Belief Vs. Knowledge

[PeterMP]

 

I do not see a way to rationally examine discontinuation or suspension of natural laws.

Papers you posted, they examined whether reality could be a simulation. You ran with that a bit too far, in my view. You started taking about properties of the simulation. Those papers did not go there. And I don't think they mentioned anything about suspensions of natural laws.

Besides, you are acting like those papers support your conclusion when they actually say something like "one of these 3 conclusions is highly likely to be true"

 

1.  My conclusion is not what you keep suggesting it is.  My conclusion is that I don't know what the probability is that natural laws are really natural laws in the context of the assumptions made by science (if we say that gravity is gravity because that's what we call it, then it is gravity, but then we have issues with that definition of gravity in the context of the assumptions made by science).

 

2.  I think you are playing word games with word simulation.  A simulation is normally used to indicate that there is a controller and as I've already stated the one paper talks about the Sims game and while most people don't have the ability to re-program the Sims game so that very different things happen some people could and can and even the normal player can do things like stop the game, restart the game, and pause it.  If those sorts of things are happening to us, those would be violations of the laws of nature at least as we currently understand them.

 

This is contrasted by the literature in the field where people talk about maybe our universe was created by another species living in another universe (This idea is a based on Alan Guth's work in Cosmology who has talked about creating universes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Guth).  Here it wouldn't be a simulation (though the idea of making a universe and not doing anything with it- not even observing it (which would affect it) would seems unlikely to me  so even here I think you'd have issues with "laws of nature" as they potentially could depend on the actions of the creators).  However, a universe created by others could presumably be less controlled than a simulation.

 

3.  Again, I'm not saying there is a high probability.  I'm saying I'm not if there are 3 possibilities and I can't differentiate between them that would put the probability at 1/3 for just that issue with respect to the laws of nature (e.g. just considering that possibility that this is a simulation).

 

And I'll quote again from the paper that is arguing that it is not as likely we are a simulation

 

http://www.simulation-argument.com/weatherson.pdf

 

"For ease of exposition, I will assume that Cr describes in some way the credences at some time of a particular rational human-like agent, Rat, who is much like you or me, except that she is perfectly rational."

 

"Nothing I have said here implies that Rat should have a high credence in her being human. But it does make one argument that she should not have a high credence in this look rather tenuous. Further, it is quite plausible that if there is no good reason not to give high credence to a hypothesis, then it is rationally permissible to give it such a high credence. It may not be rationally mandatory to give it such a high credence, but it is permissible. If Rat is very confident that she is human, even while knowing that most human-like beings are Sims, she has not violated any norms of reasoning, and hence is not thereby irrational. In that respect she is a bit like you and me."

 

I'm comfortable with that statement, but look carefully at what he has said ("Further, it is quite plausible that if there is no good reason not to give high credence to a hypothesis, then it is rationally permissible to give it such a high credence.").  That isn't science.  In science, we don't give a hypothesis high credence without evidence supporting it.

The same argument would apply to God. There isn't good evidence that God doesn't exist so it is rationally permissible to believe that God exist.

The same argument would apply to antibiotics. If I can't have a "high credence" that I'm human (vs. a simulation), then how can I have a "high credence" antibiotics are going to work.

And that's what Coyne was trying to argue in that thread that you started.

And again, he's just talking about Rat being a simulation, not other possibilities where we are not a simulation, but the laws of nature are still not really "laws" (in that they are not permanent in the context of the space and time of the universe).

And, I don't know how to study these things either and I'm sure that was pretty clear in my old thread.

But I do know that the first step to getting to the point where we can study them is to think about them, ackowledge the arguments do have some validity, and not dismiss every piece of evidence for them as a mistake.

The answer is not to pretend we know things that we don't actually know.

[alexey]

1. My conclusion is not what you keep suggesting it is. My conclusion is that I don't know what the probability is that natural laws are really natural laws in the context of the assumptions made by science (if we say that gravity is gravity because that's what we call it, then it is gravity, but then we have issues with that definition of gravity in the context of the assumptions made by science).

I cannot make sense of words "natural laws are really natural laws".

Natural laws are as real as as anything else that we call "real". I do not know what it means for something to be more "real" than stuff we call "real".

2. I think you are playing word games with word simulation. A simulation is normally used to indicate that there is a controller and as I've already stated the one paper talks about the Sims game and while most people don't have the ability to re-program the Sims game so that very different things happen some people could and can and even the normal player can do things like stop the game, restart the game, and pause it. If those sorts of things are happening to us, those would be violations of the laws of nature at least as we currently understand them.

I think you are the one playing word games here. You are saying "if I call XYZ a dog, and dogs have tails, then XYZ has a tail." It does not follow.

You actually have to make the argument for your position. You have to argue that reality is a kind of simulation that can be controlled. You cannot just say it can be controlled because we call it "simulation".

3. Again, I'm not saying there is a high probability. I'm saying I'm not if there are 3 possibilities and I can't differentiate between them that would put the probability at 1/3 for just that issue with respect to the laws of nature (e.g. just considering that possibility that this is a simulation).

You either can evaluate these probabilities, or you cannot.

Yet you say you cannot evaluate these probabilities, and then you evaluate them to 1/3.

The same argument would apply to God. There isn't good evidence that God doesn't exist so it is rationally permissible to believe that God exist.

I don't know what "rationally permissible" means.. but if it means something like "rational", then I can see many scenarios in which it is "rationally permissible" to believe that god exists.

The same argument would apply to antibiotics. If I can't have a "high credence" that I'm human (vs. a simulation), then how can I have a "high credence" antibiotics are going to work.

I agree that the same argument could be applied to antibiotics as well... although I think there are much better arguments for taking antibiotics.

And that's what Coyne was trying to argue in that thread that you started.

And again, he's just talking about Rat being a simulation, not other possibilities where we are not a simulation, but the laws of nature are still not really "laws" (in that they are not permanent in the context of the space and time of the universe).

I cannot make sense of words "laws of nature are still not really 'laws'".

You continue to press an idea that our words attempt to point at some "real reality". This is not the case.

Maybe an example will clear it up. Thousands of years ago, people had words analogous to "rock". Rocks were those things over there, hard things you can throw and do other stuff with. Today we know about chemical elements and that "rocks" are made of mostly empty space. For ancient people, this would completely be mind blowing, akin to discovering that they are in a simulation. Does this mean hard things they could throw were not "really rocks"?

[PeterMP]

I cannot make sense of words "natural laws are really natural laws".

Science requires that there are things that are constants as a function of time (for the most part at least) and space (so through out the whole Universe). If we call things that meet that description natural laws, then we have a definition of natural laws.

If we call the force that we've studied in our area of the galaxy that tends to cause things of mass to be attracted to one another and call that thing gravity and then take gravity and things that are related/similar to it (things like the fine-structure constant and weak nuclear force), and say those things are natural laws, then we have sets of natural laws. And this is commonly done. People talk about gravity and the fine-structure constant being natural laws.

But it isn't clear that those sets of natural laws meet our science based definition of natrual laws.

When I say we don't know if natural laws are natural laws, I mean it isn't clear that the things we call natural laws (e.g. gravity) meet our science based definition of natural laws.

Which is why it is an assumption that underlies science and not a known fact.

Is gravity a natural law?

Does gravity occur eveywhere in the same manner at all times?

