Respectfully, you were the one invoking technical jargon to do some analytical work.
Without jargon: I think there is physical reality external to human minds. I think that the best science can do is make better predictions—accurately describing reality is harder.
You suggest there is unresolvable tension between those positions.
I think there is physical reality external to human minds.
It’s a useful model, yes.
I think that the best science can do is make better predictions—accurately describing reality is harder.
The assumption that “accurately describing reality” is even possible is a bad model, because you can never tell if you are done. And if it is not possible, then there is no point postulating this reality thing. Might as well avoid it and stick with something that is indisputable: it is possible to build successively better models.
You suggest there is unresolvable tension between those positions.
Yes, one of them postulates something that cannot be tested. if you are into Occam’s razor, that’s something that fails it.
We can’t talk about testing propositions against reality until we decide whether there is a reality to test it against. If you are uncertain about that point, the nuances between predicting reality and modelling reality are not on point—and probably confuse the analysis more than they shed any light.
If someone walked into one of your high-end physics lectures and wanted to talk about whether there was reality (see Cartesian doubt), I think you would tell him that the physics class was not the venue for that type of conversation. If you tried to answer his questions while also answering other students’ questions, everything would get hopelessly confused.
If the experiment is not a way to tap into reality (in some extremely metaphorical sense), why should I care about the experimental results when trying to decide whether my proposition is true?
If you want to know how far a rock you throw will land (a prediction based on a model constructed based on previously performed experiments), you want your model to have the necessary predictive power. Whether it corresponds to some metaphysical concept of reality is quite secondary.
That doesn’t answer my question. To rephrase using your new example, if the prior experiments do not metaphorically “tap into reality,” why should I have any confidence that a model based on those experimental results will be useful in predicting future events?
Well, either the experimental result has predictive power, or it doesn’t. If certain kinds of experimental results prove useful for predicting the future, then I should have confidence in predictions based on (models based on) those results. Whether I call them “reality” or “a model” doesn’t really matter very much.
More generally, to my way of thinking; this whole “instrumentalists don’t believe in reality” business mostly seems like a distinction in how we use words rather than in what experiences we anticipate.
It would potentially make a difference, I suppose, if soi-disant instrumentalists didn’t actually expect the results of different experiments to be reconcilable with one another (under the principle that each experiment was operating on its own model, after all, and there’s no reason to expect those models to have any particular relationship to one another). But for the most part, that doesn’t seem to be the case.
There’s a bit of that when it comes to quirky quantum results, I gather, but to my mind that’s kind of an “instrumentalism of the gaps”… when past researchers have come up with a unified model we accept that unified model, but when current data doesn’t seem unified given our current understanding, rather than seeking a unified model we shrug our shoulders and accept the inconsistency, because hey, they’re just models, it’s not like there’s any real underlying territory.
Which in practice just means we wait for someone else to do the hard work of reconciling it all.
why should I have any confidence that a model based on those experimental results will be useful in predicting future events?
Because it has been experimentally confirmed before, and from experience we can assign a high probability that a model that has been working well in the past will continue to work in the similar circumstances in the future.
Respectfully, you were the one invoking technical jargon to do some analytical work.
Without jargon: I think there is physical reality external to human minds. I think that the best science can do is make better predictions—accurately describing reality is harder.
You suggest there is unresolvable tension between those positions.
It’s a useful model, yes.
The assumption that “accurately describing reality” is even possible is a bad model, because you can never tell if you are done. And if it is not possible, then there is no point postulating this reality thing. Might as well avoid it and stick with something that is indisputable: it is possible to build successively better models.
Yes, one of them postulates something that cannot be tested. if you are into Occam’s razor, that’s something that fails it.
We can’t talk about testing propositions against reality until we decide whether there is a reality to test it against. If you are uncertain about that point, the nuances between predicting reality and modelling reality are not on point—and probably confuse the analysis more than they shed any light.
If someone walked into one of your high-end physics lectures and wanted to talk about whether there was reality (see Cartesian doubt), I think you would tell him that the physics class was not the venue for that type of conversation. If you tried to answer his questions while also answering other students’ questions, everything would get hopelessly confused.
I never did. I talk about testing propositions against experiment, without postulating a mysterious untestable reality behind those experiments.
Unlike the model you call reality, the existence of repeatable experiments is a repeatable experimental fact.
What is an experiment but testing a proposition against reality?
That’s the realist’s approach. To me, you test a proposition with an experiment, not against anything.
If the experiment is not a way to tap into reality (in some extremely metaphorical sense), why should I care about the experimental results when trying to decide whether my proposition is true?
If you want to know how far a rock you throw will land (a prediction based on a model constructed based on previously performed experiments), you want your model to have the necessary predictive power. Whether it corresponds to some metaphysical concept of reality is quite secondary.
That doesn’t answer my question. To rephrase using your new example, if the prior experiments do not metaphorically “tap into reality,” why should I have any confidence that a model based on those experimental results will be useful in predicting future events?
Well, either the experimental result has predictive power, or it doesn’t. If certain kinds of experimental results prove useful for predicting the future, then I should have confidence in predictions based on (models based on) those results. Whether I call them “reality” or “a model” doesn’t really matter very much.
More generally, to my way of thinking; this whole “instrumentalists don’t believe in reality” business mostly seems like a distinction in how we use words rather than in what experiences we anticipate.
It would potentially make a difference, I suppose, if soi-disant instrumentalists didn’t actually expect the results of different experiments to be reconcilable with one another (under the principle that each experiment was operating on its own model, after all, and there’s no reason to expect those models to have any particular relationship to one another). But for the most part, that doesn’t seem to be the case.
There’s a bit of that when it comes to quirky quantum results, I gather, but to my mind that’s kind of an “instrumentalism of the gaps”… when past researchers have come up with a unified model we accept that unified model, but when current data doesn’t seem unified given our current understanding, rather than seeking a unified model we shrug our shoulders and accept the inconsistency, because hey, they’re just models, it’s not like there’s any real underlying territory.
Which in practice just means we wait for someone else to do the hard work of reconciling it all.
Because it has been experimentally confirmed before, and from experience we can assign a high probability that a model that has been working well in the past will continue to work in the similar circumstances in the future.