The Fall of Logical Positivism (Part 4-3)

[ThatGuyWithHippyHair]

@ThatGuyWithHippyHair

...proposition about parallel lines.

[ThatGuyWithHippyHair]

@ThatGuyWithHippyHair

...testing, then how can we really call any lines "parallel" at all? Suppose that, keeping in mind our current definition of prime numbers, we discover an example of a "prime number" that has more than two integer factors. How can this number even be called a prime number in the first place? It seems like the same situation with parallel lines to me. Science has not falsified the definition of parallel lines; it has only found a counterexample to a synthetic propositi

[ThatGuyWithHippyHair]

These seem like rather petty attacks on LP to me. Regarding the A-S distinction, isn't an analytic proposition just a definition? If that is the case, then the proposition "parallel lines never cross" can't really be called an analytic proposition, since there are other characteristics that are definitive of parallel lines; e.g. they have infinitely many perpendiculars, the distance between them at any two points is the same, etc. If those definitive truths about parallels are "falsified" by

[DrSpooglemon]

I don't see how "alive" and "dead" can be states that have any meaning in quantum mechanics(qm). I know very little of qm but it strikes me that the particles the cat is ultimately made of can be in a superposition of states but the cat cannot. In anycase, the "aliveness" or "deadness" of the cat pertains to how the chemical components of the cat interact with one another and has nothing to do with the "states" of the subatomic particles that the chemicals are made of...

[qbz32]

Now I am lost.

[Khuno2]

(cont.) Good job simplifying Dr. Church's triviality argument against verificationism, i.e., that using Ayer's heavily amended formulation in language truth and logic (and beyond...), one can verify what the same principle classes gibberish, i.e., any sentence.

[Khuno2]

Ultimately, Quine too had to view scientific realism with no small amount of pessimism despite a palpable desire for its truth. He was, in the end, a instrumentalist. And he did subscribe to holistic verificationism. He did not give up on the verificationist principle, but amended it to be more in keeping with how science actually works. Not that you had said anything that would contradict this, but verificationism, in its Quinean sense, is still alive and well by my measure. (cont.)

[certaintythrudoubt]

Thank you for this series. I'm happy that you'll continue it.

I have a problem with your exaples of analytic statements being overturned by experience however. I think the example about Euclidean geometry was always synthetic because it says "these rules of geometry are true for the real universe" which is a statement about how the world is, and therefore a statement that is true or false depending on how the world is.

Do you have any other examples or do you know where I could find any?

[SisyphusRedeemed]

@certaintythrudoubt Check out my recent video 'The Kalam Cosmological fallacy' and/or my earlier video 'Schrodinger's Cat TAG'S Logical Absolutes (In The Nuts)'. Both talk about how things which were once taken as analytically true came to be revised after they conflicted with the empirical world.

[certaintythrudoubt]

@SisyphusRedeemed If those things (except for mathematical completeness) were taken as analytical statements then I'll agree that that's wrong, but that's an argument against how the distinction was used and not the distinction itself.

I'm just going to read the two dogmas and see what he's exactly arguing, but do you know what Quine thought about math and whether he considered that analytic?

[SisyphusRedeemed]

@certaintythrudoubt The analytic/synthetic distinction is one of the dogmas. He argues that it's sloppy and there's no interesting way to hold to it. So I think what he's say is it can be analytic, but it can also be synthetic, depending.

[padawanskeptic]

@SisyphusRdeemed I'm failing to see where empiricism went wrong. If empiricism is used to test the analytic it's the analytic that has the problem right? You talk about the limitations of empiricism and not to get over confident but it seems to be what destroyed logical positivism in your video. Is it that empiricism can't prove itself? Am I using an incorrect or at least different definition of empiricism? I aimed this at the SisyphusRedeamed but any help would be appreciated.

[SisyphusRedeemed]

@padawanskeptic Quine's "Two Dogmas" really was the final nail. He showed that LP relied on two premises (the analytic/synthetic distinction, and reductionism about meaning), neither of which can be justified in empirical terms.

en[dot]wikipedia[dot]org/wiki/­Two_Dogmas_of_Empiricism

[padawanskeptic]

@SisyphusRedeemed Thanks. I'll look it up. I'm trying really hard here to learn stuff. I feel like just being a proponent of science seems to put me in the logical positivist camp but your argument appears to be that I shouldn't be. I'm just trying to figure out why before and if I change my outlook. Once again, thanks I appreciate the spring board to help me research.

