New answers tagged philosophy-of-science
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The Church Turing thesis is a fundamental tenet of math, logic, computer science, metamathematics.
It claims equivalence between Turing computable and effectively computable.
Most members in all these disciples accept it as true.
But it's not provable since effective computability is a fuzzy informal notion.
Even more piquantly P=NP is widely believed ...
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So far as I am aware the demarcation principle, in Popper at least, serves merely to distinguish science from non-science. A scientific theory is empirically falsifiable while pseudoscience (e.g. astrology) and metaphysics are not.
A certain confusion arises from the fact that Popper also inclines to regard the non-scientific, as specified by his examples, ...
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Do any falsificationist philosophers actually argue this, that if some theory isn't falsifiable then it cannot be justified?
Definitely. Although, not with regard to just any "theory", but with regard to any claim to empirical knowledge.
Popper's rationale for falsificationism, as explained in his seminal essay "Science: Conjectures and Refutations", is ...
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What is an extraordinary claim?
Let's step away from the question of the supernatural for a moment. If someone told me that gravity is only real if you believe in it, and that I could fly like superman if I tried, I would be very skeptical. Why? Because it contradicts a lifetime of accumulated experience. It also runs counter to reason - since babies ...
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The use of the word "extraordinary" may be a way to shift the burden of proof. Here is Bo Bennett's description of that which may be an informal logical fallacy:
Making a claim that needs justification, then demanding that the opponent justifies the opposite of the claim. The burden of proof is a legal and philosophical concept with differences in each ...
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[..]he only difference between an "extraordinary claim" and an ordinary one is that there is usually less tangential knowledge surrounding what is described as an extraordinary one[..]
The above quote from the last paragraph is tossed out and very casually and dismissively and then glossed over. What the author calls "tangential knowledge" is one of the ...
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Both Vox's argument and the slogan it quotes are bad ideas.
First, an idea is either true or false and no amount of evidence agreeing with an idea can show it is true or probably true or anything like that. So the idea that some evidence is extraordinary makes no sense. A piece of evidence either refutes a theory or it doesn't and that's all there is to it:
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The quoted paragraph starts off with the wrong meaning of extraordinary by taking it to be synonymous with supernatural when it means remarkable or exceptional so everything that follows must be wrong.
What that extraordinary quote means is simply that big claims need big evidence. For example if you saw a rainbow coloured car, I could be convinced to ...
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The special theory of relativity may provide a way for measurements to be different from the perspective of four dimentsions rather than from three dimensions. Here is Wikipedia's description of relativity:
Special relativity is based on two postulates which are contradictory in classical mechanics:
The laws of physics are the same for all ...
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It is not assumed that reality has "dimensions" in all cases. Dimensionality is a purely mathematical concept, and whether it applies directly to reality itself depends on whether reality is made of mathematics or not. That particular question is an open question in philosophy.
What does have dimensionality are the scientific models we use to make sense ...
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Your question is vague and close to gibberish, it will likely be closed unless you clarify it.
The short answer is yes, string theory for instance posits 'rolled up' additional dimensions, and the holographic principle suggests our universe is like a 4D surface curved in 5D. The general underlying principle is that dimensions are directly equivalent to ...
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Here's philosopher Eric Steinhart's answer to the question (the math part anyways), his book More Precisely: The Math You Need to Do Philosophy. From the publisher's website:
More Precisely is a rigorous and engaging introduction to the mathematics necessary to do philosophy. Eric Steinhart provides lucid explanations of many basic mathematical concepts ...
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One of the most influential definitions of knowledge dates back to Plato, and describes knowledge as "justified true belief." We cannot "know" anything that is not true, we cannot be said to "know" something that we do not believe, and we don't actually "know" something if we don't have any legitimate reason for believing it (even if it's true).
From the ...
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It's impossible for everything we know to be wrong.
There is certainty in our thought.
Consider the following: (i) not everything is what it seems. This means that the objects of our thinking can differ from what we think they are.
This claim cannot be disputed without assuming its validity first. Thus, trying to dispute this claim necessarily leads to a ...
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Every empirical science has an a priori foundation.
If a proposition is a priori, it means it's not justified by experiments.
Any proposition is supported by one or more principles.
Principles are foundational truths which are not deduced from any other (that's why we call them Principles).
If every proposition had to be deduced from another, that would ...
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From a science perspective, we don't know that what we know is right. You could argue that at the most fundamental level the only thing that an individual knows is that they exist, that they are conscious.
It is also a mistake to say that science can "understand" natural phenomena. Scientific theories can really only describe natural phenomena. They do ...
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This is a very common issue when dealing with science. Much of science's approaches to Truth (with a capital letter) is through abduction, an approach which assumes the most likely hypothesis is true. If you read the linked SEP article, this is fraught with nuances, as you suggest.
Personally, I am a fan of radical skepticism, and the Aggripan Trilemma. ...
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"As there are infinite universes, this universe must exist.
That's a wild assumption to make.
Keep in mind that I had no reason to cut my leg off,
That's a wild assumption to make.
so does this mean that free will contradicts the theory of inifinite universes? So we can only have one universe?"
If we hold your assumptions to be true, you should ...
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Science is about describing and predicting phenomena. So science will be "done" when it can accurately and precisely describe and predict all phenomena that can be scientifically determined.
If the rules and any additional assumptions can be shown to meet those requirements, plus can be shown to be irreducible, then we'd be finished. It's probably fair to ...
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If by this you mean for example a universe with two spatial dimensions and one of time, the answer is yes- at least in the world of physics.
Physicists often try to formulate their theories in spaces simpler than (three space, one time) when it isn't known yet how to do it in (3+1) space. Then they look for clues in (for example) two-space, one time ...
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