Your statement, or the quote your used by Neil Degrasse, implies a truth exists and would suggest we are progressing toward it linearly. Maybe I am taking a few liberties with my interpretation. I think I prefer, science, ideally, moves use towards the more useful.
Maybe instead of talking about post modernism, seeing that it is a platitude, you could talk about deconstruction and obscurantism in the humanities. You touch on it ... somewhat. What are your interests in Phil and Pysc btw?
So mannix the pirate on his new channel (vanripley) said that there could be a possible rumor going around that there is a slim chance that you could possibly be a rapist.
As for the asymptotic argument, well quantum mechanics indeed approaches classical mechanics asympotically for large scale adiabatic limits. And GR asympotitically approaches classical mechanics for small scales and low energies. I.e. we understand why classical mechanics worked despite it being a flawed model. If better theories will have clear asymptotes in the future is open, however, so you are right to be skeptical.
Good discussion. Frankly "relativism" and "postmodernism" are empty shells thrown around as scare-words. You are completely right that there is no particular antagonism between many postmodern ideas and science, despite that Sokal and some others tried to paint. In fact I am a strong advocate for scientific epistemic claims and see lots of useful ideas in so-called post-modern though. But I can certainly say that most people who demonize the word have not the first clue what it is.
@socrates856 This is probably of the greatest posts I've seen on these issues . As of late , I've witnessed the word postmodernism thrown around without any frame of reference .
Yes, I agree with Neil Degrasse, that science show how less wrong we are.
But your received criticism seams like a bad mixture of two problems. what is knowledge and what is justice ? It would help if the two where better separated and or specified.
@MexxPowers That question, or an answer to it, would depend on ones ontological position on the mind body problem. Truth is there is no satisfactory answer to the problem of "hard" consciousness. I think of it as fiction, a product of brain chauvinism, but on the chance that it does exit, I think that might be an epiphenomenal property.
As someone new to philosophy, yet wanting to take a step into the philosophical community and become familiarized with the current ongoing of it, what books should i begin to read?
@praeposterus Get a book on how to think and write about philosophy. I can't stress this enough. I am sure that this is not part of the curriculum at most universities, or at least from what I have heard. It makes no sense to me. Anyways, I think writing about it is challenging and in the phil courses I have taken it was not touched on. Second would be to get a general history of phil book and get familiarized the major figures and their ideas. Just my 2 cents.
@ He who's name shall not be spoken, are you trolling or do you seriously think The Moral Landscape was a good book? The whole thesis rests upon using the word "morality" in a way it isn't normally used. It is insincere to simply rename happiness the "good", an emotionally and theologically charged term that most people are taught before they are old enough to analyze moral language.
Interesting video, glad I took the time to listen. I've found postmodernism to be a useful term when discussing contemporary literature (post-modernism, as opposed to postmodern-ism). A characteristic of post-modern literature is said to be it's rejection of the meta-narrative and it's attempt to understand what it means to be human though embracing the 'small story' - something I find particularly appealing (unless the meta-narrative in question happens to be 'science'!)
I love Tyson. Of course, Sagan has always been one of my heroes, but I think Tyson kind of carries the torch of bringing rationality, and critical thinking to the populace.
So the success of our conceiving true propositions is contingent on how we are able to understand propositions as meaningful? tbh, that's kind of trivial. Maybe you're just backpedaling from your last video, and I really think you invited skepticism about just what your skepticism entailed. It's great you've clarified; but let's avoid having to clarify and say what we mean the first time. Otherwise, great video.
A lot of postmodernism in bullshit; then again, so is a substantial chunk of ANY philosophical movement. Plato and Aristotle are the end of the day are wrong about almost everything; does this mean the entirety of Western philosophy is useless? How about in science that virtually all 19th century cosmologists and astronomers were filled with aether? Does this mean that the foundation of modern cosmology is also useless?
People, calm down; there needs to be a lot of bullshit about in order [con]
[con] to lay the ground for the good stuff, in both philosophy and science; it's Sturgeon's Law. I for one find no problem in appreciating Foucault, Epicurus, Marx, Schopenhauer, Russell, Dennett, Churchland and deGrasse Tyson all in the same breath; they're all brilliant within their *own sphere of work*.
I agree there's no very solid definition fo postmodernism or coherence to be found among "postmodern" artists.
In the music appreciation class I teach, I have to define "postmodernism" at the end of the orchestral block. Wikipedia's article used to say that the term can best be attached to the period following the 1960s when the western view of history & historical progress changed from one of optimism to one of pessimism (it no longer says this)...
......I like this use of the term a bit better. I think it is workable as a vague description of the contemporary historical era, rather than a school of thought or aesthetics.