The answer to the first question depends on how you want to define natural laws.

The answer to the second question is I don't know.

 

I think you are the one playing word games here. You are saying "if I call XYZ a dog, and dogs have tails, then XYZ has a tail." It does not follow.

You actually have to make the argument for your position. You have to argue that reality is a kind of simulation that can be controlled. You cannot just say it can be controlled because we call it "simulation".

I don't have to make that argument. I'm saying that I don't know. You want to say that it is very unlikely that it can happen. If you want to make that positive assertion, then that's on you.

I'm happy with statements like:

"Nothing I have said here implies that Rat should have a high credence in her being human."

Where Rat is a completely rational being that believes she's human.

And I've just posted (and now posted multiple times) a paper that I think does a very good job of making that argument.

 

You either can evaluate these probabilities, or you cannot.

Yet you say you cannot evaluate these probabilities, and then you evaluate them to 1/3.

If I have 3 possibilities my naive certainity of any single one of them being true must be 1/3.

However, though, as I've stated multiple times, including in that post that's too simplistic in terms of the assumptions that science depends on being true (e.g. "And again, he's just talking about Rat being a simulation, not other possibilities where we are not a simulation" (too simplistic only takes in one possiblities that this is a human generated simulation) so determining that probability is not possible for me to evaluate. I don't know how many options there really are even.

 

Maybe an example will clear it up. Thousands of years ago, people had words analogous to "rock". Rocks were those things over there, hard things you can throw and do other stuff with. Today we know about chemical elements and that "rocks" are made of mostly empty space. For ancient people, this would completely be mind blowing, akin to discovering that they are in a simulation. Does this mean hard things they could throw were not "really rocks"?

What you and I are doing is crossing where the definition comes from:

natural laws- things that science assumes happen (i.e. there are "laws" that are "constant" everywhere)

natural laws- gravity, the weak nuclear force, etc.

Those two definitions of natural laws are not necessarily completely and mutually inclusive.

You want to point to the fact that gravity always appears to work on rocks and call it a natural law, and then apply that to that our definition of the assumptions required for science to be true.

[alexey]

Science requires that there are things that are constants as a function of time (for the most part at least) and space (so through out the whole Universe). If we call things that meet that description natural laws, then we have a definition of natural laws.

If we look at science as a method for studying repeatable things, then repeatable things can be studied by science and non-repeatable things cannot.

 

If we call the force that we've studied in our area of the galaxy that tends to cause things of mass to be attracted to one another and call that thing gravity and then take gravity and things that are related/similar to it (things like the fine-structure constant and weak nuclear force), and say those things are natural laws, then we have sets of natural laws. And this is commonly done. People talk about gravity and the fine-structure constant being natural laws.

But it isn't clear that those sets of natural laws meet our science based definition of natural laws.

Natural laws are things that, according to our current understanding of them, meet our current definition of "natural laws".

Things will not stop falling down if "gravity" stops meeting the definition of "natural law"... and if things do stop falling down, then we can examine what's going on.

 

When I say we don't know if natural laws are natural laws, I mean it isn't clear that the things we call natural laws (e.g. gravity) meet our science based definition of natural laws.

If things we call "natural laws" stop meeting the defintion of "natural laws", then we can either 1) call them something else or 2) change the definition of "natural laws".

These word games do not change whether things keep falling down.

 

I don't have to make that argument. I'm saying that I don't know. You want to say that it is very unlikely that it can happen. If you want to make that positive assertion, then that's on you.

I accepted your positive assertion that reality could be a simulation.

I rejected your positive assertion that "reality simulation" could be stopped by "reality simulators".

 

If I have 3 possibilities my naive certainity of any single one of them being true must be 1/3.

I don't know if "naive certainty" is an actual term, but drawing this conclusion without any additional information seems irrational.

 

What you and I are doing is crossing where the definition comes from:

natural laws- things that science assumes happen (i.e. there are "laws" that are "constant" everywhere)

natural laws- gravity, the weak nuclear force, etc.

Those two definitions of natural laws are not necessarily completely and mutually inclusive.

You want to point to the fact that gravity always appears to work on rocks and call it a natural law, and then apply that to that our definition of the assumptions required for science to be true.

Can you please explain what would it look like if "assumptions of science" were false?

Do you imagine things continuing to work as is, science continuing to do a very good job at predicting the future, but being somehow "not true"?

Or do you imagine everything suddenly changing, natural laws stopping, and us going "oh crap science was wrong all along"?

[alexey]

Peter,

Here is a quote by Einstein that suggests it would be straight up insane to expect a sudden change in observed patterns:

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results - Albert Einstein

[PeterMP]

If we look at science as a method for studying repeatable things, then repeatable things can be studied by science and non-repeatable things cannot.

Natural laws are things that, according to our current understanding of them, meet our current definition of "natural laws".

Things will not stop falling down if "gravity" stops meeting the definition of "natural law"... and if things do stop falling down, then we can examine what's going on.

If things we call "natural laws" stop meeting the defintion of "natural laws", then we can either 1) call them something else or 2) change the definition of "natural laws".

These word games do not change whether things keep falling down.

You are back to saying that if we assume my assumption is right, then I am right.

Oh and you have to ignore/dismiss the evidence that my assumption is wrong. You have to say that it isn't possible that Fleischmann got fusion to happen because at very very local level gravity is much stronger than normal (in this case things would be pulled together, but we still would have to say that gravity doesn't fit our science definition of a natural law w/o more information).

In addition, the fine structure constant, would have fit your definition of a natural law less than 10 years ago, but now it is not clear if it is actually a constant across space and time.

I accepted your positive assertion that reality could be a simulation.

I rejected your positive assertion that "reality simulation" could be stopped by "reality simulators".

Have you ever heard of a simulation that can't be stopped?

Have you give me an example of a simulation that can't be stopped?

The idea that something/somebody is in control of a simulation seems to be inherent in the definition of a simulation, and if we know of no simulations that can't be stopped, it seems unlikely this is one.

But realistically, from my perspective, it doesn't even matter. I certainly wouldn't assert that I know if it is a simulation that it WILL be stopped. Whether it can/will be stopped is just another source of uncertainity.

Do you want to assert that if this is a simulation, it must be a simulation that can't/won't be stopped?

Can you please explain what would it look like if "assumptions of science" were false?

Do you imagine things continuing to work as is, science continuing to do a very good job at predicting the future, but being somehow "not true"?

Or do you imagine everything suddenly changing, natural laws stopping, and us going "oh crap science was wrong all along"?

If this is a simulation, and it isn't a simulation to test what happens if the "natural laws" stop holding, I suspect it will look like science work, especially given our propensity to see patterns and our issues with studying rare/unique events.

The simulators will have issues from time to time(this is a pretty safe assumption if they have non-infinite resources (i.e. the laws of thermodynamics hold). If they are small and local issues that don't affect the over all purpose of the simulation and they are easily corrected, we will dismiss them as "mistakes", and they will continue to let the simulation run.

If they are large issues, they will "back" the simulation up, delete the relevant "memory", make the relevent changes, and start it over from the last "good" spot and we won't realize that we had/saw evidence that this was a simulation (this assumes that they have that ability, which seems likely based on my experience with simulations).

Up until the time they decide to turn us off (assuming they can and do), in which case we won't think anything, we'll just stop "being".

But there are other possibilities.