[hitballfootler]

Is the many worlds interpretation a way of reconciling quantum mechanics with the law of non contradiction?

[mixtliful]

Nice series.. we ever going to see the rest?

[AntiCitizenX]

Question for 10:00 in the video:

Just because space is non-Euclidian does not suddenly mean analytically true things are not longer true. All it means is that the analytic structure of Euclidian geometry is an imperfect description of reality. I fail to see how this suddenly removes the analytic/synthetic distinction. It is like saying "all bachelors are unmarried men," and then using it to describe women. The statement itself is still true, even if you point it at the wrong reality.

[SisyphusRedeemed]

@AntiCitizenX So how should we classify unmarried transgendered individuals? If they are genetically men is that what counts? Physiologically men? Psychologically men? Socially men? This is actually an excellent example of the point: what we (in the West at least) have long thought to be an immutable analytically binary category (men/women) turns out to be socially constructed. When the binary breaks down, so does the analytic/synthetic distinciton.

[AntiCitizenX]

@SisyphusRedeemed

"So how should we classify unmarried transgendered individuals?"

Can't we just arbitrarily pick anything we want? That was the whole point of an analytic statement, right? It is true by the mere virtue of definition. Whether or not it effectively describes reality is a completely separate issue. It is like saying "all tribbles hate Klingons." Just because neither thing exists is no reason to deny the truth of the statement, no? Or do positivists disagree?

[SisyphusRedeemed]

@AntiCitizenX Positivists would disagree. They would classify such statements as 'not even wrong,' because they are unverifiable. That is, they're neither true nor false, they're meaningless. Unless, of course, you simply define these things that way, in which case they are analytic truths. But herein lies the problem: what qualifies as an analytic truth? The bachelors claim is usually an example, but this MIGHT end up being an empirical truth, depending on what definition we pick.

[AntiCitizenX]

@SisyphusRedeemed

By the way, I really enjoy your videos, and I appreciate you taking the time to address my questions. 

[gamesbok]

Having watched the video and read the comments it strikes me that Logical Positivism is doing rather well.

[SisyphusRedeemed]

@gamesbok Not amongst professional philosophers of science, it isn't.

[ast453000]

the discovery of non-euclidean geometry didn't disprove euclidean geometry; it's just a different kind of geometry. Non-euclidean geometry happens to be more useful for describing the universe, but this doesn't make euclidean geometry false. Re: Schrodinger's Cat, it seems to me to violate the principle of non-contradiction, if the cat is alive and dead at the same time.

[RPFS2008]

Thanks for this series. Very interesting. Looking forward to more

[mrbluesky323]

Those examples you gave of the "testing of analytic beliefs" are not actually tests of those beliefs.

In the case of relativistic geometry, a mathematician developed the non-euclidean geometry BEFORE it was applied to the theory of general relativity. The idea that a space could be non-euclidean was discovered analytically, not empirically.

You mention two others, but they're also not quite right for similar reasons, 500 chars isn't enough.

[SisyphusRedeemed]

@mrbluesky323 "The idea that a space could be non-euclidean was discovered analytically, not empirically."

But the idea that THIS space is non-euclidean was discovered empirically.

[mrbluesky323]

@SisyphusRedeemed

Right, the application of an analytical idea relies on empirical measurment. We see this all the time in mathematics. Mathematics is, itself, purely analytical. Mathematicians are always developing new analytic schemes, these are true in their own contexts. But when you say one of these schemes applies to some aspect of reality, that's making a theoretical model. The claim that all of space is euclidean is a theoretical claim (i forget the word you used), not analytical

[bass109]

jesus christ true king of all mankind. future king of all justice

[JohananRaatz]

Empirically verifying the verification principle: watch?v=ags_M3ILszo

Does anyone know where the verification principle is? It's not anywhere in my house and I can't seem to empirically verify it's existence. I'm putting out an APB for the verification principle.

[SecularNumanist]

and you cant verify the varifiability theory of meaning but you cant use induction to strengthen induction either.

[SisyphusRedeemed]

@SecularNumanist "you cant use induction to strengthen induction either."

I'm not sure that statement itself is going to help. It sounds like a tu quo que fallacy. You'd need to articulate it more if you want it to help.