Is this something like what you mean by the contingency of truth...
Newtonian physics can be regarded as "true" when set against the array of phenomena observable to people up to a relatively recent time. And if today we use simple instruments to, say observe the planets (such as low-power hobbyist telescopes), Newtonian physics is good enough to be "true" under those conditions.
But if we use far more sensitive instruments, quantum mechanics becomes necessary to explain our observations.
It should be clear that it is possible to understand something, even though it cannot possibly be true, and that it is possible to know that something is true, without understanding it very well -- even Socrates says that the poets say true things, "without any understanding of what they say." As understanding and knowledge thus can vary somewhat independently, it is then essential in life to retain an awareness that both hermeneutic and foundationalism may be involved in many, or all, questions
Foundationalism is about reality, which is about truth, which is about what is known. Traditional foundationalists and deconstructionists all tend to confuse meaning with truth and understanding with knowledge (e.g., the Rationalists like Spinoza). Deconstruction simply holds that any interpretation of meaning is already true, to the extent that "truth" means anything, just by being produced. These extremes should be seen for what they are: grotesquely reductionistic and absurd.
The interaction of hermeneutics and foundationalism is the same as the interaction of interpretation and reality. Our connection to reality may underdetermine the interpretation, leaving a range of possibilities, but it does impose a limit to interpretation, determining a certain range. What hermeneutics and foundationalism really represent, however, is something logically more precise. Hermeneutics is about interpretation, which is about meaning, which is about what is understood.
By examining the evidence in Devonshire, it becomes obvious at one point to all the major geologists that everyone was wrong, and for a while the work just drifts along with no credible theory to handle the facts, until someone (Murchison) comes up with a new idea. The "revolution" thus occurs, not by a new theory pushing out an old one, as Heliocentrism did Geocentrism, or as Einstein did Newton, but with all theories being falsified by the evidence, the very thing Kuhn thought wasn't possible.
(....) At the same time, Rudwick reinforces the refutation of foundationalism. The geologists in his study believed they were doing inductive, empiricist "Baconian" science, with no mental preconceptions. They clearly were not. They could not start with nothing. Of course, that makes their method conformable to Karl Popper's view of falsification. Note: the refutation of foundationalism does not necessarily imply deconstruction.
Before you jump on the Kuhn wagon, you should first read "The Great Devonian Controversy"by Martin Rudwick . The "Great Devonian controversy" was over the mapping and interpretation of the geological strata in Devonshire in the 1830's, leading to the introduction of the "Devonian System" for Paleozoic strata and time. Since deconstruction received its greatest boost from Kuhn's study of science, it is suitable that Rudwick should implicitly refute many of Kuhn's conclusions. (continued.........)
Existentialism is not anti-science nor is it out of fashion. Existentialism doesn't say science is bankrupt because it is wrong or untrue, rather science is bankrupt because it doesn't account for categories we find in human experience like meaning, value, knowledge etc.
Postmodernism says that the objective world is inscrutable, and therefore the determining factors in scientific theory are sub-rational. I think that's the difference.
"Any physical theory is always provisional, in the sense that it is only a hypothesis; you can never prove it. No matter how many times the results of experiments agree with some theory, you can never be sure that the next time the result will not contradict the theory. On the other hand, you can disprove a theory by finding even a single observation that disagrees with the predictions of the theory."
@xUberfail It would have been better. I used relativity in my last video and ran into less trouble. This is the problem with not writing scripts. But I don't have time to write scripts, and I'm just good enough at improvising videos that I'm willing to deal with the consequences of the inevitable mistakes.
When has an existentialist attacked science? I'm an existentialist and I respect science because A. it works and B. it has amazing predicting powers. Anything beyond that, so far as regarding science is concerned, would be equivalent to worshiping the metaphysical golden calf of science and really no one should be so stupid.
@dichotomyofone Perhaps I overstated my case. Existentialism isn't anti-science per se, but it does reject it as an inadequate way to understand the human being.
I really like the new direction your videos are taking. I'd much rather hear your slightly different perspective on philosophical positions than to just watch the same-old pro-science anti-theist videos everyday. Thanks.
See, my understanding of postmodernism is from an art and design perspective, and from that standpoint it makes perfect sense to me, and isn't necessarily an insult at all.
Great video. I understood some of it even! Whether I agree with you or not on these types of videos doesn't matter. They are interesting and they make me think.
I'm genuinely shocked by the content of this latest video. You have been bewitched by fashionable obscurantist nonsense; the quasi-religion of pomo philosophy. I feel it's time for me to move on. Usually when someone makes a point of saying they're unsubscribing to a channel, it's done with a kind of vindictive tone. Not here. Not at all. I just feel really sad. Your channel used to be, literally, my favorite. Goodbye Nick. I truly do wish you all the best in your future endeavors. Cheers.