Maybe this isn't a simulation, but the "natural laws" aren't natural laws in the manner required by science. In this case, you could imagine other things too.

There is information that suggest that the fine structure constant does vary by small amounts over large distances (well not large with respect to the Universe (actually small in that context), but large with respect to what we think of in terms of distances).

Using this as "evidence" for the other "natural laws", this would suggest that "constants" might not be "constants".

Interestingly, this type of thinking helps with issues related to the fine tuning argument and Fermi's paradox.

If the variables required for life (e.g. gravity, the fine structure constant, the strong and weak nucleare force) are not constants with respect to space and time, then in the universe all sorts of combinations of the relevant variables could occur, and it becomes likely some space/time area will have the ones that give life. The flip side of that then is that there will be large areas of space/time that do not have the constants required for life, and our expectations of how much life should occur assuming that these things are constant will be wrong.

This also limits the ability of living things to travel/communicate. We won't be able to travel/communicate through areas of the universe where the related variables are not what is required for our communications/ability to live.

And if they change, then you won't get real ancient civilations because eventually the area of space/time where your civilization is will be annhiliated when something like the strong force changes and is no longer strong enought to support the formation of the things we call atoms.

And that could happen quickly or slowly.

Certainly, we see things that are relatively kinetically stable for long periods of time until they aren't and then they go quickly to their new state when some critical situation is passed.. We also see things that go slowly for long periods of times.

[PeterMP]

Peter,

Here is a quote by Einstein that suggests it would be straight up insane to expect a sudden change in observed patterns:

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results - Albert Einstein

Einstein also thought quantum mechanics was wrong. Shows how much he knows . 

(True story- I was prepping a lecture last night, and the stuff was based on work that Einstein did in 1917. I turned to my wife and told her, I've learned one thing teaching this class and that is if the book mentions Einstein I don't really understand the topic and he was doing this stuff nearly 100 years ago.)

 

But I will point out that quantum mechanics says pretty much exactly that if we do do the samething over and over again, we should expect different things to happen.

That doesn't mean that we would should expect it to happen just that it can/will.

And that's pretty much what I'm saying in this thread.

[alexey]

You are back to saying that if we assume my assumption is right, then I am right.

Oh and you have to ignore/dismiss the evidence that my assumption is wrong. You have to say that it isn't possible that Fleischmann got fusion to happen because at very very local level gravity is much stronger than normal (in this case things would be pulled together, but we still would have to say that gravity doesn't fit our science definition of a natural law w/o more information).

In addition, the fine structure constant, would have fit your definition of a natural law less than 10 years ago, but now it is not clear if it is actually a constant across space and time.

Are you complaining that I am dismissing evidence that cannot be reliably demonstrated?

Have you ever heard of a simulation that can't be stopped?

Have you give me an example of a simulation that can't be stopped?

Can you explain why our knowledge about "simulations" is applicable to the "simulation of reality"?

The idea that something/somebody is in control of a simulation seems to be inherent in the definition of a simulation, and if we know of no simulations that can't be stopped, it seems unlikely this is one.

Yes it seems that way.

Then again, you are arguing that if we are in a simulation, then everything we know could be wrong... including stuff we know about simulations!

In order to argue this way, you need to show why our knowledge about "simulations" is applicable to the "simulation of reality".

But realistically, from my perspective, it doesn't even matter. I certainly wouldn't assert that I know if it is a simulation that it WILL be stopped. Whether it can/will be stopped is just another source of uncertainity.

You have not made a convincing argument that this is possible, and therefore I reject your assertion that this is a source of uncertainty.

Do you want to assert that if this is a simulation, it must be a simulation that can't/won't be stopped?

I do not know whether this is a simulation, and I do not know whether this is a simulation that can be stopped. I take no stance on this issue and make no assertions about it.

I accept your claim that reality could be a simulation.

I reject your claim that this possibility has impact on our decision making when getting on the plane.

If this is a simulation, and it isn't a simulation to test what happens if the "natural laws" stop holding, I suspect it will look like science work, especially given our propensity to see patterns and our issues with studying rare/unique events.

How is "look like science work" different from "science work"?

The simulators will have issues from time to time(this is a pretty safe assumption if they have non-infinite resources (i.e. the laws of thermodynamics hold). If they are small and local issues that don't affect the over all purpose of the simulation and they are easily corrected, we will dismiss them as "mistakes", and they will continue to let the simulation run.

If we have no way of distinguishing mistakes from glitches, how are they functionally different?

If they are large issues, they will "back" the simulation up, delete the relevant "memory", make the relevent changes, and start it over from the last "good" spot and we won't realize that we had/saw evidence that this was a simulation (this assumes that they have that ability, which seems likely based on my experience with simulations).

Up until the time they decide to turn us off (assuming they can and do), in which case we won't think anything, we'll just stop "being".

But there are other possibilities.

These are fun things to think about, that's for sure...

Was the Universe created a second ago from a backup tape, or did it actually play out the way we think? Can we tell the difference?

And if we cannot tell the difference in any way, is there really a difference?

If this whole exercise is beyond our ability to know, then these possibilities are equivalent to us.

Maybe this isn't a simulation, but the "natural laws" aren't natural laws in the manner required by science. In this case, you could imagine other things too.

Yes I can imagine a lot of stuff.

There is information that suggest that the fine structure constant does vary by small amounts over large distances (well not large with respect to the Universe (actually small in that context), but large with respect to what we think of in terms of distances).

Using this as "evidence" for the other "natural laws", this would suggest that "constants" might not be "constants".

Interestingly, this type of thinking helps with issues related to the fine tuning argument and Fermi's paradox.

We started talking about "maybe science and its assumptions are all wrong," and now we're talking about advancing science. Awesome.

If the variables required for life (e.g. gravity, the fine structure constant, the strong and weak nucleare force) are not constants with respect to space and time, then in the universe all sorts of combinations of the relevant variables could occur, and it becomes likely some space/time area will have the ones that give life. The flip side of that then is that there will be large areas of space/time that do not have the constants required for life, and our expectations of how much life should occur assuming that these things are constant will be wrong.

This also limits the ability of living things to travel/communicate. We won't be able to travel/communicate through areas of the universe where the related variables are not what is required for our communications/ability to live.

And if they change, then you won't get real ancient civilations because eventually the area of space/time where your civilization is will be annhiliated when something like the strong force changes and is no longer strong enought to support the formation of the things we call atoms.

And that could happen quickly or slowly.

Certainly, we see things that are relatively kinetically stable for long periods of time until they aren't and then they go quickly to their new state when some critical situation is passed.. We also see things that go slowly for long periods of times.

Awesome, I love science.

[alexey]

Peter, it appears that things you call "assumptions of science" is the very embodiment of rationality - using the past to predict the future.

[PeterMP]

Are you complaining that I am dismissing evidence that cannot be reliably demonstrated?

I'm complaining that you do not treat all evidence the same.

It cannot be "reliably demonstrated" that gravity always works unless you dismiss the cases that would indicate that it doesn't.

The idea that gravity works is "realiably demonstrated" only in the context of dismissing the evidence that it doesn't.

The other side of the argument could do the samething.

 

Can you explain why our knowledge about "simulations" is applicable to the "simulation of reality"?

Yes it seems that way.

Then again, you are arguing that if we are in a simulation, then everything we know could be wrong... including stuff we know about simulations!