[SecularNumanist]

In regards to your first objection. I dont think a sentence is the same as a statement. Water is blue = one statement. absolute spirit is perfect = a second one.

[SisyphusRedeemed]

@SecularNumanist But statements can be joined together using logical operators, no? Otherwise how could we get truthful, meaningful statements?

[SecularNumanist]

@SisyphusRedeemed

hmmm, youve got me there.

Im getting deja vu here. I discuss a field of philosophy that I know im not particularly well versed in and humiliate myself :)

ill stop right there.

I dont consider myself a logical positivist but I have agreed with an awful lot of what I have read from them. I agreed with Russels criticism of empiricism back in 1912 so hes got me hooked. But i shall suspend judgement untill further information.

Keep up the video series :)

[thesparitan]

@SisyphusRedeemed Where is the 4th section of the series? I am dying to see it. One of the best videos on the history of the science of philosophy.

[SisyphusRedeemed]

@thesparitan I'm teaching the course again this semester, so I'll be updating it as I go along.

[thesparitan]

@SisyphusRedeemed Great because this is the best explanation of philosophy I have ever had. Well philosophyfreak is about as good but he focuses more on the fundamentals. I have learned more in an hour on one of these videos then weeks of study.

[HConstantine]

Oh, Sisyphus, you're so funny! You want to play that modern philosophy is good for anything. How cute!

[MJRockX]

Come on with part four man!  WERE DYING HERE!!!!!!

[SisyphusRedeemed]

@MJRockX I'm glad you're liking it. I'm working on some other things at the moment, but rest assured, I will be getting back to it.

[Worldslargestipod]

Hey Sisyphus, I have a question. I noticed that Quine's article on Positivism seems markedly similar to the point made by Ludvig Von Mises in Human Action, [except in a more narrow scope] Which claims that logical positivism can't explain economics because there is no way to hold every factor as true

Maybe I'm misunderstanding things...

[SisyphusRedeemed]

@Worldslargestipod I'm generally familiar with von Mises, but I can't say I remember that particular argument. On it's face, though, it certainly sounds like a position he would hold, but I can't comment on how it relates to Quine's position. Sorry I can't be of more help.

[TheAtheistPaladin]

Behold the new dawn of positivism! Holistic Positivism!

[PainefulMass]

Isn't the statement "The universe is Euclidean" not analytic but synthetic since it can be tested? Maybe the analytic statement that was revised was "all geometries are Euclidean"? I think I'll concede that Schrodinger's cat revises the analytic statement "At a specified instant, a cat must either be alive or dead."

I just wanted to comment, because when I tried to formulate the exact statement that was being revised it kept seeming synthetic.

[ScepticalAgnostic]

I was a bit disappointed by this video. Mind you, I tend to get disappointed by criticisms of logical positivism, because every one parrots the same shallow set that reflect a lack of reading on the subject and outright intellectual laziness in some cases.

I'll wait for your next video, but my response to this can quite happily deal with every criticism put forward, which makes me wonder why I seem to be one of very few people who understand how weak the objections are.

[SisyphusRedeemed]

@ScepticalAgnostic Well, even the positivists themselves eventually recognized that the program wasn't going to work. Even if the objections can be dealt with it's pretty clear they can't be done so very easily.

[ScepticalAgnostic]

@SisyphusRedeemed

I appreciate that people such as Ayer later went against their initial views. I scrawled down some notes while I was watching the video which I can likely turn into a script for a video response if you'd like, though I've already made videos on the subject of logical positivism and positions related to them (analytical behaviourism, phenomenalism, emotivism etc).

For the record, I have a lot of respect for Quine.

[legodesi]

quine's arguments seem to equally undermine foundationalism as positivism..

[SisyphusRedeemed]

@legodesi Indeed they do. I consider that a plus.

[soultorment27]

@legodesi

But Quine later says that he accepts foundationalist epistemology!

[secularisrael]

So how precisely do we test and see that "All bachelors are unmaried" isn't true, again? Nah, Eucledean geometry is still right, Sch. cat doesn't undermine logic, and the synthetic/analytic distinction holds just fine. But the verifiability theory of meaning is self-contradicting and wrong, and hence so is positivism.

