Funny how in this case I would side with the Church against Galileo: scientific anti-realism avoids a lot of silly arguments about what exists and what is real. Galileo committed a cardinal sin of post-rationality, claiming that his map is the territory, and amply deserved the punishment.
Overconfidence in sentences like “the moon has craters” may be a sin. (Though I’d disagree that this sin category warrants banning someone from talking about the moon’s craters and trapping them within a building with threats of force for nine years. YMMV.)
Thinking that the sentence “the moon has craters” refers to the moon, and asserts of the moon that there are craters on it, doesn’t seem like a sin at all to me, regardless of whether some scientific models (e.g., in QM) are sometimes useful for reasons we don’t understand.
Re Galileo’s punishment, my comment was a bit tongue in cheek :). As for the rest, you and I have always disagreed about the ontological content of “reality”, you being realist and me tending toward the anti-realism/pragmatism/instrumentalism side of the debate. Sadly, I never got to meet any of you rationality big wigs in person, maybe it would have been more useful than online encounters.
Funny how in this case I would side with the Church against Galileo: scientific anti-realism avoids a lot of silly arguments about what exists and what is real. Galileo committed a cardinal sin of post-rationality, claiming that his map is the territory, and amply deserved the punishment.
Overconfidence in sentences like “the moon has craters” may be a sin. (Though I’d disagree that this sin category warrants banning someone from talking about the moon’s craters and trapping them within a building with threats of force for nine years. YMMV.)
Thinking that the sentence “the moon has craters” refers to the moon, and asserts of the moon that there are craters on it, doesn’t seem like a sin at all to me, regardless of whether some scientific models (e.g., in QM) are sometimes useful for reasons we don’t understand.
Re Galileo’s punishment, my comment was a bit tongue in cheek :). As for the rest, you and I have always disagreed about the ontological content of “reality”, you being realist and me tending toward the anti-realism/pragmatism/instrumentalism side of the debate. Sadly, I never got to meet any of you rationality big wigs in person, maybe it would have been more useful than online encounters.
Maybe someday! :)