Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.meta
Distribution: world
Followup-To: 
From: sschaff@roc.SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Stephen F. Schaffner)
Organization: Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
Subject: Re: MINDWALK - An exercise in Passionate Thought
Keywords: 

In article <memo.836294@cix.compulink.co.uk>, shaman@cix.compulink.co.uk 
(Leo Smith) writes:
|> In-Reply-To: <C054wx.KFJ@unixhub.SLAC.Stanford.EDU> sschaff@roc.
SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Stephen F. Schaffner)

|> [...]
|> 
|> >It seems to me that you make one true and one false statement above.  It 
|> >is of course true that models are not reality, being at best but 
|> >imperfect descriptions of what is (or may be) there.  The falsehood 
|> >is that in talking about people, or "the world we live in" you're
|> >not using models; "person" or "human being" is just as much a 
|> >construct as "elementary particle" or "electron".  
|> 
|> One: At last some intelligent comments.

	Hey, what kind of news group is this, anyway?  I contradict you, 
and you compliment me?  Watch it -- that kind of behavior could spread.  
On second thought, I guess there isn't too much danger of that happening.  


[...]

|> One: Is there any item in our worldview models that we can 
|> justifiably call more real than any other? I mean is 'love' as a 
|> concept describing reality equally as real as 'Thatcherism' and 
|> 'Quark'. You see where I am heading? 

No, I'm not quite sure where you're going.  The "objects" being 
described have differing ontological status: 'quark' representing something 
in the physical world, 'Thatcherism' a set of ideas held by humans, 
and I'm not even sure what it means to ask which is more real.  A 
strict materialist would no doubt say that Thatcherism describes a 
correlated set of brain states, and hence is the same kind of concept as 
'quark', albeit much more complex and less useful.  But I'm not a 
strict materialist.  Your claim, however, was that one class of physical 
objects (elementary particles) was less real than another (elements of 
the everyday world); I don't see the connection.

|> Two: I disagree on principle with the statement that 'They're both 
|> attempts to describe what really is' . I think that you will find if 
|> you examine the matter that concepts in general survive and become 
|> accepted as 'fact' on utilitarian, not idealistic grounds. That is 
|> 'the earth goes round the sun' is regarded as a fact because it leads 
|> to simpler math, not because it is necessary a realistic description. 
|> I think that I read a good line on that recently - can't remember 
|> where - that evolution favors succesful models, not 'true' ones.

This is of course a hotly debated point.  Certainly in intention 
scientific models, at least, are attempts to describe what really is;  
very few scientists are not realists of some sort.  As to whether 
that's what they're actually doing, well, sorry to disappoint you, 
but I'm one of them, and I'm a realist too, in a qualified and skeptical 
fashion.  A simple mathematical formula without a conceptual framework 
(e.g. the Balmer formula for hydrogen lines) is not a theory and 
does not satisfy scientists, even if it gives great predictions.  
Surely you don't think there's *no* relationship between our 
descriptions and whatever is out there?  The working assumption 
of most scientists is that simpler math (or simpler concepts) in a new 
model is evidence that the new model is a better fit to reality.  We 
could be wrong, of course, but that's pretty hard to demonstrate.  I 
think we have this conviction because it's so bloody easy to be wrong 
about nature -- that makes it easy for us to believe that it's not all in 
our heads.

|> For a first class treatment of that theme try 'Understanding the 
|> present' by Bryan Appleyard - which makes the point that science is 
|> actually what WORKS, not what is 'real' or 'true' - and indeed, there 
|> are alternative possibilities. 

I will add it to my list of books to read.

|> Three: I really like 'they both simplify that reality so we can grasp 
|> it, and they are both subject to modification as we learn more'. That 
|> is exactly the point of a good conceptual model - the reduction of 
|> experience to a simple structure that gives good utilitarian 
|> predictability. That is why chaos theory is so amusing: It is a model 
|> that describes, but cannot predict with any degree of accuracy!  

	Well, it can predict the degree to which and the manner in which 
a given system will be unpredictable, which I think is of tremendous 
scientific interest.  For what are a model's predictions utile?  I 
presume you don't mean so we can build bigger bombs or faster computers.  
I take it to be the case that most scientists are motivated by curiosity 
about the way the world works. Our curiosity may have evolved because 
it enabled us to make useful predictions, but I don't see what its  
origin has to do with anything.  


	As long as we're on the subject, in a post replying to Randall 
Holmes you write: 

|> Electrons are not real. Bubbles are somewhat real - but even they are 
|> conceptual groupings in the scientists experience. Electrons are 
|> neither as real as bubbles, nor (even if you accept the lepton MODEL 
|> as REAL) are they even fundamental !

Perhaps it would clarify matters if you would explain why a bubble is 
more real than an electron.  By the way, in the Standard Model, electrons, 
being leptons, are indeed fundamental (or are you making a different point?).

-- 
Steve Schaffner        sschaff@unixhub.slac.stanford.edu
	The opinions expressed may be mine, and may not be those of SLAC, 
Stanford University, or the DOE.



-- 
Steve Schaffner        sschaff@unixhub.slac.stanford.edu
	The opinions expressed may be mine, and may not be those of SLAC, 
Stanford University, or the DOE.