You might be surprised to hear this, but I think Aristotle agrees with you. Especially if you look at his notions of matter and form, which are ultimately relative to each other. I would even go as far to say that even Aquinas agrees with you.
However, I ultimately don't think we want to throw out a notion of absolute truth, because that would be the basis for the relativity I think we are speaking of.
I would like to make a private video response if you would be interested.
I also wanted to make a brief comment on the term postmodernism. I think you are right and it doesn't really apply in any philosophic discourse; however, I think it does apply to Art and Literature. There is clearly a difference between postmodern literature and modern literature, and I would actually argue postmodern literature occurs first. The difference, being the "attitude" in the work.
"Existentialism views science as a basically bankrupt way of looking at the world"
So I'm assuming from your statement that it's really strange that I'm both an existentialist and working towards a degree in physics. I may be more of an existential nihilist but that's really past the point. To me, science is great for describing the world but absolutely useless when it comes to describing human existence (thoughts, desires, feelings, etc). It can describe the mechanism but not the experience.
Nick, postmodernists are oxymorons. You give them too much consideration, along with those who hyperbolically and hypertensively crusade against relativism (esp. "moral relativism"). You don't need this rear guard effort, dude. Just keep on advancing! Poor Richard
Nick, I have a bright young friend whose guardians block youtube. Do you have any scripts, transcripts, papers, etc. that approximate your videos? A big fan, Poor Richard
While I'm at it, "Pretty Good Truth" is copyright by Poor Richard, 2011 under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Nick, as you say, human knowledge of reality is always relative. "Real" reality is metaphysics. We may wish to infer that an absolute, objective level of reality exists, but we must admit that any ultimate reality is largely unknowable to creatures such as ourselves. The best version of reality we can capture might be called "Pretty Good Reality". (I'm thinking of the security program called "Pretty Good Privacy") It will do for most ordinary needs. I like your new paradigm. Ciao, Poor Richard
I run into similar arguments when espousing a Neurathian objectivity in ethics. For me, it seems like people get really scared once you start to take ideas that had power (Truth, Goodness, Beauty), and try to make more humble claims.
For me, the kind of objectivity/relativism we're talking about is just a way of acknowledging the sociohistorical and human character of our thinking. It's a stance of humility in an academy of hubris. It doesn't mean, as you emphasize, that anything goes.
1:27 You use silence? THE silence, perhaps? Silence will fall when the question is asked.
But I prefer the way in which you (and Tyson) frame your position on relativism.
I don't understand the claim that what you'd stated previously was carte blanche to assert anything as truth, based on perspective. It seems to me that an absolute truth and a malleable truth, completely dependent on the louche observations of the ignorant, are just the opposite extremes of the same thing.
@piprod01 I don't know any philosophy of mathematics, ask someone who does. But here's a guess: they sometimes refer to things that exist, but they only refer when this is specified by the context. Numbers are signifiers, they exist as signifiers, but not as anything else.
@ContraPoints Maybe you can say that numbers are signifiers, but what they signify (together with the axioms) are proportions and geometric relations.
@ContraPoints: I'd like to add to that. Do letters exist? Yes - they're symbols we use to signify sounds in our language. Numbers exist in the same way - as signifiers of quantities, and quantity might be thought of as some property of sets of objects, but not a thing in itself. This might be a good way to think about it, but it's just a thought.
@prophetchannel: I'm good. I'm not much into philosophy these days, used to be a major and now I'm a science student. I'd much rather make use of the numbers than worry over how/whether they exist.
@ContraPoints@piprod01 Numbers are one of the first consequences of a logical system. Basically if you can label statements as "true" or "false", you'll find numbers (and therefore most of mathematics) as a consequence of the underlying axioms that produce your reasoning. They are an essential consequence of any attempt to explain the universe. They're not physical, but they are *everywhere*.
Is "true" a signifier? Does that mean "truth" doesn't exist?
@ContraPoints You should read "Godel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid" by Douglas R. Hofstadter. Even the author can't speak authoritatively on what exactly the book is about, but it touches on this subject of numbers as signifiers, which may or may not exist as anything else. I suspect you will find it both peculiar and interesting.
@t3tsuyaguy1 I have a copy of it that someone sent me. I've read parts of it but haven't gotten around to reading it all the way through yet, as it's very long.
@ContraPoints You said "Numbers are signifiers, they exist as signifiers, but not as anything else." That's a pretty bold assertion, IMO. It may seem obvious to you, but I could give a few arguments for the platonist case that would (hopefully) humble your opinion.