In order to argue this way, you need to show why our knowledge about "simulations" is applicable to the "simulation of reality".

This argument doesn't help you. It is the same argument that you tried when I first introduced the idea except with respect to probability and statistics.

If everything we know about simulations is wrong, then Coyne's arugments with respect to science are still garbage.

If I can't argue what we know about simulations would apply to a simulation of reality because everything we know about simulations could be wrong because this could be a simulation, then Coyne is still wrong.

Just like if I can't argue based on probability that this could be a simulation because everything we know about probability could be wrong, then science as we know it is still in big trouble.

If everything we know about simulations is wrong and a good bit of science is based on simulations, then Coyne's argument about science is wrong.

And note, I'm not dismissing any evidence. I don't know of any simulations that can't be ended, and I don't know of a way to create a simulation that couldn't be ended. Do you?

And if what we know about simulations is wrong because this is a simulation, then I'm still right about science having issues.

You have not made a convincing argument that this is possible, and therefore I reject your assertion that this is a source of uncertainty.

I do not know whether this is a simulation, and I do not know whether this is a simulation that can be stopped. I take no stance on this issue and make no assertions about it.

I accept your claim that reality could be a simulation.

I reject your claim that this possibility has impact on our decision making when getting on the plane.

"I take no stance on this issue and make no assertions about it."

Ahh, you do realize the above is an assertion.

Your assertion is that you don't have to worry about this impacting your decision when getting on a plane.

 

How is "look like science work" different from "science work"?

If we have no way of distinguishing mistakes from glitches, how are they functionally different?

It matters with respect to how you treat people like Pons and Fleischman. Do you say you guys made a mistake go away and leave us alone?

Do you say well maybe something odd was going on in your lab at the time, but it appears to have changed, but you guys have value, we won't hold this against you in terms of things like promotion and funding oppurtunities in the future and please study other topics that interest you. We value your work as scientists despite this issue.

Do you say hmm maybe we want to start tracking this sort of occurences over time and look for patterns that might tell us something (maybe a simulator with a particular job is "sloppy" so we'd see trends)?

 

And it matters in the context of this is not a simulation, but things like gravity do not really meet sciences defintion of natural laws.

We started talking about "maybe science and its assumptions are all wrong," and now we're talking about advancing science. Awesome.

Awesome, I love science.

You do realize my comments "advance science" by suggesting that the solution to the problems that science is having a hard time explaining currently are because science at least in the manner used by people like Coyne does not exist.

[PeterMP]

Peter, it appears that things you call "assumptions of science" is the very embodiment of rationality - using the past to predict the future.

Well since I've already said in that I believe science is true, and I like to think that my beliefs are rational (at least the longer term ones), I'm glad to hear you think that.

Here's the quote that I gave you above:

"Nothing I have said here implies that Rat should have a high credence in her being human. But it does make one argument that she should not have a high credence in this look rather tenuous. Further, it is quite plausible that if there is no good reason not to give high credence to a hypothesis, then it is rationally permissible to give it such a high credence. It may not be rationally mandatory to give it such a high credence, but it is permissible. If Rat is very confident that she is human, even while knowing that most human-like beings are Sims, she has not violated any norms of reasoning, and hence is not thereby irrational. In that respect she is a bit like you and me."

Now let do it again and change a few words:

Nothing I have said here implies that Rat should have a high credence that the assumptions that underlie science are true. But it does make one argument that she should not have a high credence in this look rather tenuous. Further, it is quite plausible that if there is no good reason not to give high credence to a hypothesis, then it is rationally permissible to give it such a high credence. It may not be rationally mandatory to give it such a high credence, but it is permissible. If Rat is very confident that the assumptions that underlie science are true, even while knowing that in many cases the assumptions that underlie science are not true, she has not violated any norms of reasoning, and hence is not thereby irrational. In that respect she is a bit like you and me. 

 

Of course, IMO I could also do this:

 

Nothing I have said here implies that Rat should have a high credence that god exist. But it does make one argument that she should not have a high credence in this look rather tenuous. Further, it is quite plausible that if there is no good reason not to give high credence to a hypothesis, then it is rationally permissible to give it such a high credence. It may not be rationally mandatory to give it such a high credence, but it is permissible. If Rat is very confident that god exist, even while knowing that in many cases that some god does not exist, she has not violated any norms of reasoning, and hence is not thereby irrational. In that respect she is a bit like you and me. 

[alexey]

I'm complaining that you do not treat all evidence the same.

Yes I treat evidence which can be reliably demonstrated differently then evidence which cannot be.

It cannot be "reliably demonstrated" that gravity always works unless you dismiss the cases that would indicate that it doesn't.

The idea that gravity works is "realiably demonstrated" only in the context of dismissing the evidence that it doesn't.

The other side of the argument could do the samething.

Can you reliably demonstrate cases where gravity does not work?

...

If everything we know about simulations is wrong, then Coyne's arugments with respect to science are still garbage.

...

Yes if you argue that Coyne's arguments undermine everything we know, then you must accept that they undermine everything we know about everything.

And if what we know about simulations is wrong because this is a simulation, then I'm still right about science having issues.

"I take no stance on this issue and make no assertions about it."

Ahh, you do realize the above is an assertion.

Your assertion is that you don't have to worry about this impacting your decision when getting on a plane.

It seems you're trying to present a stance to "ignore for lack of evidence" as "have evidence to reject".

It matters with respect to how you treat people like Pons and Fleischman. Do you say you guys made a mistake go away and leave us alone?

I say great, if you think you got something, show me. Oh you cannot show me... but you are really sure it happened in the lab? Ok.

Now what? I don't know. Do you know?

Do you say well maybe something odd was going on in your lab at the time, but it appears to have changed, but you guys have value, we won't hold this against you in terms of things like promotion and funding oppurtunities in the future and please study other topics that interest you. We value your work as scientists despite this issue.

I say well, you may have observed what you observed, but we cannot do much with it unless we can replicate those results.

Hey, by the way, if you find a good way to deal with results that cannot be replicated, please do let us know!

Do you say hmm maybe we want to start tracking this sort of occurences over time and look for patterns that might tell us something (maybe a simulator with a particular job is "sloppy" so we'd see trends)?

Great idea, let's do that.

Although I would think those scientists are already looking for patterns.

You do realize my comments "advance science" by suggesting that the solution to the problems that science is having a hard time explaining currently are because science at least in the manner used by people like Coyne does not exist.

I thought that science was more into empiricism and Coyne more of a philosopher.

[alexey]

Well since I've already said in that I believe science is true, and I like to think that my beliefs are rational (at least the longer term ones), I'm glad to hear you think that.

I do not know what you mean by "I believe science is true". It's just word games. It all depends on the definition of "true".

Science is what it is and it's not what it's not.

Science is not necessarily an attempt to get to "real reality", even though it could be viewed this way by some. It's just a method that has utility.

[PeterMP]

Yes I treat evidence which can be reliably demonstrated differently then evidence which cannot be.

Can you reliably demonstrate cases where gravity does not work?

What "reliable" evidence that you have that somebody is doing an experiment right now that will show that gravity varies as a function of time and space?

You have the fact that it hasn't been done yet, which isn't actually very good evidence.

As recent as 2007, the same would have been true for the fine structure constant.

