.

Second example:

It seems as if some of the fundamental physical constants are fine-tuned to enable life. A usual explanation is that our universe is just one among many, probably infinite many other universes, and that most (whatever "most" may mean in this context) universes don't contain life. Of course, chances to observe those other universes are dim, so the assumption of the existence of those other universes is just a metaphysical one.

And now: stand and deliver!

So the question I am asking is this: should we favour parsimony of entities, or parsimony of explanation? There might be a short and elegant theory that requires infinite many universes to work, or a clumsy, roundabout theory smelling of ad-hocs that requires just those entities we are able to observe. Which kind of parsimony is the right one?

Parsimony of entities. To quote Einstein (And no, it's not appeal to authority, I just like this quote) "Make everything as simple as possible, and no simpler."

[ReasonableDoubt]

Originally posted by hypnotoad

What can a theory that includes the supernatural explain that a natural explanation can't explain better? So many supernatural theories have been discarded in favor of natural ones because the natural ones produce results and increase knowledge. No natural theories have ever been discarded in favor of supernatural theories because there is no reason to.
How do you define supernatural? Nicely said, but what (if anything) does this have to do with tautological definitions of existence or, for that matter, with parsimony?

[hypnotoad]

Originally posted by ReasonableDoubt
Nicely said, but what (if anything) does this have to do with tautological definitions of existence or, for that matter, with parsimony?

If his definition of existence excludes the supernatural maybe the problem lies in your definition of supernatural rather than his definition of existence.

[jan]

Originally posted by sorgoth


Parsimony of entities. To quote Einstein (And no, it's not appeal to authority, I just like this quote) "Make everything as simple as possible, and no simpler."

It is not only appeal to authority, you even failed to find a quote that supports your position. Not even a proper fallacy!

[ReasonableDoubt]

Originally posted by hypnotoad


If his definition of existence excludes the supernatural maybe the problem lies in your definition of supernatural rather than his definition of existence.
Yes, and maybe not. What protocol do you suggest we use to make a determination? Shall we, like Humpty Dumpty, simply pay the words extra to mean what we wish them to mean?

"The supernatural does not exist because my definition of 'exist' excludes the supernatural." is, in my opinion, a fallacious (and empty) argument.

[hypnotoad]

Originally posted by ReasonableDoubt

Yes, and maybe not. What protocol do you suggest we use to make a determination? Shall we, like Humpty Dumpty, simply pay the words extra to mean what we wish them to mean?

"The supernatural does not exist because my definition of 'exist' excludes the supernatural." is, in my opinion, a fallacious (and empty) argument.


I agree that this is a fallacious argument. But maybe the problem occurs in ithe first place because people are making the supposition, in effect, "what if something exists that doesn't exist". At the very least since there is no way to gain any information on something that does not interact with the natural universe in some way all statements and hypotheses about such a theoretical object will by definition remain speculation since whether it exists or not will not affect anything in the universe.



I think that that is the whole point. If you define the supernatural as not interacting with the natural world then you will run into the above problem. If you define it as interacting with the natural world then it is only reasonable to expect some sort of evidence for its existence before making a claim.

I don't know what definition of supernatural is being used. I use the Merriam-Webster definition.

Main Entry: su·per·nat·u·ral
Pronunciation: "sü-p&r-'na-ch&-r&l, -'nach-r&l
Function: adjective
Etymology: Medieval Latin supernaturalis, from Latin super- + natura nature
Date: 15th century
1 : of or relating to an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe; especially : of or relating to God or a god, demigod, spirit, or devil
2 a : departing from what is usual or normal especially so as to appear to transcend the laws of nature b : attributed to an invisible agent (as a ghost or spirit).

I am open to other definitions if you want.

I would like to see a definition of existence that includes bogons but excludes all nonexistant or imaginary objects.

[ReasonableDoubt]

Originally posted by hypnotoad

I agree that this is a fallacious argument. That was my only point. My general view of the supernatural is addressed by my signature and, more fully, by the following:The known world expands, and the world of impenetrable mystery shrinks. With every expanse, something is explained which at an earlier point in history had been permanently consigned to supernatural mystery or metaphysical speculation. And the expansion of scientific knowledge has been and remains an epistemological threat to any claims which have been fashioned independently (or in defiance) of such knowledge. We are confronted with an asymptotic decrease in the existential possibility of the supernatural to the point at which it is wholly negligible. ...

For the philosophical naturalist, the rejection of supernaturalism is a case of "death by a thousand cuts."

-- Methodological Naturalism and Philosophical Naturalism by Doctor Barbara Forrest
Originally posted by hypnotoad

At the very least since there is no way to gain any information on something that does not interact with the natural universe in some way ... Or, perhaps more correctly, "in some repeatable and verifiable way".

Originally posted by hypnotoad
If you define it as interacting with the natural world then it is only reasonable to expect some sort of evidence for its existence before making a claim.True, but only if the claim is based on evidence rather than revelation.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Yahzi
By the way, the habit of using telescopes for astronomical observations is not self-evident. When Galileo discovered the Jupiter moons, other people were unable to see the moons, even if they looked trough the telescope.
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I belive this is incorrect. They saw the moons: they just accused Galileo of having painted them on (as I recall).[/B]

This is contrary to what I've heard.