It eliminates the problem of infinite regress' ability to dismiss everything as equally unreliable, while also eliminating the dangers associated with absolute truth.
Quantum mechanics is a prime example of what Isaac Asimov was talking about. It's definately not a scientific revolution in the Kuhnian sense. I hear this mumbo jumbo all the time, but I have never been presented with a single modern example of a paradigm shift that actually reflects the ideas Kuhn held. One that I can think of is the theory of evolution, but that happened 150 years ago and seems to be a rare exception not the rule...
@buugiman78 Yeah, Quantum mechanics is a bad example of a Kuhnian revolution, which is why I changed my point mid-sentence. A better example might be the cognitive revolution in psychology, which reintroduced mentalist language into the paradigm of scientific psychology. Neuroscience is another paradigm-shifting revolution for psychology.
@ContraPoints We should be careful when dealing with behavioural and social sciences in this regard. The changes in how we talk about our psyche and underlying conditions so far have been more based on philosophy than scientific observations. The fact that neuroscience is a fancy word these days seems to suggest that social and behavioural sciences are approaching the natural sciences, which really from a scientific view contradicts the idea of a paradigm shift. Positivism is alive and kicking.
@KevinSolway What is truth then? "Things in themselves?" We can only access that through perception, in which our minds play a role. Even "raw sense data" are experienced through a perspective and are divided according to a language/conceptual scheme. And of course the language is socially created and historically contingent, etc.
@ContraPoints If you experience the warmth of the sun, or the coolness of water, then that experience itself is truth - even if no-one else experiences it.
I guess these truths fall within the "existentialist" way of thinking that you mentioned.
However, any truth must be dependent on something, since there must be a cause of that truth - so that would be a kind of relativism - a thing being related to what causes it.
The only exception to this would be the truth of the All.
@ContraPoints Classic Postmodern fallacy. You confuse questions of epistemology with questions of metaphysics. Just because an objective reality (i.e. truth) is inaccessible to humans doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Hume and other skeptics questioned man's ability to access the real world more than one hundred years before Derrida and certainly with more lucidity.
What is "Truth"?
Synnek1 16 hours ago
Your statement, or the quote your used by Neil Degrasse, implies a truth exists and would suggest we are progressing toward it linearly. Maybe I am taking a few liberties with my interpretation. I think I prefer, science, ideally, moves use towards the more useful.
Maybe instead of talking about post modernism, seeing that it is a platitude, you could talk about deconstruction and obscurantism in the humanities. You touch on it ... somewhat. What are your interests in Phil and Pysc btw?
burnthesystem11 5 days ago
Truth requires concepts and words... big deal... what did you prove? Fuck all
joevegan123 1 week ago
So mannix the pirate on his new channel (vanripley) said that there could be a possible rumor going around that there is a slim chance that you could possibly be a rapist.
Chronphobia42 3 months ago
As for the asymptotic argument, well quantum mechanics indeed approaches classical mechanics asympotically for large scale adiabatic limits. And GR asympotitically approaches classical mechanics for small scales and low energies. I.e. we understand why classical mechanics worked despite it being a flawed model. If better theories will have clear asymptotes in the future is open, however, so you are right to be skeptical.
socrates856 4 months ago
Good discussion. Frankly "relativism" and "postmodernism" are empty shells thrown around as scare-words. You are completely right that there is no particular antagonism between many postmodern ideas and science, despite that Sokal and some others tried to paint. In fact I am a strong advocate for scientific epistemic claims and see lots of useful ideas in so-called post-modern though. But I can certainly say that most people who demonize the word have not the first clue what it is.
socrates856 4 months ago
@socrates856 This is probably of the greatest posts I've seen on these issues . As of late , I've witnessed the word postmodernism thrown around without any frame of reference .
SonytoBratsoni 2 weeks ago
Yes, I agree with Neil Degrasse, that science show how less wrong we are.
But your received criticism seams like a bad mixture of two problems. what is knowledge and what is justice ? It would help if the two where better separated and or specified.
PS.
What is consciousness !? ;)
MexxPowers 4 months ago
@MexxPowers That question, or an answer to it, would depend on ones ontological position on the mind body problem. Truth is there is no satisfactory answer to the problem of "hard" consciousness. I think of it as fiction, a product of brain chauvinism, but on the chance that it does exit, I think that might be an epiphenomenal property.
burnthesystem11 5 days ago
As someone new to philosophy, yet wanting to take a step into the philosophical community and become familiarized with the current ongoing of it, what books should i begin to read?
praeposterus 4 months ago
@praeposterus Get a book on how to think and write about philosophy. I can't stress this enough. I am sure that this is not part of the curriculum at most universities, or at least from what I have heard. It makes no sense to me. Anyways, I think writing about it is challenging and in the phil courses I have taken it was not touched on. Second would be to get a general history of phil book and get familiarized the major figures and their ideas. Just my 2 cents.
burnthesystem11 5 days ago
@ He who's name shall not be spoken, are you trolling or do you seriously think The Moral Landscape was a good book? The whole thesis rests upon using the word "morality" in a way it isn't normally used. It is insincere to simply rename happiness the "good", an emotionally and theologically charged term that most people are taught before they are old enough to analyze moral language.
