Tag Archives: Science

A Gary Story

13 Friday Aug 2021

Posted by in Personal History, Uncategorized

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Sometimes, the good guys win. This was brought to mind by a recent story at OpenCulture that tells of Jocelyn Bell Burnell. She is the discoverer of pulsars, in case you didn’t know (which is likely.) Because her – and, of course, it is always HER – male advisor took the credit and was awarded the Nobel prize for it. You can read the original OC story HERE.

However, not all such stories are as infuriating (and even Bell Burnell’s is far from being the worst example from a seemingly endless list of women being denied earned credit.) For example, there is this one that I can attest to as a witness: I was there and I knew the people involved, and I saw it come to light in real time. So, this being my blog, it is my right and privilege to deviate from my normal focus on philosophical topics to tell personal anecdote. This one is from about 40 years ago, back when I was well and thoroughly ensconced in the computer and high-tech industry as a professional technician. So permit me to tell you a Gary Story.

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Nature versus Naturalism

29 Monday Jan 2018

Posted by in General Philosophy, Logic, Metaphysics, naturalism, Philosophy of Science, Process Philosophy, Whitehead

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Nature is that which is studied by physical science. Saying as much does not answer many questions; most particularly, it tells us neither what nature nor science happen to be, only that they are connected as inquiry and thing inquired into. That being said, one can also notice that it is necessary to have some notion or concept of what it is that one is inquiring into, in order for that inquiry to have any sort of systematic or methodologically sound structure. Absent such a concept, inquiry loses any possibility of systematicity, and instead becomes nothing more than random shifting around and arbitrary clutching at straws. Such shifting and clutching will, ideally, eventuate in a more systematic concept of the topic being inquired into, at which point inquiry “moves into a new gear,” and begins to become genuinely organized. Physical science has long since moved past such a phase of randomly poking things with a stick; it has long been operating with a detailed and thoroughly developed concept of nature. But while the sciences have A concept of nature, does that mean they have the best concept of nature? There are reasons to believe that the answer to this question is “no.”Nature

This brings us to the philosophical question of naturalism. Some forms of naturalism take the position that “nature is all there is,” which might seem like a fairly strong metaphysical commitment until one realizes that saying, “nature is all there is,” tells us nothing about what all nature is. So in order to have any cognitive content, any and all forms of naturalism – regardless of whether or not they admit the possibility of anything beyond nature – must, primarily, be a thesis about what nature is. So a form of naturalism will be the source of a concomitant concept of nature. I will state without argument that the two stand in a one-to-one relationship: if “a” form of naturalism resulted in a “family” of concepts of nature, then in reality what we would have is a family of forms of naturalism as well – one member of this latter family for each concept in the former. Continue reading →

The Quantum of Explanation (book)

17 Friday Feb 2017

Posted by in Logic, naturalism, Philosophy of Logic, Philosophy of Science, Whitehead

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Publication is almost upon us.

quantum-of-explanation

“The Quantum of Explanation advances a bold new theory of how explanation ought to be understood in philosophical and cosmological inquiries. Using a complete interpretation of Alfred North Whitehead’s philosophical and mathematical writings and an interpretive structure that is essentially new, Auxier and Herstein argue that Whitehead has never been properly understood, nor has the depth and breadth of his contribution to the human search for knowledge been assimilated by his successors. This important book effectively applies Whitehead’s philosophy to problems in the interpretation of science, empirical knowledge, and nature. It develops a new account of philosophical naturalism that will contribute to the current naturalism debate in both Analytic and Continental philosophy. Auxier and Herstein also draw attention to some of the most important differences between the process theology tradition and Whitehead’s thought, arguing in favor of a Whiteheadian naturalism that is more or less independent of theological concerns. This book offers a clear and comprehensive introduction to Whitehead’s philosophy and is an essential resource for students and scholars interested in American philosophy, the philosophy of mathematics and physics, and issues associated with naturalism, explanation and radical empiricism.”

This author’s profile can be found HERE.

More information on the book can be found HERE.

Let’s just say I’m a little excited.