 

Yes if you argue that Coyne's arguments undermine everything we know, then you must accept that they undermine everything we know about everything.

It seems you're trying to present a stance to "ignore for lack of evidence" as "have evidence to reject".

I'm not rejecting anything.

1. There is some probability that this is a simulation. I don't know what that value is.

2. There is some probability that this is a simulation that can't/won't be stopped. I don't know what that value is. I'm not at all comfortable saying that there is a high probability that it is 0.

3. What is the probability that this is a simulation that violates the laws of natures by being able to be turned off? I don't know.

 

I say great, if you think you got something, show me. Oh you cannot show me... but you are really sure it happened in the lab? Ok.

Now what? I don't know. Do you know?

I say well, you may have observed what you observed, but we cannot do much with it unless we can replicate those results.

Hey, by the way, if you find a good way to deal with results that cannot be replicated, please do let us know!

Great idea, let's do that.

Although I would think those scientists are already looking for patterns.

But we don't look for patterns in that manner. You've already posted people talking about it as being a mistake. YOU have posted why I was talking about mistakes. You've posted the Einstein quote indicating that getting something different by doing the samething is insanity. Those are your posts.

I'll tell you a story. A guy that I knew as a grad student was doing organic chemistry and trying to make a molecule. The first step was a small variation on something that somebody else had published. This was supposed to be pretty much a slam dunk reaction. He sets the reaction up, and it doesn't work. Does it again, doesn't work. His boss comes him and helps him set up, it doesn't work. His boss is frustrated and this reaction should just work. They set it up again, doesn't work. The boss is happy with his technique and decides the authoers left some small detail out. Contacts them, no they didn't leave anything out. They use the reaction to make other related molecules to what they published, they send them their actual protocol in the lab. Look over the protocol, decide there's no obvious difference, but they are getting nothing and they should be at least getting something. What they are doing isn't that much different than what the other lab is doing.

They start doing small things to vary the conditions w/ the idea that there is just some small difference that isn't directly related to the protocol. Something like differences in the detergent used to clean the glassware, in some cases, they make a very little bit of product, but never more than a very miniscule amount where in organic chemistry you have to have very high conversion of your reactants to your products in order to publish. But essentially none of them work. It isn't like they are getting a 50% yield and playing with the conditions is likely to get them where they need. The grad student fills up a notebook on trying to get this reaction to work.

He also has another project going that's going forward reasonably well, but the student likes some of the ideas behind the project and you never know when a project is going to stall so he wants to keep two things going, but finally his boss says this is crazy this isn't going to work. He tells the student to either find another way to make the molecule or if you want to keep two projects going, think about another project.

The grad student starts going through the literature trying to find another reasonable way to make the molecule. On a whim, he sets up the reaction the original way. He's tried this multiple times over a period of time and never got anything. This time he gets over a 90% yield.

The reaction works for him every time after that with good yields. The reaction is so robust that it becomes the "training" reaction for new undergrads in the lab. If the undergrad has had an undergrad organic chemistry lab so they understand the basics, they show the student where things are and hand them a written up protocol. They routinely get a 70% yield.

When they publish, they publish they can get over 90% yields on the reaction.

There's no journal that is going to accept, I did this for a 2 week period and then it stopped working or vice versa.

Society and science for the most part tell us if you do something and it works or doesn't work, but then try later and the opposite happens that you must have made a mistake. Especially in an extremely competitive environoments (which is actually the case at top line research schools), people are going to be very hesitant to admit to doing something that many (most) people will consider a mistake/error.

 

And you've been doing it over 2 threads for multiple weeks now.

I thought that science was more into empiricism and Coyne more of a philosopher.

Coyne is the biologist that wrote the piece that you started this thread:

http://es.redskins.com/topic/373856-slate-no-faith-in-science/

with. 

 

I do not know what you mean by "I believe science is true". It's just word games. It all depends on the definition of "true".

Science is what it is and it's not what it's not.

Science is not necessarily an attempt to get to "real reality", even though it could be viewed this way by some. It's just a method that has utility.

If you want to claim that by science you mean the scientific method, then you are right, but that argument doesn't make sense in the context of the arguments put forward by Coyne.

(and I've already made this point twice in the other thread)

[alexey]

What "reliable" evidence that you have that somebody is doing an experiment right now that will show that gravity varies as a function of time and space?

You have the fact that it hasn't been done yet, which isn't actually very good evidence.

As recent as 2007, the same would have been true for the fine structure constant.

Do you see a difference between:

1) Learning more about gravity, possibly completely changing our understanding of it.

2) Learning that things suddenly stopped falling down.

1. There is some probability that this is a simulation. I don't know what that value is.

2. There is some probability that this is a simulation that can't/won't be stopped. I don't know what that value is. I'm not at all comfortable saying that there is a high probability that it is 0.

3. What is the probability that this is a simulation that violates the laws of natures by being able to be turned off? I don't know.

Ok, pretty much the same here. Don't know, and not comfortable saying anything about probabilities.

Therefore, it has no impact on our descision making process. We can simply ignore this without asserting anything about its probability.

But we don't look for patterns in that manner. You've already posted people talking about it as being a mistake. YOU have posted why I was talking about mistakes. You've posted the Einstein quote indicating that getting something different by doing the samething is insanity. Those are your posts.

I do not see anything useful coming out of this enterprise, but I could be wrong. I would love to be wrong on this and have you or somebody else make that great discovery.

I'll tell you a story.

...

There's no journal that is going to accept, I did this for a 2 week period and then it stopped working or vice versa.

Society and science for the most part tell us if you do something and it works or doesn't work, but then try later and the opposite happens that you must have made a mistake. Especially in an extremely competitive environoments (which is actually the case at top line research schools), people are going to be very hesitant to admit to doing something that many (most) people will consider a mistake/error.

And you've been doing it over 2 threads for multiple weeks now.

Yes for the most part society and science will say you must have made a mistake.

In most cases, I'm fine with saying: maybe it's not a mistake, maybe it really worked for you, but those results are not useful unless they can be reproduced.

Obviously different people have different views on this. I'm sure many would say science discovers real reality, and inconsistent results are mistakes. I have a different view on this - "real" reality is inaccessible, science itself is just a method for studying patterns, assumptions are made by people who use science but not science itself, science is the embodiment of rationality, science itself cannot be wrong because it's just a method, but it can arrive to wrong conclusions and there may be things that cannot be studied via the scientific method.

Coyne is the biologist that wrote the piece that you started this thread:

http://es.redskins.com/topic/373856-slate-no-faith-in-science/

with.

If you want to claim that by science you mean the scientific method, then you are right, but that argument doesn't make sense in the context of the arguments put forward by Coyne.

(and I've already made this point twice in the other thread)

I do want to claim that science is the scientific method, and yes it's not universally applicable. I think Coyne's simulation arguments are in the realm of unfalsifiable philosophy.

[PeterMP]

Do you see a difference between:

1) Learning more about gravity, possibly completely changing our understanding of it.

2) Learning that things suddenly stopped falling down.

It seems to me that 2 would be a subset of 1. One is more probable simply because it encompasses more possibilities. But if we compare #2 to some other method by which #1 could happen, is there a reason to believe it is more or less likely?

Is there a reason why we should say that there is a very low probability that gravity in an area is kinetically stable until some "spark" happens and then it changes quickly as compared to some other way in which the theory of gravity could be wrong?