TheAntiEgalitarian 4 months ago
Interesting video, glad I took the time to listen. I've found postmodernism to be a useful term when discussing contemporary literature (post-modernism, as opposed to postmodern-ism). A characteristic of post-modern literature is said to be it's rejection of the meta-narrative and it's attempt to understand what it means to be human though embracing the 'small story' - something I find particularly appealing (unless the meta-narrative in question happens to be 'science'!)
AndroidThePoet 4 months ago
I prefer Richard Feynman's perspective that we're just trying to find out more about the world. That's it. watch?v=YltEym9H0x4
ozmoroid 4 months ago
I'd be curious as to what position you hold ethically.
What moral foundation do you have?
I don't think you have ever said CP.
UncomfortableSilence 4 months ago
I love Tyson. Of course, Sagan has always been one of my heroes, but I think Tyson kind of carries the torch of bringing rationality, and critical thinking to the populace.
UncomfortableSilence 4 months ago
T h a n k s!! !!
daupike 4 months ago
I'm liking your channel and the thoughts you have to share with everyone. Keep them coming. Don't fall off the scene again.
mojomanhand 4 months ago
So the success of our conceiving true propositions is contingent on how we are able to understand propositions as meaningful? tbh, that's kind of trivial. Maybe you're just backpedaling from your last video, and I really think you invited skepticism about just what your skepticism entailed. It's great you've clarified; but let's avoid having to clarify and say what we mean the first time. Otherwise, great video.
hxrtotally 4 months ago
A lot of postmodernism in bullshit; then again, so is a substantial chunk of ANY philosophical movement. Plato and Aristotle are the end of the day are wrong about almost everything; does this mean the entirety of Western philosophy is useless? How about in science that virtually all 19th century cosmologists and astronomers were filled with aether? Does this mean that the foundation of modern cosmology is also useless?
People, calm down; there needs to be a lot of bullshit about in order [con]
niriop 4 months ago
[con] to lay the ground for the good stuff, in both philosophy and science; it's Sturgeon's Law. I for one find no problem in appreciating Foucault, Epicurus, Marx, Schopenhauer, Russell, Dennett, Churchland and deGrasse Tyson all in the same breath; they're all brilliant within their *own sphere of work*.
niriop 4 months ago
@niriop Sorry, that should be *believed that space was filled*
niriop 4 months ago
I agree there's no very solid definition fo postmodernism or coherence to be found among "postmodern" artists.
In the music appreciation class I teach, I have to define "postmodernism" at the end of the orchestral block. Wikipedia's article used to say that the term can best be attached to the period following the 1960s when the western view of history & historical progress changed from one of optimism to one of pessimism (it no longer says this)...
EyeLean5280 4 months ago
Comment removed
EyeLean5280 4 months ago
......I like this use of the term a bit better. I think it is workable as a vague description of the contemporary historical era, rather than a school of thought or aesthetics.
EyeLean5280 4 months ago
Is this something like what you mean by the contingency of truth...
Newtonian physics can be regarded as "true" when set against the array of phenomena observable to people up to a relatively recent time. And if today we use simple instruments to, say observe the planets (such as low-power hobbyist telescopes), Newtonian physics is good enough to be "true" under those conditions.
But if we use far more sensitive instruments, quantum mechanics becomes necessary to explain our observations.
EyeLean5280 4 months ago
Kind of a meh video.
Be more interested to see you argue positive claims and argue against positive claims.
FuckYouYouFuck 4 months ago
What sciences do you think have not worked and what will fall apart later on?
vrilteen 4 months ago
Comment removed
vrilteen 4 months ago
What do you think will be the maximum level of greatness that science will bring us?
shikonotheos 4 months ago
It should be clear that it is possible to understand something, even though it cannot possibly be true, and that it is possible to know that something is true, without understanding it very well -- even Socrates says that the poets say true things, "without any understanding of what they say." As understanding and knowledge thus can vary somewhat independently, it is then essential in life to retain an awareness that both hermeneutic and foundationalism may be involved in many, or all, questions
BuBBaGump014 4 months ago
Foundationalism is about reality, which is about truth, which is about what is known. Traditional foundationalists and deconstructionists all tend to confuse meaning with truth and understanding with knowledge (e.g., the Rationalists like Spinoza). Deconstruction simply holds that any interpretation of meaning is already true, to the extent that "truth" means anything, just by being produced. These extremes should be seen for what they are: grotesquely reductionistic and absurd.
