Philosophical Speculations

Papanca wrote: ↑Fri Sep 10, 2021 8:33 pm Hello everybody,

I often encounter the position that all ontologies are infalsifiable, but is that really the case ? Of course, there can always be a certain elaboration of both positions that makes them unfalsifiable, but the way i see it is that there are experiments/results that would at least falsify the dominant versions of physicalism and shatter its paradigmatic domination, hence the "crude" qualifier, for instance :

- A verified veridical NDE/OBE. (secret code placed somewhere unaccessible to prying eyes in the ground that could be read)

Or something like that lock getting opened :

- "As one experiment to test for personal survival of bodily death, in the 1960s Stevenson set a combination lock using a secret word or phrase and placed it in a filing cabinet in the department, telling his colleagues he would try to pass the code to them after his death. Emily Williams Kelly told The New York Times: "Presumably, if someone had a vivid dream about him, in which there seemed to be a word or a phrase that kept being repeated—I don't quite know how it would work—if it seemed promising enough, we would try to open it using the combination suggested." The Morning News reported in October 2014 that the lock was still unopened.[66][7]"

For idealism, it's more complicated. But it's certainly not the case that all ontologies are non falsifiable

Eugene I wrote: ↑Fri Sep 10, 2021 9:15 pm Not necessarily. For example, consider the simulation hypothesis: our perceived world is a VR simulation run by an advanced civilization existing in a "materialistic" base reality. In such VR simulation any veridical NDE/OBE and any other "supernatural" phenomena are still possible without any contradiction with the materialistic nature of the "base" reality where the VR simulation is running.

Similar argument can be applied with respect to idealism: nothing can falsify a hypothesis that the perceived reality is a "simulated" (imagined) reality unfolding in the mind of some super-powerful consciousness (God). In this scenario the perceived reality can seemingly be perfectly obeying natural laws with no veridical NDE/OBE or any other supernatural phenomena ever observed, and yet this would not falsify the idealistic nature of the "base" reality of consciousness where this simulated "secondary" reality is unfolding.

AshvinP wrote: ↑Fri Sep 10, 2021 10:05 pm

Papanca wrote: ↑Fri Sep 10, 2021 8:33 pm Hello everybody,

I often encounter the position that all ontologies are infalsifiable, but is that really the case ? Of course, there can always be a certain elaboration of both positions that makes them unfalsifiable, but the way i see it is that there are experiments/results that would at least falsify the dominant versions of physicalism and shatter its paradigmatic domination, hence the "crude" qualifier, for instance :

- A verified veridical NDE/OBE. (secret code placed somewhere unaccessible to prying eyes in the ground that could be read)

Or something like that lock getting opened :

- "As one experiment to test for personal survival of bodily death, in the 1960s Stevenson set a combination lock using a secret word or phrase and placed it in a filing cabinet in the department, telling his colleagues he would try to pass the code to them after his death. Emily Williams Kelly told The New York Times: "Presumably, if someone had a vivid dream about him, in which there seemed to be a word or a phrase that kept being repeated—I don't quite know how it would work—if it seemed promising enough, we would try to open it using the combination suggested." The Morning News reported in October 2014 that the lock was still unopened.[66][7]"

For idealism, it's more complicated. But it's certainly not the case that all ontologies are non falsifiable

It's easy to falsify physicalism as a philosophical or scientific position which asserts that "mindless matter existed prior to consciousness in the distant past" - just point out that there is no possible way to ever know that, in principle. If it cannot be known in principle, then it is neither philosophy nor science, just pure abstract speculation. We shouldn't stop with physicalism, though... many other modern philosophical conclusions are similarly pure speculation in that regard.

Martin_ wrote: ↑Fri Sep 10, 2021 11:18 pm

AshvinP wrote: ↑Fri Sep 10, 2021 10:05 pm

Papanca wrote: ↑Fri Sep 10, 2021 8:33 pm Hello everybody,

I often encounter the position that all ontologies are infalsifiable, but is that really the case ? Of course, there can always be a certain elaboration of both positions that makes them unfalsifiable, but the way i see it is that there are experiments/results that would at least falsify the dominant versions of physicalism and shatter its paradigmatic domination, hence the "crude" qualifier, for instance :

- A verified veridical NDE/OBE. (secret code placed somewhere unaccessible to prying eyes in the ground that could be read)

Or something like that lock getting opened :

- "As one experiment to test for personal survival of bodily death, in the 1960s Stevenson set a combination lock using a secret word or phrase and placed it in a filing cabinet in the department, telling his colleagues he would try to pass the code to them after his death. Emily Williams Kelly told The New York Times: "Presumably, if someone had a vivid dream about him, in which there seemed to be a word or a phrase that kept being repeated—I don't quite know how it would work—if it seemed promising enough, we would try to open it using the combination suggested." The Morning News reported in October 2014 that the lock was still unopened.[66][7]"

For idealism, it's more complicated. But it's certainly not the case that all ontologies are non falsifiable

It's easy to falsify physicalism as a philosophical or scientific position which asserts that "mindless matter existed prior to consciousness in the distant past" - just point out that there is no possible way to ever know that, in principle. If it cannot be known in principle, then it is neither philosophy nor science, just pure abstract speculation. We shouldn't stop with physicalism, though... many other modern philosophical conclusions are similarly pure speculation in that regard.

Nonononono. That's not falsifying. Falsifying is showing that a theory cannot be true. Showing that it's impossible to falsify a theory is NOT the same ting as falsifying the theory.

Jim Cross wrote: ↑Sat Sep 11, 2021 12:38 pm Ashvin,

Science isn't metaphysics. Materialism isn't science. You're confused and trying to apply science to metaphysics or metaphysics to science, I can't even tell which.

AshvinP wrote: ↑Sat Sep 11, 2021 1:36 pm

Jim Cross wrote: ↑Sat Sep 11, 2021 12:38 pm Ashvin,

Science isn't metaphysics. Materialism isn't science. You're confused and trying to apply science to metaphysics or metaphysics to science, I can't even tell which.

Please tell that to the materialists-physicalists, because they have not received the message yet. They confuse physicalist assumptions with the "proper" pursuit of science all the time. You actually did it in another recent thread, where you asserted Hoffman is not involved in scientific pursuit because his models don't "work" according to your own physicalist and dualist assumptions. So I suppose you have not received the message yet either. And I am going further to claim physicalism is not even metaphysics, since it speculates and relies on things like the "history of the Universe before consciousness" which are fundamentally impossible to know. Metaphysics deals with first principles which, IMO, must have some relation to our direct experience and capacity for true knowledge.