 

**EDIT**

I do want to point out that I don't think there is a high probability that things are going to start falling.  I've already said I believe the assumptions made by science are true (at least for the most part on a large scale), and I've already addressed what I think this will look like if this is a simulation.

**/EDIT**

 

 

Ok, pretty much the same here. Don't know, and not comfortable saying anything about probabilities.

Therefore, it has no impact on our descision making process. We can simply ignore this without asserting anything about its probability.

Whether you let it affect your decision making processes is up to you. But it does create a problem when you say that your decisions make more sense or are more reasonable than others.

If you have a large amount of uncertainity, then it is difficult to say you are more likely to be right than somebody else. Saying that your belief is less based on faith than somebody else's when there is a large amount of uncertainity in your beliefs is probably not actually a very good argument.

 

I do not see anything useful coming out of this enterprise, but I could be wrong. I would love to be wrong on this and have you or somebody else make that great discovery.

It is one of those things where you can't know if you don't try.

 

Obviously different people have different views on this. I'm sure many would say science discovers real reality, and inconsistent results are mistakes. I have a different view on this - "real" reality is inaccessible, science itself is just a method for studying patterns, assumptions are made by people who use science but not science itself, science is the embodiment of rationality, science itself cannot be wrong because it's just a method, but it can arrive to wrong conclusions and there may be things that cannot be studied via the scientific method.

I do want to claim that science is the scientific method, and yes it's not universally applicable.

You say "science itself is just a method for studying patterns" and then say that you do not want to claim that "science is the scientific method", which is it?

 

I think Coyne's simulation arguments are in the realm of unfalsifiable philosophy.

Did you look at the link? It was to your thread about science not requiring faith. Coyne is the biologist that wrote the piece that you used to start that thread. If he has made simulations arguments, I'm not aware of them.

I am curious though if science is based on assumptions that it can't prove why isn't it "unfalsifiable philosophy"?

If the patterns found by science are false-positives because the assumptions made are wrong, how would you demonstrate they are false? Certainly, there would be some false positive rate. How do you know you are over the false positive rate?

Is science itself then not an unfalsifiable philosophy?

[alexey]

1) Learning more about gravity, possibly completely changing our understanding of it.

2) Learning that things suddenly stopped falling down.

It seems to me that 2 would be a subset of 1. One is more probable simply because it encompasses more possibilities. But if we compare #2 to some other method by which #1 could happen, is there a reason to believe it is more or less likely?

I see reasons to believe that we will continue to learn about gravity, and no reasons to believe that things will suddenly stop falling down.

I do want to point out that I don't think there is a high probability that things are going to start falling. I've already said I believe the assumptions made by science are true (at least for the most part on a large scale), and I've already addressed what I think this will look like if this is a simulation.

Yes you already mentioned that your faith-based view of science includes believing that "assumptions of science are true".

I have a utility-based view of science, so for me science is a method of dealing with evidence. I use science because it works and I do not believe anything about something being "true". The whole idea of "assumptions of science being true" does not apply to me.

Whether you let it affect your decision making processes is up to you. But it does create a problem when you say that your decisions make more sense or are more reasonable than others,

If you have a large amount of uncertainity, then it is difficult to say you are more likely to be right than somebody else. Saying that your belief is less based on faith than somebody else's when there is a large amount of uncertainity in your beliefs is probably not actually a very good argument.

In a system of reference that is based on patterns and observations, doing the same thing and expecting a different result would be unreasonable.

Whether I am "right" or more "reasonable" in ignoring some possibilities in my daily life, that depends on a system of reference. I use a system in which I need evidence of something being possible in order to consider that possibility in my descisions making.

It is one of those things where you can't know if you don't try.

I think it's been tried before and therefore I am not interested. If somebody demonstrates there's something there, I will look further into it.

You say "science itself is just a method for studying patterns" and then say that you do not want to claim that "science is the scientific method", which is it?

I wrote that I DO want to say that science is just the method. A method cannot be right or wrong.

Did you look at the link? It was to your thread about science not requiring faith. Coyne is the biologist that wrote the piece that you used to start that thread. If he has made simulations arguments, I'm not aware of them.

My mistake, I thought Coyne was the author of that simulation study.

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2013/11/faith_in_science_and_religion_truth_authority_and_the_orderliness_of_nature.html

In that article, he writes:

Doing science, it is said, requires unevidenced faith in the “orderliness of nature” and an “unexplained set of physical laws,” as well as in the value of reason in determining truth.

Both claims are wrong.

The orderliness of nature—the set of so-called natural laws—is not an assumption but an observation.

...

What about faith in reason? Wrong again. Reason—the habit of being critical, logical, and of learning from experience—is not an a priori assumption but a tool that’s been shown to work.

I am curious though if science is based on assumptions that it can't prove why isn't it "unfalsifiable philosophy"?

If the patterns found by science are false-positives because the assumptions made are wrong, how would you demonstrate they are false? Certainly, there would be some false positive rate. How do you know you are over the false positive rate?

Is science itself then not an unfalsifiable philosophy?

Things can only be falsified within a system that defines rules for falsification... I only know one system that defines rules for falsification - science. I cannot apply these rules to science itself.

[PeterMP]

I see reasons to believe that we will continue to learn about gravity, and no reasons to believe that things will suddenly stop falling down.

Of the possibillities by which we could learn more about gravity why is any one of them of them more likely than a path that includes things stop falling?

 

I have a utility-based view of science, so for me science is a method of dealing with evidence. I use science because it works and I do not believe anything about something being "true". The whole idea of "assumptions of science being true" does not apply to me.

In a system of reference that is based on patterns and observations, doing the same thing and expecting a different result would be unreasonable.

It only works in the context of the asumptions that underlie it being true. You see patterns, but the observation of the patterns being true depends on an untestable assumption being true.

Let's use the example of antibiotics killing bacteria. We treat bacteria and/or people with the bacterial infection with antibiotics, a significant number (somebody did the proper statistical test and got a low p-value) of them get better based on our understanding of nature and probability.

But does that p-value actually have any meaning if the assumptions that underlie the test/method used are wrong?

 

Whether I am "right" or more "reasonable" in ignoring some possibilities in my daily life, that depends on a system of reference. I use a system in which I need evidence of something being possible in order to consider that possibility in my descisions making.

I think it's been tried before and therefore I am not interested. If somebody demonstrates there's something there, I will look further into it.

This is only true if you treat different forms of evidence differently.

You claim that you see patterns in the universe- things are repeatable.

What test have you done to actually demonstarte that?

None.

Okay, what about cases like cold fustion that would seem to refute that?

They are mistakes.

Why are they the mistakes and not the cases that have lead you to believe there is a pattern?

What is the false positive rate for things being repeatable? How do you know you haven't exceeded it and what you are seeing as patterns is random noise?

 

I wrote that I DO want to say that science is just the method. A method cannot be right or wrong.

That's true, but you can't go from that to people should take antibiotics.

The method can't be wrong, but the conclusion based on the method can be wrong, especially if the assumptions required for the method to be right are wrong. Then you run into problems with statements like this:

"You have faith in your doctor because, presumably, she has treated you and others successfully, and you know that what she prescribes is tested scientifically. You wouldn’t go to a shaman or a spiritual healer for strep throat—unless you want to waste your money."

 

The orderliness of nature—the set of so-called natural laws—is not an assumption but an observation.