BuBBaGump014 4 months ago
The interaction of hermeneutics and foundationalism is the same as the interaction of interpretation and reality. Our connection to reality may underdetermine the interpretation, leaving a range of possibilities, but it does impose a limit to interpretation, determining a certain range. What hermeneutics and foundationalism really represent, however, is something logically more precise. Hermeneutics is about interpretation, which is about meaning, which is about what is understood.
BuBBaGump014 4 months ago
By examining the evidence in Devonshire, it becomes obvious at one point to all the major geologists that everyone was wrong, and for a while the work just drifts along with no credible theory to handle the facts, until someone (Murchison) comes up with a new idea. The "revolution" thus occurs, not by a new theory pushing out an old one, as Heliocentrism did Geocentrism, or as Einstein did Newton, but with all theories being falsified by the evidence, the very thing Kuhn thought wasn't possible.
BuBBaGump014 4 months ago
(....) At the same time, Rudwick reinforces the refutation of foundationalism. The geologists in his study believed they were doing inductive, empiricist "Baconian" science, with no mental preconceptions. They clearly were not. They could not start with nothing. Of course, that makes their method conformable to Karl Popper's view of falsification. Note: the refutation of foundationalism does not necessarily imply deconstruction.
BuBBaGump014 4 months ago
Before you jump on the Kuhn wagon, you should first read "The Great Devonian Controversy"by Martin Rudwick . The "Great Devonian controversy" was over the mapping and interpretation of the geological strata in Devonshire in the 1830's, leading to the introduction of the "Devonian System" for Paleozoic strata and time. Since deconstruction received its greatest boost from Kuhn's study of science, it is suitable that Rudwick should implicitly refute many of Kuhn's conclusions. (continued.........)
BuBBaGump014 4 months ago
This is basically skepticism. If Nick is a postmodern relativist because of this then so was David Hume. Go read some Hume!
StabbyRaccoon 4 months ago
Existentialism is not anti-science nor is it out of fashion. Existentialism doesn't say science is bankrupt because it is wrong or untrue, rather science is bankrupt because it doesn't account for categories we find in human experience like meaning, value, knowledge etc.
Postmodernism says that the objective world is inscrutable, and therefore the determining factors in scientific theory are sub-rational. I think that's the difference.
shotinthedark90 4 months ago
Here's an even better quote from Stephen Hawking:
"Any physical theory is always provisional, in the sense that it is only a hypothesis; you can never prove it. No matter how many times the results of experiments agree with some theory, you can never be sure that the next time the result will not contradict the theory. On the other hand, you can disprove a theory by finding even a single observation that disagrees with the predictions of the theory."
TheMessianicManic 4 months ago
I wished you'd used relativity instead of quantum mechanics. :p
xUberfail 4 months ago
@xUberfail It would have been better. I used relativity in my last video and ran into less trouble. This is the problem with not writing scripts. But I don't have time to write scripts, and I'm just good enough at improvising videos that I'm willing to deal with the consequences of the inevitable mistakes.
ContraPoints 4 months ago
When has an existentialist attacked science? I'm an existentialist and I respect science because A. it works and B. it has amazing predicting powers. Anything beyond that, so far as regarding science is concerned, would be equivalent to worshiping the metaphysical golden calf of science and really no one should be so stupid.
dichotomyofone 4 months ago
@dichotomyofone Perhaps I overstated my case. Existentialism isn't anti-science per se, but it does reject it as an inadequate way to understand the human being.
ContraPoints 4 months ago
I really like the new direction your videos are taking. I'd much rather hear your slightly different perspective on philosophical positions than to just watch the same-old pro-science anti-theist videos everyday. Thanks.
freedom0speech 4 months ago
See, my understanding of postmodernism is from an art and design perspective, and from that standpoint it makes perfect sense to me, and isn't necessarily an insult at all.
LatumWay 4 months ago
Great video. I understood some of it even! Whether I agree with you or not on these types of videos doesn't matter. They are interesting and they make me think.
TheLaughingOut 4 months ago
I'm genuinely shocked by the content of this latest video. You have been bewitched by fashionable obscurantist nonsense; the quasi-religion of pomo philosophy. I feel it's time for me to move on. Usually when someone makes a point of saying they're unsubscribing to a channel, it's done with a kind of vindictive tone. Not here. Not at all. I just feel really sad. Your channel used to be, literally, my favorite. Goodbye Nick. I truly do wish you all the best in your future endeavors. Cheers.