[SisyphusRedeemed]

Quine says that "All bachelors are unmarried" depends on the idea of 'synonymy' (since the truth of that claim hinges on the idea that 'bachelor' is synonymous with 'unmarried man.') So that kind of analytic statement depends on a notion of synonymy which is not clearly articulated. Is 'synonymy' to be understood analytically? If so, then it's circular (analyticity depends on synonymy, which depends on analyticity, which depends on...) Is it synthetic? If so then the distinction collapses.

[secularisrael]

@SisyphusRedeemed Synonymy/Identity can be understood as part of the basic logical infrastructure required for analysis. It is a basic concept, or reducible to ones, and a concept is neither analytic nor synthetic. But even at worse, there is only non-vicious regression. The bottom line is that if you accept logic there is no problem distinguishing between relations that are logically entailed by the concepts and relations which are not. And if you don't - you can't argue at all.

[SisyphusRedeemed]

@secularisrael I'm not trying to say Quine is right here, I'm just telling you what he said. While the reactions to his paper were wide and varied, and you're certainly not the only one to reject these parts of his argument, I do think it is more respectable than you're giving it credit for. One way or the other, he is given credit as delivering (at least one of) the most important critiques of positivism, and many give him credit for killing it.

[secularisrael]

@SisyphusRedeemed Fair enough. I never understood why this article was so highly regarded, but you're right - as an historical point.

[SisyphusRedeemed]

@secularisrael "Eucledean geometry is still right"

It's logically consistent, but it doesn't describe the universe we actually live in.

"Sch. cat doesn't undermine logic"

Not as a whole, but it does limit it rather drastically. It shows that the (at least some of) the 'laws' of logic only apply in a circumscribed context.

[secularisrael]

@SisyphusRedeemed That analytic truths don't describe the world is a Positivist truth you yourself quoted. As for the cat, as a q. physicist - QM obeys the LoEM just fine, thank you. Logic cannot fail, but it's application to the world can - and for that you don't need QM. "Adding" two clouds to make one cloud doesn't undermine "1+1=2". The cat doesn't limit the LoEM for the same reason.

[beriukay]

Nice video. At first I was a bit sad that logical positivism died, but then I recalled a quote from Eugene Gendlin, which starts out "What is true is already so.

Owning up to it doesn't make it worse." It went out gracefully, unlike Marxism and Randism.

[SisyphusRedeemed]

@beriukay Very well put. I like the quote.

[SisyphusRedeemed]

@mish2930 I don't know of any books on the failure of common sense in general, but several books on how it fails in particular areas. In ethics, for example, a good book is "Stumbling on Happiness" by Harvard Psychologist Dan Gilbert. He shows how bad we are at predicting what will make us happy (and why, and what we can do about it.) Also good is "Predictably Irrational" by Dan Ariely. Neither of these are strictly philosophy books, but they have a lot of philosophical implications.

[SisyphusRedeemed]

@TheHeather1985 I've read the core essay/chapter, but not the whole book. I cover the Sokal hoax in my phil science class. As for post-modernism, it get a bad name because some people take it way too far, but there are legitimate points and criticisms that come from post-modernism that are worth thinking about seriously.

[WizardofCalculus]

I have a serious problem with people arguing about QM discrediting logic. It doesn't at all, because QM is contingent in its modern understanding of mathematics, which routinely uses the Law of the Excluded Middle. QM states that what previously was thought to be categorically distinct (particles & waves) are actually categorically the same, & that statements which can be said about them now have to use different language. There's no rejection of LEM.

[soultorment27]

@WizardofCalculus

The way I look at the relationship between QM and logic is similiar to the relationship between Newtonian Mechanics and Einstein's Relativity. What I mean is that classical logic is preferable for simplicity, but it's not absolute. So I wouldn't insist on throwing away classical logic all together, I would just put a constraint upon classical logic for situations x,y,z where there are conflicts with QM...

[soultorment27]

@WizardofCalculus

Another reason for the rejection of excluded middle as an axiom is anti-realism. Not everyone is anti-realist for all domains but most people are anti-realist for at least one domain...

Consider as an example the domain of the future. Many will take an anti-realist position about propositions which express future facts in order to avoid causal determinism. This is because if "x will happen tomorrow" is T/F today then its not possible for ~x! Thus (x v ~x) isn't an axiom.

[jessemaurais]

I very much agree with the sentiment you finish with. Anyone who claims to have a theory that explains everything is immediately suspect. I've always wondered if Gödel's incompleteness theorem applies to more than just natural numbers. Would that not be a sad state to leave philosophy in?