It is currently an untestable claim that requires that you ignore the evidence that it isn't.

 

Things can only be falsified within a system that defines rules for falsification... I only know one system that defines rules for falsification - science. I cannot apply these rules to science itself.

Well, you said it like it was a negative critique so I just wanted to be clear.

Let me try a slight variation on something from above:

Nothing I have said here implies that Rat should have a high credence that taking antibiotics that the most recent results from the scientific method will treat her infection will work. But it does make one argument that she should not have a high credence in this look rather tenuous. Further, it is quite plausible that if there is no good reason not to give high credence to a hypothesis, then it is rationally permissible to give it such a high credence. It may not be rationally mandatory to give it such a high credence, but it is permissible. If Rat is very confident that that taking antibiotics that the most recent results from the scientific method will treat her infection will work, even while knowing that in many cases that taking antibiotics that the most recent results from the scientific method will treat her infection will NOT work, she has not violated any norms of reasoning, and hence is not thereby irrational. In that respect she is a bit like you and me.

Nothing I have said here implies that Rat should have a high credence that god exist. But it does make one argument that she should not have a high credence in this look rather tenuous. Further, it is quite plausible that if there is no good reason not to give high credence to a hypothesis, then it is rationally permissible to give it such a high credence. It may not be rationally mandatory to give it such a high credence, but it is permissible. If Rat is very confident that god exist, even while knowing that in many cases that some god does not exist, she has not violated any norms of reasoning, and hence is not thereby irrational. In that respect she is a bit like you and me.

I believe that what you and Coyne are trying to argue that one of the above is not true.

Am I wrong?

[alexey]

Of the possibillities by which we could learn more about gravity why is any one of them of them more likely than a path that includes things stop falling?

One could use reason, evidence, and observations to answer that question.

It only works in the context of the asumptions that underlie it being true. You see patterns, but the observation of the patterns being true depends on an untestable assumption being true.

It works if it produces the desired outcome.

Let's use the example of antibiotics killing bacteria. We treat bacteria and/or people with the bacterial infection with antibiotics, a significant number (somebody did the proper statistical test and got a low p-value) of them get better based on our understanding of nature and probability.

But does that p-value actually have any meaning if the assumptions that underlie the test/method used are wrong?

It means antibiotics produce the desired outcome.

This is only true if you treat different forms of evidence differently.

You claim that you see patterns in the universe- things are repeatable.

What test have you done to actually demonstarte that?

None.

I see actual demonstrations all the time... Do you not? What do you mean by "actually demonstrate"?

The method can't be wrong, but the conclusion based on the method can be wrong, ...

Agreed.

It is currently an untestable claim that requires that you ignore the evidence that it isn't.

Is it possible to conclude that "natural laws exist" after carefully considering all available evidence?

(same argument applied to antibiotics and god)

...

I believe that what you and Coyne are trying to argue that one of the above is not true.

Am I wrong?

Arguments A apply to antibiotics.

Arguments G apply to god.

Arguments S apply to both antibiotics and god.

You gave an example from set S. What are you saying about sets A and G?

[PeterMP]

One could use reason, evidence, and observations to answer that question.

It works if it produces the desired outcome.

It means antibiotics produce the desired outcome.

Let me try an overly simplistic analogy.

Let's say that I have a huge pile of coins, and I decide to make the assumption that one of them will come up heads many more times than expected based on simple probability.

I decide my test method will be to hire people to go through my huge pile and flip them until they get a coin that gives 100 heads in a row. For an individual coin that would be very unlikely.

The people start flipping coins and eventually somebody flips an individual coin so that it comes heads up 100 times in a row.

At some level, my method produced the desired out come.

Was my method any good?

Do you think the coin actually has a very high probability of coming up heads and basic probability is wrong?

Given the situation, the answers are most likely no. My assumption was likely wrong. For that individual coin, the probability is low, but for a collection of coins/flippers, there is a probability of getting 100 heads in a row so not taking into the total population is a mistake and so that coin is a false positive based on a faulty assumption.

But that's pretty much big picture what we do in science. The FDA applications for drugs don't take into account the failed tests for every other drug.

If you go around and start applying the scientific method to a random system, it is going to find false positives. What is the false positive rate going to be and are we actually above it? I don't know. I suspect we are over it, but I don't have any real solid evidence for that.

Do you?

And that's assuming that the system is completely random.

I see actual demonstrations all the time... Do you not? What do you mean by "actually demonstrate"?

Is it possible to conclude that "natural laws exist" after carefully considering all available evidence?

I see evidence that it is, but I also see things like cold fusion and even things in every day life as evidence that it isn't.

You dismiss evidence that it isn't because the evidence isn't reproducible. You want reproducibile evidence that the things aren't reproducible, which makes no sense.

If the evidence that things aren't reproducibile was reproducibile, things would be reproducibile.

I think a much better model for what we observe is a system with natural laws that are pretty "constant", but therefore don't fit our strict scientific defintion of natural laws and the results from the scientific method will be pretty good.

This then explains things like cold fusion, but also the fine tuning argument, and issues like Fermi's Paradox.

Arguments A apply to antibiotics.

Arguments G apply to god.

Arguments S apply to both antibiotics and god.

You gave an example from set S. What are you saying about sets A and G?

I have no idea of what A, G, and S are other than that I gave an example of S based on your statements.

But as the argument I gave was related to belief, knowledge, and faith (from your other thread where the defintion of faith is based on belief), it would seem to be the argument relative to this thread.

Can you answer directly? Do you think both statements are true? 

[Thinking Skins]

I think its relevant that we're talking about "the laws" of OUR UNIVERSE. I mean, who knows, there could be an alternative univese where the law of gravity that we hold so dearly here doesn't exist and which would lead to an entirely different concept of physics. I mean, I'm a mathematician and even the axioms we base our mathematics on are an incomplete set that we know cannot prove certain claims from, so we are either left to ask "what axiom could we add to these axioms to complete the set" or we're left to go back and fundamentally question their existence in the first place.

 

Much of it is accepted (particularly by mathematicians) because of our observations and the fact that logic seems to hold up well in this system (as opposed to others), but thats a supposition and the 1930s was full of Church/Turing/Godel and others trying to find a set of axioms for mathematics. People always say that if we find aliens (God) we'd be able to talk to them using mathematics, but I don't think its as easy as assuming that they're on the same set of axioms. If so, then sure they're going to reach the same conclusions, but who's to say that they should accept the axiom of choice? And if they in fact do not, who is to say that they will understand our mathematics? Particularly if they do not know the axiomatic mathematics with which they're working.

[alexey]

Let me try an overly simplistic analogy.

Let's say that I have a huge pile of coins, and I decide to make the assumption that one of them will come up heads many more times than expected based on simple probability.

I decide my test method will be to hire people to go through my huge pile and flip them until they get a coin that gives 100 heads in a row. For an individual coin that would be very unlikely.

The people start flipping coins and eventually somebody flips an individual coin so that it comes heads up 100 times in a row.

At some level, my method produced the desired out come.

Was my method any good?

If you clearly state the desired outcome, the answer becomes obvious.

Were you trying to produce a 100 heads-in-a-row event? You picked a good method for that.

 

Do you think the coin actually has a very high probability of coming up heads and basic probability is wrong?