10mintwo 4 months ago
You might be surprised to hear this, but I think Aristotle agrees with you. Especially if you look at his notions of matter and form, which are ultimately relative to each other. I would even go as far to say that even Aquinas agrees with you.
However, I ultimately don't think we want to throw out a notion of absolute truth, because that would be the basis for the relativity I think we are speaking of.
I would like to make a private video response if you would be interested.
insidetrip101 4 months ago
@insidetrip101
I also wanted to make a brief comment on the term postmodernism. I think you are right and it doesn't really apply in any philosophic discourse; however, I think it does apply to Art and Literature. There is clearly a difference between postmodern literature and modern literature, and I would actually argue postmodern literature occurs first. The difference, being the "attitude" in the work.
insidetrip101 4 months ago
"Existentialism views science as a basically bankrupt way of looking at the world"
So I'm assuming from your statement that it's really strange that I'm both an existentialist and working towards a degree in physics. I may be more of an existential nihilist but that's really past the point. To me, science is great for describing the world but absolutely useless when it comes to describing human existence (thoughts, desires, feelings, etc). It can describe the mechanism but not the experience.
samanark 4 months ago
Nick, postmodernists are oxymorons. You give them too much consideration, along with those who hyperbolically and hypertensively crusade against relativism (esp. "moral relativism"). You don't need this rear guard effort, dude. Just keep on advancing! Poor Richard
pralmanack2010 4 months ago
Nick, I have a bright young friend whose guardians block youtube. Do you have any scripts, transcripts, papers, etc. that approximate your videos? A big fan, Poor Richard
pralmanack2010 4 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
While I'm at it, "Pretty Good Truth" is copyright by Poor Richard, 2011 under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
pralmanack2010 4 months ago
BTW, "Pretty Good Reality" is copyright by Poor Richard, 2011 under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
pralmanack2010 4 months ago
Nick, as you say, human knowledge of reality is always relative. "Real" reality is metaphysics. We may wish to infer that an absolute, objective level of reality exists, but we must admit that any ultimate reality is largely unknowable to creatures such as ourselves. The best version of reality we can capture might be called "Pretty Good Reality". (I'm thinking of the security program called "Pretty Good Privacy") It will do for most ordinary needs. I like your new paradigm. Ciao, Poor Richard
pralmanack2010 4 months ago
I don't know what you mean by "capital T Truth". What is it this describes? How is it different from "regular truth"?
volbla 4 months ago
I run into similar arguments when espousing a Neurathian objectivity in ethics. For me, it seems like people get really scared once you start to take ideas that had power (Truth, Goodness, Beauty), and try to make more humble claims.
For me, the kind of objectivity/relativism we're talking about is just a way of acknowledging the sociohistorical and human character of our thinking. It's a stance of humility in an academy of hubris. It doesn't mean, as you emphasize, that anything goes.
beforehonour 4 months ago
The people who fear relativism in the social sciences, usually have a political bias.
prophetchannel 4 months ago
i laughed through a lot of this, it was good fun. anyone who is an objectivist above the age of 25 needs some help imo. 25 or thereabouts ;)
gratex 4 months ago
Youre talking about model dependent realism I think.
Farf420 4 months ago
1:27 You use silence? THE silence, perhaps? Silence will fall when the question is asked.
But I prefer the way in which you (and Tyson) frame your position on relativism.
I don't understand the claim that what you'd stated previously was carte blanche to assert anything as truth, based on perspective. It seems to me that an absolute truth and a malleable truth, completely dependent on the louche observations of the ignorant, are just the opposite extremes of the same thing.
Hockeygod98 4 months ago
Do we ever know truth or simply an appearance of truth? I'm confused,I think,maybe.
richardmann184 4 months ago
This is all very interesting, but do numbers exist?
piprod01 4 months ago
@piprod01 I don't know any philosophy of mathematics, ask someone who does. But here's a guess: they sometimes refer to things that exist, but they only refer when this is specified by the context. Numbers are signifiers, they exist as signifiers, but not as anything else.
ContraPoints 4 months ago
@ContraPoints Maybe you can say that numbers are signifiers, but what they signify (together with the axioms) are proportions and geometric relations.
prophetchannel 4 months ago
@prophetchannel "relations" being the key word there.
gratex 4 months ago
@ContraPoints: I'd like to add to that. Do letters exist? Yes - they're symbols we use to signify sounds in our language. Numbers exist in the same way - as signifiers of quantities, and quantity might be thought of as some property of sets of objects, but not a thing in itself. This might be a good way to think about it, but it's just a thought.