[RyuDarragh]

"Popular interpretation of quantum mechanics" is not a problem of reality, but of knowledge. The cat is not actually in both states inside the box. The knowledge of the observer is. Once the box is opened, the superposition in the observers mind is collapsed. I've yet to see any test of this sort that does not depend heavily on the observer and the observers knowledge and not the actual outcome of the test.

[SisyphusRedeemed]

@RyuDarragh According to Copenhagen, it's not that we don't KNOW what position the cat is in; the cat is simultaneously in BOTH positions. This is supported by both a ton of math and a fair bit of empirical experimentation. Copenhagen is not universally accepted, but it is the most popular interpretation of quantum mechanics and has been for decades now.

[RyuDarragh]

@SisyphusRedeemed: I know, but, as I said earlier, none of the experiments have been testable in a way that does not depend on the state of knowledge of the experimenters. Plus, the experiments themselves can't be freed from observer biases by the simple fact almost any "observation" of the inner workings will "collapse the wave function"... how do you prevent any radiation or gravity from penetrating the experiment - all of which can be used to observe it? Copenhagen is pure philosphy, imo.

[insidetrip101]

@SisyphusRedeemed

What really confuses me about that is that what if I were in the cat's place? In other words does the cat observe itself and cause a split in time lines or does it involve only human observation? If the cat does observe itself, does that mean that there is an individual time line for each observer? Thinking about that just roasts my brain, but it doesn't help I don't know much about quantum mechanics.

[RyuDarragh]

The premise of "water is blue and absolute spirit is perfect" is flawed. Just because part A is false or true does not make part B true or false. Isn't this the infinitesimal sample fallacy?

[insidetrip101]

@RyuDarragh

It seems you aren't understanding propositional logic. While the truth value of A has no bearing on B being true or false the statement A+B IS dependent on the truth value of A, if only because if A is false then the whole statement is false. (For an "and" statement to be false only one proposition needs to be false, where as both need to be for an "or" statement)

Since you can prove the statement false, you have "falsified" the theory. Which is a type of verification.

[insidetrip101]

While it certainly doesn't prove B to be true it allows the statement to be TESTED. Remember, the argument was that these statements can't be tested in any way. It wasn't about the truth or falsity of them, it was that they can't be TESTED. Consider my ghetto truth table.

A+B

T+T=T

T+F=F

F+T=F

F+F=F

Maybe that helps you understand how this is a type of "test" for those statements. Notice how in every case that A is false the statement is necessarily false, therefore testable.

[RyuDarragh]

@insidetrip101: But, does the test prove anything useful?

[insidetrip101]

@RyuDarragh

Unfortunately, it isn't about proving it a useful test. It is about showing a contradiction in the Verifiable Theory of Meaning. The whole point of the positivist perspective is that those statements don't even AMOUNT to truth or falsity, when it clearly can as in this case.

[michalchik]

@insidetrip101 Actually your truth table is missing essential parts, falsehoods can also lead to truths. For example

1) All cats are dogs

2) All dogs die by assassination

3) President Lincoln was a cat

Therefore

4) President Lincoln died from assassination.

So Falsehoods in a correct syllogism leads to a truth.

What can not happen is truths in a correct syllogism leading to a falsehood.

This has an important implication. True conclusions do not show your premises to be correct,

[insidetrip101]

@michalchik

Correct, but a false premise GARAUNTEES a false conclusion. Therefore, if you test one premise, and it is false then it doesn't matter if the other is TRUE OR NOT. This is the part where you sneak in the premise of the "meaningless" statement.

Remember, the issue isn't if the second statement is true or not. It is if the statement can even be said to be true or false. By including it as part of a premise, you just did that.

[michalchik]

@insidetrip101 "Correct, but a false premise GARAUNTEES a false conclusion."

No that is exactly wrong. A false premise can lead to a false conclusion but can also lead to a true conclusion as per my example.

The way it is usually written is

T->T Yes

T->F No

F->T Yes

F->F Yes

Now there is a lot more to symbolic logic than this and we have not gotten the the meat of the video, the implication of T and meaningless.

[insidetrip101]

@michalchik

@insidetrip101

1) It may give a true conclusion, but if you do that you are throwing soundness out the window. Congratulations, knowledge is now impossible.