Given the situation, the answers are most likely no. My assumption was likely wrong. For that individual coin, the probability is low, but for a collection of coins/flippers, there is a probability of getting 100 heads in a row so not taking into the total population is a mistake and so that coin is a false positive based on a faulty assumption.

But that's pretty much big picture what we do in science. The FDA applications for drugs don't take into account the failed tests for every other drug.

This is addressed by statistics.

 

If you go around and start applying the scientific method to a random system, it is going to find false positives. What is the false positive rate going to be and are we actually above it? I don't know. I suspect we are over it, but I don't have any real solid evidence for that.

Do you?

And that's assuming that the system is completely random.

Are you arguing that there is a reason to believe that "natural laws" are actually false positives?

 

I see evidence that it is, but I also see things like cold fusion and even things in every day life as evidence that it isn't.

You dismiss evidence that it isn't because the evidence isn't reproducible. You want reproducibile evidence that the things aren't reproducible, which makes no sense.

1) There is definitely reproducible evidence for natural laws.

2) There may be non-reproducible evidence for something else.

I accept 1). If you do not know anything else about me, where would you place me in relation to 2)?

Please answer:

Is it possible to conclude that "natural laws exist" after carefully considering all available evidence?

 

I have no idea of what A, G, and S are other than that I gave an example of S based on your statements.

But as the argument I gave was related to belief, knowledge, and faith (from your other thread where the defintion of faith is based on belief), it would seem to be the argument relative to this thread.

Can you answer directly? Do you think both statements are true?

I am very liberal in what I consider to be "rationally permissible". Therefore, I would generally agree with arguments for something to be "rationally permissible".

I would like to add a few additional points.

1) My main argument remains untouched. You are attempting to establish some kind of equivalency between belief in "god" and belief in "antibiotics". You do this by applying the same argument to both cases. Do you acknowledge that there are arguments which apply to one but not the other?

2) Specifically, do you agree that claims about antibiotics are demonstrable by statistics? How would you apply statistics to claims about god?

3) The argument included a statement "she has not violated any norms of reasoning". I do not like this blanket statement unless "norms of reasoning" is a well defined term. There are norms of reasoning that get violated by belief in gods (e.g. critical thinking has a norm of non-belief without positive evidence) and there are norms of reasoning that get violated by belief in modern medicine (e.g. woo woo chakras)

[PeterMP]

Were you trying to produce a 100 heads-in-a-row event? You picked a good method for that.

 

This is addressed by statistics.

As addressed in my point this isn't what statistics address the way we do statistics. If I flip a bunch of coins, eventually I will get one that flips head 100 times in row. It wouldn't be correct to say that there is something special about that coin.

On an individual coin basis, taking into account the p-value only for that coin getting 100 heads in a row does not take into account all of the other tests.

Of course, I'm ignoring all of the other failed tests. 

Are you arguing that there is a reason to believe that "natural laws" are actually false positives?

I'm not arguing there is a reason to believe it or not believe it.

I'm arguing that it is possible. I certainly, clearly based on multiple posts, do not believe that the universe is random in nature.

However, I'm not sure how I would go about ruling it out in a real rigorous manner either.

 

1) There is definitely reproducible evidence for natural laws.

2) There may be non-reproducible evidence for something else.

I accept 1). If you do not know anything else about me, where would you place me in relation to 2)?

I don't know. Why don't you tell me?

 

Please answer:

Is it possible to conclude that "natural laws exist" after carefully considering all available evidence?

What one concludes is based on what one wants to conclude. If one wants to conclude that natural laws exist one will conclude that it is so. I would say that

From post 336:

"Nothing I have said here implies that Rat should have a high credence that the assumptions that underlie science are true. But it does make one argument that she should not have a high credence in this look rather tenuous. Further, it is quite plausible that if there is no good reason not to give high credence to a hypothesis, then it is rationally permissible to give it such a high credence. It may not be rationally mandatory to give it such a high credence, but it is permissible. If Rat is very confident that the assumptions that underlie science are true, even while knowing that in many cases the assumptions that underlie science are not true, she has not violated any norms of reasoning, and hence is not thereby irrational. In that respect she is a bit like you and me. "

Where the assumptions that underlie science include the exsistance of natural laws.

 

2) Specifically, do you agree that claims about antibiotics are demonstrable by statistics? How would you apply statistics to claims about god?

I would say that the statistics that are demonstratbale with respect to anitibiotics are based on an assumption that might not be valid and is untested by statistics and so while makes the claim different doesn't make it more likely to be true.

Forget the rational part of the quote and focus on the:

"Nothing I have said here implies that Rat should have a high credence that taking antibiotics that the most recent results from the scientific method will treat her infection will work."

Science says that the antibiotics work. The science includes the use of statistics. This requires that those underlying assumptions are true.

If those underlying assumptions are not true, then the statistics have no value.

Your building an argument based on the power of statistics based on an assumption that hasn't been tested by statistics.

I do a lot of statistical tests. Frequently my statistical tests are all related. I set a "required" p-value (something like < 0.01) and get a sets of results that are significant with respect to that required p-value.

What I don't know then is my false positive rate? I've done a bunch of tests. I'd expect some to be false positives.

To test this then I randomize the system somehow, redo the tests, and show that I get signficantly fewer < 0.01 results. And, I can conclude that some of < 0.01 results with the real case were really significant. If I don't, then all of my original < 0.01 test could be false positives.

This is called resampling in statistics and is my preferred way for dealing with the problem (there are others).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resampling_(statistics)

On a global level in space and time, we are doing lot's of the first thing and none of the last.

Given the large size of the universe in space/time, even if in a random system, there is some probability of an area of space/time behaving as if it isn't random.

And again that's assuming total randomness.

[alexey]

...

Science says that the antibiotics work. The science includes the use of statistics. This requires that those underlying assumptions are true.

If those underlying assumptions are not true, then the statistics have no value.

...

Clinical trials of drugs clearly do have value. Does this mean "assumptions" are necessarily true?

[PeterMP]

Clinical trials of drugs clearly do have value. Does this mean "assumptions" are necessarily true?

 

Really?

 

You've seen where somebody did a resampling study on things that have gone through clinical trials, maybe took some drugs that failed the first time and re-did the trials, somebody that has looked at the post-market data and concluded that fewer drugs are pulled than statistically expected?

 

Because I don't keep up with the literature like I should, but I'm pretty sure that's something I would have seen.

 

You're sure that there is actually a pattern?  Not that you just assume there is a pattern there that hasn't been tested?

 

Look, I'm done here.

 

I think I've made my point.

 

I've said that science is different than religion.  I've said that the power of science is that if you are willing to make the assumptions required for science that it gives you the ability to judge the value of different forms of evidence.

 

You've said that you don't believe there is a high uncertainity that a plane won't crash if you board a plane.  

 

We've agreed that science is an unfalisifiable philosophy.

 

You don't seem to have an issue with statements like:

 

"Nothing I have said here implies that Rat should have a high credence that taking antibiotics that the most recent results from the scientific method will treat her infection will work."

"Nothing I have said here implies that Rat should have a high credence that she is human."

 

"I think a much better model for what we observe is a system with natural laws that are pretty "constant", but therefore don't fit our strict scientific defintion of natural laws and the results from the scientific method will be pretty good.

This then explains things like cold fusion, but also the fine tuning argument, and issues like Fermi's Paradox."