Models and Interpretations

18 Saturday Jun 2016

Posted by in Critical Thinking, General Philosophy, Logic, Religion

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A number of years ago I got into a discussion with an acquaintance about what kind of symbol system tells us “the truth” about the world. This is not how my interlocutor expressed the problem; she simply insisted that mathematics gives us the truth. I tried many different approaches to get her to understand that what she was saying made absolutely no sense, because the first thing that must happen (once any collection of symbols is at hand) in order to talk about truth was that those symbols have to be interpreted, and such interpretation is not given in advance. Thus, I have a modest background in some advanced forms of mathematics (mainly formal logic, abstract algebra, and a touch of differential geometry), and I understand that simply having a bunch of squiggles in front of you is not enough to adjudicate whether those squiggles say anything at all, much less anything that is true. Meanings must be assigned to those squiggles such that they hang together to form some kind of model, and that model then must be associated with the world in some form such that the model can be interpreted as making claims about the world which then can be interpreted as to its truth content. And here, “world” can mean either the world of concrete experience or a purely abstract “world” which is itself something of a mathematical construct. Also, my choice of the term “truth content” rather than “truth value” is not an innocent one: I wish to leave open the possibility that truth evaluations can be more complex and multi-dimensional than the mere assignment of values.Three Mesas

It became very clear that while I understood my acquaintance’s position, she in no way understood mine. This was because while I was repeatedly able to paraphrase – that is, interpret – her argument, when asked to do the same for mine she was unable to do anything other than repeat her own position, which addressed none of the points I had made. In later years, she was known to crow a bit about how she “won” the argument. To be fair, in retrospect I realize that there were a number of ways I could have made my own position clearer, as it was burdened by a much greater degree of philosophical nuance than the position she was presenting. And I confess that I do not think quickly on my feet; indeed, I’ve only ever suggested that, given time, I can think thoroughly. (One of the reasons I went into philosophy is because a line like, “Herstein! If we don’t get this metaphysical principle out the door by end of business today, our competition is going to crucify us!” is not something one is ever likely to hear from one’s department head.) Continue reading →

Nuts and Dolts

31 Saturday Oct 2015

Posted by in Global warming, Logic, Philosophy of Science, Politics

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So the other day, I made the error of reading the comments section on a post relating to climate change denial manifested by a certain prominent national politician. One individual complained about the (accurate and entirely valid) use of the word “denier” in reference to this politician. The commenter went on to state something to the effect that, “Scientists generally cheerfully embrace differing opinions.” (I have altered the exact wording so as to eliminate any identifiable markers that might lead back to the person and the comment.)Dunce-cap

Now, myself, I find that I tend to look much less stupid than I otherwise might if I resist tossing about terms and concepts in public of which I lack even the barest scintilla of understanding. This is a rule I heartily wish more people would adopt, the above mentioned commenter being a prime example. Anyone with even the littlest, little notion about what science is and how it works – either logically as methodology, or sociologically as practice, to say nothing of both – will instantly recognize such a statement as the childishly fatuous twaddle it obviously happens to be. Yet the doe-eyed naïf who spewed this foolishness was almost certainly being sincere. This got me thinking again about the lunacy that is currently swallowing the federal House of Representatives, and the recent elevation of Paul Ryan to the position of Speaker. You see, the two issues are connected. Continue reading →

God o’ The Gaps (part 1)

18 Sunday Oct 2015

Posted by in God, Ignorance, naturalism, Philosophy of Science

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The “God o’ The Gaps” fallacy is an especially pernicious, yet easily dismissible, form of the argumentum ad ignorantiam. It is pernicious because religious dogmatists, with no interest in or capacity for rational thought, swing this fallacy about with the most abysmally childish enthusiasm, like blind persons with a sledge hammer in an empty field, who fancy themselves to be building a tent city. It is easily dismissible because anyone possessed of nothing more exotic than the mere abstract possibility of intelligence can readily see through it, for no more time or effort than it takes to have such infantilism articulated. All that being said, an analysis of the fallacy does invite some reflections upon the character of explanation, a character which the title of this blog ought suggest is a thing of interest at this site.Gap-In-Mountain