2) It doesn't matter either way. Whether it yields a true OR false conclusion you are judging the second premise as true or false; EXACTLY what the logical positivists said you couldn't do. No matter the conclusion, you have attached the "verification" on to something else.

[RyuDarragh]

@insidetrip101: I understand AND statements. That's not the problem. Try to find a case where they do not also claim B must also be falsified if elements attached to it (A) are false. I've seen too many silly philosophical logic systems that all make postulates that depend on mere whimsy and not strict mathematical logic. Methinks the term is misapplied for much human thinking. Give me a computer or a gate array for logic anyday :P

[jessemaurais]

@RyuDarragh That's not what's being said. If A is false then A & B is false regardless of what B is.

[soultorment27]

@RyuDarragh

What the hell are you talking about, what is the "infinitesimal sample fallacy"? You are correct that whether A is true or not makes no difference to whether B is true or not. But the issue at hand is whether the conjunction of A and B can be true or false. If the conjunction (A & B) can be either true or false, then it's not wholly meaningless and there's a sense in which it can be tested in principle...

[Daruqe]

@RyuDarragh

The point is if "water is blue" is false, then the statement "water is blue and absolute spirit is perfect" MUST be false.

[RyuDarragh]

@Daruqe: The statement is a nonsequitar.

[SisyphusRedeemed]

@mish2930 "it just seems like common sense would tell you"

Problem is the positivists couldn't rely on common sense. They wanted to rely on only empirical observation and logic.

"is it so important in philosophy to have universal princibles?"

Some are okay with universal principles, but the positivists wanted them. Once we start making exceptions we have to (a) know what governs the exceptions (common sense won't do) and (b) recognize those exceptions may cause havoc with our system.

[insidetrip101]

I've always found anti-realism extremely attractive. Not sure why, but I just really like that way of viewing science.

[SisyphusRedeemed]

@insidetrip101 You're certainly not the only one. It's a major position in the philosophy of science.

[socrates856]

So far the best part of an excellent sequence. The passage on Quine is truly outstanding. Thanks.

[SisyphusRedeemed]

@socrates856 Thanks for saying so. Glad you enjoyed.

[lIThorIl]

(cont.)

Third, in the previous part you said how the problem of internal world/external world has been resolved, and yet here you are talking about what is "really real" as though that's a problem! Saying "electrons are just a pattern of our experiences" is partially true... electrons form a basis of the framework which describes my experiences. No way to distinguish that from "really real" electrons... in fact the only distinction is the first way giving undesirable connotations.

[SisyphusRedeemed]

@lIThorIl "n the previous part you said"

For the most part, I'm keeping my opinions to myself in this series. That was a rare moment of me editorializing. So if it seems like I'm contradicting myself, it's probably because I'm talking about the common view on the issue, not my opinion.

[lIThorIl]

A couple of problems -

First, I don't understand why saying the statement "water is red and absolute spirit is perfect" is testable is a problem... water is not red so the statement is false. It doesn't tell us anything. Furthermore I thought the way it was constructed, certain subclauses couldn't be assigned logical values?

Second, of course all our beliefs are interconnected! I suppose strict logical positivism fails here, BUT we DO need to justify every link in the web.

[SisyphusRedeemed]

@lIThorIl "I don't understand...the statement is false."

Because according to LP, "absolute spirit is perfect" isn't false, it's meaningless. Why should a meaningless statement become both meaningful and false, simply because you conjoin it with another meaningful and false statement?

"certain subclauses couldn't be assigned logical values"

Exactly. If "absolute spirit..." has no truth value, it shouldn't be testable. But it is, when conjoined with a testable clause.

[SisyphusRedeemed]

@lIThorIl "I suppose strict logical positivism fails here, BUT we DO need to justify every link in the web."

Sure we need to justify our beliefs, but it's not just 'strict' LP that fails once we grant holism. The analytic/synthetic distinction was a core assumption of LP; once we grant holism, that distinction collapses and so does LP.

[abjectreality]

I've only recently subbed to your channel, but I'm mightily enjoying what I've seen so far. On a light note, it always (to me) sounds like Woody Allan explaining philosophy.

Good work, in all seriousness!

[SisyphusRedeemed]

@abjectreality Well, Woody Allan was a philosophy major.

Glad you're enjoying it, thanks for saying so.

[army103]

At the end of the day, I get the impression that although logical positivism has some significant flaws, it gets a lot more right than it gets wrong.