McTaggStar 4 months ago
@McTaggStar I recommend you read/look up Ferdinand de Saussure, followed by Jacques Derrida.
prophetchannel 4 months ago
@prophetchannel: I'm good. I'm not much into philosophy these days, used to be a major and now I'm a science student. I'd much rather make use of the numbers than worry over how/whether they exist.
McTaggStar 4 months ago
@ContraPoints @piprod01 Numbers are one of the first consequences of a logical system. Basically if you can label statements as "true" or "false", you'll find numbers (and therefore most of mathematics) as a consequence of the underlying axioms that produce your reasoning. They are an essential consequence of any attempt to explain the universe. They're not physical, but they are *everywhere*.
Is "true" a signifier? Does that mean "truth" doesn't exist?
crispthedm 4 months ago
@ContraPoints You should read "Godel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid" by Douglas R. Hofstadter. Even the author can't speak authoritatively on what exactly the book is about, but it touches on this subject of numbers as signifiers, which may or may not exist as anything else. I suspect you will find it both peculiar and interesting.
t3tsuyaguy1 4 months ago
@t3tsuyaguy1 I have a copy of it that someone sent me. I've read parts of it but haven't gotten around to reading it all the way through yet, as it's very long.
ContraPoints 4 months ago
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@ContraPoints You said "Numbers are signifiers, they exist as signifiers, but not as anything else." That's a pretty bold assertion, IMO. It may seem obvious to you, but I could give a few arguments for the platonist case that would (hopefully) humble your opinion.
codebolt 4 months ago
@piprod01 The exists as a human concept. The universe itself doesn't know what a "4" is.... but it may know "42".
no2religions 4 months ago
I like your nose. I found it hard to follow your monologue because I was staring at it.
longbluefingers 4 months ago
I am quite found of the less wrong idea.
It eliminates the problem of infinite regress' ability to dismiss everything as equally unreliable, while also eliminating the dangers associated with absolute truth.
IdaMiaDot 4 months ago
Quantum mechanics is a prime example of what Isaac Asimov was talking about. It's definately not a scientific revolution in the Kuhnian sense. I hear this mumbo jumbo all the time, but I have never been presented with a single modern example of a paradigm shift that actually reflects the ideas Kuhn held. One that I can think of is the theory of evolution, but that happened 150 years ago and seems to be a rare exception not the rule...
buugiman78 4 months ago
@buugiman78 Yeah, Quantum mechanics is a bad example of a Kuhnian revolution, which is why I changed my point mid-sentence. A better example might be the cognitive revolution in psychology, which reintroduced mentalist language into the paradigm of scientific psychology. Neuroscience is another paradigm-shifting revolution for psychology.
ContraPoints 4 months ago
@ContraPoints We should be careful when dealing with behavioural and social sciences in this regard. The changes in how we talk about our psyche and underlying conditions so far have been more based on philosophy than scientific observations. The fact that neuroscience is a fancy word these days seems to suggest that social and behavioural sciences are approaching the natural sciences, which really from a scientific view contradicts the idea of a paradigm shift. Positivism is alive and kicking.
buugiman78 4 months ago
I like the way I put it at the end of this video:
watch?v=pZP9zBpkL7w
It's not the theories that are true, they are just products of human imagination, it's the interactive method with naturalism in place that is true.
zarkoff45 4 months ago
A verbal explanation of truth is contingent - on language, etc - but truth itself isn't contingent.
KevinSolway 4 months ago
@KevinSolway What is truth then? "Things in themselves?" We can only access that through perception, in which our minds play a role. Even "raw sense data" are experienced through a perspective and are divided according to a language/conceptual scheme. And of course the language is socially created and historically contingent, etc.
ContraPoints 4 months ago 7
@ContraPoints If you experience the warmth of the sun, or the coolness of water, then that experience itself is truth - even if no-one else experiences it.
I guess these truths fall within the "existentialist" way of thinking that you mentioned.
However, any truth must be dependent on something, since there must be a cause of that truth - so that would be a kind of relativism - a thing being related to what causes it.
The only exception to this would be the truth of the All.
KevinSolway 4 months ago
@ContraPoints Our perception of truth is contingent on our senses, but truth itself isn't contingent.
Hooya2 4 months ago
@ContraPoints Classic Postmodern fallacy. You confuse questions of epistemology with questions of metaphysics. Just because an objective reality (i.e. truth) is inaccessible to humans doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Hume and other skeptics questioned man's ability to access the real world more than one hundred years before Derrida and certainly with more lucidity.
TheAntiEgalitarian 4 months ago
My wife used to use silence as a tool.
richardmann184 4 months ago
@richardmann184 Lol.
ContraPoints 4 months ago