Critique of "The Scientific Worldview": Part 11b The Ten Assumptions of Science: Relativism

Bill throws in a bit of absolutism to stir the pot and keep his own assumptions consupponible. Reasoning by analogy and disparity.

I am ever so grateful to Bill Westmiller, whose comments are marked "BW: ". The quotes marked TSW are from "The Scientific Worldview[1]" and my comments are marked "[GB: ".

TSW: Ninth Assumption of Science, relativism (Part 2 of 3)

“All things have characteristics that make them similar to all other things as well as characteristics that make them dissimilar to all other things.”

TSW:  "In short, the concept of a general horse is an abstraction, an idealization we use to give a class a name, to think about it, and to communicate our thoughts to others."

BW: Correct, but ask yourself what that concept must be abstracted FROM, in order to be valid. Reality. In other words, it isn't a random "idealization" of reality,  but rather a set of attributes *extracted* from reality that allow us to talk about Borchardt Things and Westmiller Things. Are some attributes "ignored"? Of course. It would be foolish to say that a "horse" is an object with mass, or even to say that it is a living thing ... since every Borchardt Thing has mass and a dead horse is just one type of horse. A proper definition doesn't alter reality, it just categorizes essential attributes.

http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/definitions.html

[GB: You are correct in that abstractions are not random. Abstractions nevertheless are idealizations. Like you said, we chose the attributes most important for our purpose. While classifications usually do not alter the microcosms they describe, many are as notable for the attributes they leave out as for the attributes they leave in.]

TSW:  "Mental activity itself involves elements of both relativism and absolutism."

BW: In which case, you either have to be opposed to mental activity, or abandon your characterizations of relativism or absolutism as incompatible opposites. Some Westmiller Things are relative, others are absolute. It seems that you're committing all Borchardt Things to unthinkable solipsism.

[GB: After writing the sentence you quoted, I went on to explain that although all microcosms have infinite characteristics that place them on a similarity-dissimilarity continuum per relativism, we often find it necessary to use absolutist terms. For instance, like other animals we need to decide what is “food” and what is “non-food.” And, just to walk through a doorway, we need to think of the adjoining wall as “solid matter” and the doorway as “empty space,” even though neither is true in an absolute sense. Equalities and inequalities in math serve the same purpose. Like many folks, what you seem to have missed is the distinction between ideality and reality. We do not need to believe that there really are absolutes such as equalities or “perfectly solid matter” and “perfectly empty space.” So sorry that you must believe that “some Westmiller Things are relative, others are absolute.” I can see why that is necessary for you. Without that tiny bit of absolutism, you could not be serious about proposing yet another Finite Particle Theory. At least, your approach appears consupponible with your other marginally indeterministic interpretations of "The Ten Assumptions of Science":

1.     Early on, you mentioned that you were “95% in agreement with the ten assumptions”.

2.     You then professed a belief in causality (that there are material causes for all effects), but qualified that with an exception consupponible with your belief in free will.

3.     You professed a belief in inseparability (Just as there is no motion without matter, so there is no matter without motion), but attempted to qualify it by imagining the insides of things to be motionless or that an object in rotation without translation could be considered 
  motionless with respect to other things.

4.     You professed a belief in macrocosmic infinity, but not in microcosmic infinity.

5.     Now you profess a belief that relativism applies most of the time but that absolutism applies some of the time.

I suspect that future complaints will take the same tack: sneaking a little indeterminism into your assumptions whenever you like. I imagine you will really bust something critical when you confront the chapter on “The Myth of Exceptionalism.” While your approach is a little bit like being “95% pregnant” or “half-way to crazy town”, I suspect that many readers started out the same way. You certainly are not the only “materialist” who still believes in free will. I guess even dialectical materialists such as Friedrich Engels did not think there could be a revolution without it.

At first, when you said you were 95% in agreement with "The Ten Assumptions of Science," I could not imagine how that could be. Disagreement with one of them would amount to 90% agreement. As it turns out, you have tiny exceptions to every one of them. I should have realized that the transition from indeterminism to determinism proceeds in a series of such small steps. You are simply further along than many folks are.

I also could not understand your occasional claim that I was being solipsistic by hypothesizing things for which there is little or no evidence. I did not realize how closely you adhered to the positivist credo: “If I cannot see, smell, touch, hear, or taste something, it does not exist.” Or, to the operationalist credo: “If I cannot measure it, it does not exist.” On the contrary, it is the prevalence of such self-centered views that makes regressive physics so solipsistic. It was just such solipsism as its positivist variant that led Einstein to hypothesize “immaterial fields” that were amenable to mathematical treatment, but beyond his imagination. It was just such solipsism as its operationalist variant that led him to his equally outrageous denial of simultaneity. Just because it takes us eight minutes to provide confirmation does not mean the Sun and Earth do not exist at the same time.]

TSW:  "Obviously, no agreement can be reached about similarity-dissimilarity unless the observers agree to compare the same characteristics. Until this is accomplished for a finite set of measurable characteristics, a classification or comparison must remain subjective rather than objective."

BW: Correct, but missing the central point. It isn't that the observers agree, but that the essential characteristics being considered are consistent with reality. That is what makes a comparison "objective": any person can *identify* a horse (or swan), irrespective of its color or any other incidental characteristics. A rose by any other name...

[GB: Sorry, but the “consistency with reality” is not the problem. We may agree that two microcosms each have an infinite number of characteristics “consistent with reality,” but because no two of those characteristics are identical, we might disagree on which ones are similar and which ones are dissimilar. This is a major contention in taxonomy and classifications of every type.[1] It happens to me all the time. When I mention that two people are similar, while my wife invariably says they are not. We are each simply using different criteria.]

TSW:  "An analogy, like an assumption, must lead to understanding and accurate prediction or it will be discarded as useless."

BW: Your discussion of analogies is good, but it stretches the meaning. An analogy is a reference to the in-kind Westmiller Things about objects, not a reference to the Borchardt Things themselves. To analogize human walking to horse walking is a statement about the characteristics of walking, not about the definition of humans or horses.

[GB: Thanks, but I do not understand what you are getting at. Are you trying to say that one of the characteristics of humans and horses is not walking? Also, I do not understand your reference to “in-kind” and “themselves”.

TSW:  "Humans, for example, were not considered similar to other animals until the scientific and commercial advantages of the analogy outweighed the religious objections."

BW: I don't think that's true. Nearly all mystics considered humans to be animals ... with a soul. Many religious doctrines even assert that many or all "lower animals" also have souls. In ancient Hebrew, the word for "spirit" and "breath" are identical; both are invisible and one is intimately connected with living things (including plants). So, a cynical reading of the bible considers "soul" nothing more than a typographical error.

[GB: Well, I think that is debatable. Traditionally, humans were not considered to be animals, having been formed instead in the image of their imaginary friend. There commonly were no rules against killing animals, while the killing of certain humans was considered immoral, to say the least. You are right that ascribing “souls” to anything that moved was part of the traditional approach to the motion of matter. As you know, there still are many folks who do not believe that time is motion or who believe that souls are matterless motion. You can be as cynical as you want, but I do not think many believers consider their imagined “soul” to be a typo.]

Next: Relativism (Part 3 of 3)

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[1] Borchardt, Glenn, 1974, The SIMAN coefficient for similarity analysis: Bulletin of the Classification Society, v. 3, p. 2-8.