[SisyphusRedeemed]

@army103 It may get more right than it gets wrong, but it put all its eggs in one basket, so really if it gets ANYTHING wrong it doesn't work. Many of their ideas have been salvaged in some format by future thinkers, but LP as such is dead.

[mortemdei]

"I promise you it's true"... seriously?

[SisyphusRedeemed]

@mortemdei That's my understanding of the science. I may be mistaken (it's certainly happened before) but I've looked into it a fair bit, read books, talked to physicists, and the message seems pretty clear. But don't take my word for it, go check it out yourself.

[mortemdei]

@SisyphusRedeemed Hahaha I didn't mean it that way, I "know" what you said is true. I just think taht the "I promise you it's true" sounds funny.

[waksibra]

philosophy ftw.

[FurieMan]

Can people please read up on Schrodinger's Cat. It is meant to be a thought experiment to critique the copenhagen interpirtation of quantum mechanics, trying to show how absurd it is. The copenhagen interpitation has since fallen out of favor.

[FurieMan]

@FurieMan and you say so... posting prematurely >.<

[lIThorIl]

@FurieMan "The copenhagen interpitation has since fallen out of favor. "

No it hasn't. The question is what CAUSES wavefunction collapse. Even if a situation such as Schroedinger's cat can happen, I don't have a problem with the interpretation. We can't tell from the outside whether the cat is alive or dead, at all. So we could say it is both alive and dead. It's what happens when we open the box that matters, and that is predicted as it will actually happen.

[FurieMan]

@lIThorIl This raises questions. Why can't the cat observe itself?

And what is it about us humans observing something that makes a wave function collapse. Magic?

What counts as observation? If we were to place a camera in the box, Take the video fotage without observing it. Copying it 30 times, take one frame from the last copy and make a picture from it. and then watch said picture.

When was the content observed?

[SisyphusRedeemed]

@FurieMan "Why can't the cat observe itself?"

Yeah, this speaks to the poor choice of example, not a conceptual problem with Copenhagen. Just take the cat out and say that the vial holding the poison is in a superposition (smashed and not smashed), if that really bugs you.

"And what is it about us humans observing something that makes a wave function collapse. Magic?"

That's a huge field of research in quantum mechanics. As to your other questions you're making an argument from incredulity.

[FurieMan]

@SisyphusRedeemed Why is the cat a poor example? Can it observe it cant it?

If it cant.. what counts as an observation?

[SisyphusRedeemed]

@FurieMan "Why is the cat a poor example? Can it observe it cant it?"

Your second question answers your first.

[FurieMan]

@SisyphusRedeemed So a cat can observe? can a fly? can a bacteria?

Did quantum mechanics not work in the universe before there was life?

The copenhagen interpritation seems wrong because it places a wierd emphesis on minds having to be involved.

[SisyphusRedeemed]

@FurieMan "it places a wierd emphesis on minds having to be involved."

This is maybe the LEAST weird thing about quantum mechanics. According to Copenhagen, the very laws of logic are being violated. That's MUCH weirder. But you're right that it is a concern, worth thinking about. But you can't prove Copenhagen wrong just by saying 'it seems weird.' It is weird. No one denies that. That doesn't mean it's false.

[threeofwands]

@FurieMan

It seems to me that the thrust (if you will) of the Copenhagen interpretation is not so much that the universe cannot exist without an observer, but that an observer is not a spectral element separate from the universe. A scientific observer is a product and parcel of the universe that is being observed, and produces the requisite effects.

That said, distinctions must of course be made.

[lIThorIl]

@FurieMan That's what I was saying... what causes the collapse? There is one specific interpretation called "consciousness causes collapse" but that is not the be-all and end-all of the Copenhagen interpretation.

For me personally, the Copenhagen interpretation is a useful way to DO quantum mechanics, and work problems out by thinking about them. That gives us the correct result. We may NEVER be be able to reconcile it with our human brains & intuition - it may be impossible to do so.

[SisyphusRedeemed]

@FurieMan "It is meant to be a thought experiment to critique the copenhagen interpirtation of quantum mechanics"

That was what Irwin Schrodinger intended it as when he proposed it, but the scientific community turned it around on him and said, 'yeah that may seem absurd, but it's actually what happens!'

"The copenhagen interpitation has since fallen out of favor."

No, it hasn't. It's not universally accepted, but it is still the dominate interpretation of quantum mechanics.