This will be a longish argument, so I’ll be breaking it into two parts. In this part, I will discuss the argumentum ad ignorantiam particularly in light of the God o’ The Gaps (which I’ll simply abbreviate “GotG”) variant, and generically mention some of the places it crops up. The argument will show how the concept/idea of God can play no useful role in natural science, even when the GotG fallacy is avoided. In part 2 I’ll turn to what, in many respects, is my primary question: What might the role of “God” in explanation &/or interpretation be? I’ll review (in a crude way) the distinctions between the religious, the theological, and the philosophical uses of the “G” word (although, I’ve already said a bit about this elsewhere.) With that said, let us turn to the argument itself. Continue reading →

Science and Philosophy

11 Thursday Jun 2015

Posted by in General Philosophy, Logic, Philosophy of Science, Whitehead

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My colleague Brian asked (some little while ago), “I wondered if you might make some comments on the relationship (assuming there is one) between science and speculative philosophy?” Well, now that the generalized madness that is and was the 2015 International Whitehead Conference is behind me, I finally have time to turn my attention to this and other questions.

There is absolutely a relationship between science and speculative philosophy, and it is worth remembering how that relationship expressed itself in the past: Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton all knew themselves to be engaged IN philosophy when they made their grand, speculative proposals. My answer here, however, will be thoroughly Whiteheadian. Not, however, because I’m a “fan,” but because I believe that Whitehead was substantially correct on the issues he chose to engage, and always interesting, regardless.* Continue reading →

The Nature of Scientific Controversies

12 Monday Jan 2015

Posted by in Climate Change, Creationism, Logic, Philosophy of Logic, Philosophy of Science

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The title of this post is, among other things, a play on Kuhn’s classic The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. The purpose of this post is to set out a collection of “quick and dirty” rules of thumb for non-specialists to be able to determine when a putative “controversy” (as reported in the press) is a genuine scientific controversy. DSCF1966Quick and dirty rules of thumb are the best that anyone can ever hope to achieve on this matter, because the determination of genuine versus specious controversy is inherently qualitative and deeply sensitive to context. Nevertheless, a very solid set of evaluative tools can be quickly assembled and mastered with relative ease by anyone prepared to apply logic to facts. This post is something of a “part 2” to my earlier, What is Science?

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Making Sense 1

29 Friday Aug 2014

Posted by in Climate Change, Critical Thinking, General Philosophy, Philosophy of Science

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In making sense of things – of anything, really – there are at least three factors involved: logical coherence, empirical adequacy, and narrative intelligibility. The last item there, “narrative intelligibility,” is the tricky one, and the one that many people tend to forget about. So I will deal with that in a separate post. Not only are logical coherence and empirical adequacy rather more straight forward to deal with, I’ve already said a fair amount bout about logic as such and about methods of formal analysis in previous posts. Still, it would be worth while to say a few words about what is meant by “coherence” before addressing the topic of empirical adequacy.

“Coherence” is a fairly well-liked word in philosophical circles, but its meaning tends to be given short-shrift especially among logicians. For these latter, “coherence” is often treated as meaning nothing more than formal consistency, which is to say, if “p” is a proposition, then it cannot be the case that both p and not-p are true. While this is a valuable resource in formal arenas and in matters of mathematical proof, it is pretty weak-tea from a more general, philosophical perspective of coherence. Whitehead offers the following characterization:

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“The” Nature of Naturalism?

16 Wednesday Jul 2014

Posted by in General Philosophy, Philosophy of Science

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      “Naturalism” is a term that is frequently bandied about with such carefree disregard for clarity and meaning that one is left rather breathless at the speed with which so many largely meaningless labels are confidently announced to the world. Naturalism is frequently associated with (physical) science. But regardless of how justified such an association is, it frankly tells us absolutely nothing about either nature or science. Scientific results only seem to tell us what nature is, in a pure and simple way, when the metaphysical presuppositions of science are thoroughly suppressed and the large-scale interpretive commitments that exercise their unexamined domination over the particular reading of this or that scientific theory are permitted to operate not only unchallenged, but altogether without so much as a first, much less a second thought. Scientific theories – most particularly those in theoretical physics, where abstract mathematics is so profoundly important and influential – do not come with their interpretations “on their sleeve,” as it were. I will be exploring this problem in greater detail in the not-too-distant future, when I spend a few posts on the problematic issue of what I call “Model Centrism.”

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