In this post she sums up beautifully what I and many physicists believe, and is vehemently opposed by the prevailing realist crowd here on LW.
She seems to vacillate between “realism is a philosophical idea” and “realism is false”.
This is about realism being a philosophical idea:
And this is all well and fine, but realism is a philosophy. It’s a belief system, and science does not tell you whether it is correct.
And this is simply asserting nonrealism:
If you want to claim that the Higgs-boson does not exist, you have to demonstrate that the theory which contains the mathematical structure called “Higgs-boson” does not fit the data. Whether or not Higgs-bosons ever arrive in a detector is totally irrelevant.
So, she isn’t making a coherent argument against realism, she says “it’s philosophical” as if it’s a counterargument (wat?).
The issue is, when she says something like “That is what we mean when we say ‘quarks exist’: We mean that the predictions obtained with the hypothesis agrees with observations,” that is itself a philosophical idea, subject to philosophical analysis. (What does it mean for a statement to mean something? What’s a prediction? What’s an observation? How does this idea behave in unusual cases such as the person claiming there’s an invisible pink dragon in their garage?) But she’s trying to exclude philosophy from the domain of the conversation… which is inextricably philosophical.
This seems like another instance of “people who say they’re not doing philosophy are in fact doing bad philosophy.”
This seems like another instance of “people who say they’re not doing philosophy are in fact doing bad philosophy.”
I think a lot of folks hope they can avoid the philosophical tangle and just get on with what they care about and find ways to not have to deal with nasty philosophical problems, especially I think the problem of the criterion. And you can, and philosophy even gives it a name: pragmatism. You can be a pragmatist about whatever you want by putting up a stop sign that says “yep, not going to look at this, going to take it as not only ontologically basic but real so I can avoid dealing with the infinite regress we find whenever we try to reduce everything”. And the catch is that we all must be pragmatists about something if we are to get on with anything, since the alternative seems to be uncomputable (again, due to the problem of the criterion and its many guises). So far so good, philosophy work discharged.
But then some people, especially people who identify as scientists and rationalists, have this idea that they don’t put up stop signs, they always keep going to the best of their ability, and when reality says “here, enjoy some actual unknowability” this creates serious problems for the person. Their identity is at stake in so much as it is tied to reductionism and realism (or, as is the case with Sabine, some kind of shadow realism? her position is not self consistent as you point out), they suffer cognitive dissonance, and they choose to resolve it by making the same epistemological leap of faith we are all forced to make by the problem of the criterion, but then denying that any leap was made and instead claiming it was just seeing things as they really are, and if pressed on it then doing some weird gymnastics like Sabine seems to do here to try to hide from what knowing even means.
This comment seems uncharacteristically uncharitable for you, guessing due to a certain level of frustration. Could be misreading it.
She seems to vacillate between “realism is a philosophical idea” and “realism is false”.
She does no such thing. She doesn’t even use the terms true or false! She says it’s not something she needs in her scientific work. You wouldn’t be confusing atheism with agnosticism, would you?
And this is simply asserting nonrealism:
She is not saying that something exists or doesn’t, just that it doesn’t matter for the purposes of of evaluating the quality of a hypothesis.
How does this idea behave in unusual cases such as the person claiming there’s an invisible pink dragon in their garage?)
She is doing physics, not linguistics or cognitive science or psychiatry. Or, as in your example, more like sophistry. Russel’s teapot has nothing to do with the topic.
This seems like another instance of “people who say they’re not doing philosophy are in fact doing bad philosophy.”
Pot. Kettle. Her philosophy (or non-philosophy) certainly works for her and for most physicists, look at all the successes in physics over the last century. While certain people are still stuck on logical counterfactuals.
Her philosophy (or non-philosophy) certainly works for her and for most physicists,
Success and failure have to be gauged against what someone or something is intended to do. Science is intended to output knowledge about the world, so ceasing to even attempt that is failure.
She seems to vacillate between “realism is a philosophical idea” and “realism is false”.
This is about realism being a philosophical idea:
And this is simply asserting nonrealism:
So, she isn’t making a coherent argument against realism, she says “it’s philosophical” as if it’s a counterargument (wat?).
The issue is, when she says something like “That is what we mean when we say ‘quarks exist’: We mean that the predictions obtained with the hypothesis agrees with observations,” that is itself a philosophical idea, subject to philosophical analysis. (What does it mean for a statement to mean something? What’s a prediction? What’s an observation? How does this idea behave in unusual cases such as the person claiming there’s an invisible pink dragon in their garage?) But she’s trying to exclude philosophy from the domain of the conversation… which is inextricably philosophical.
This seems like another instance of “people who say they’re not doing philosophy are in fact doing bad philosophy.”
I think a lot of folks hope they can avoid the philosophical tangle and just get on with what they care about and find ways to not have to deal with nasty philosophical problems, especially I think the problem of the criterion. And you can, and philosophy even gives it a name: pragmatism. You can be a pragmatist about whatever you want by putting up a stop sign that says “yep, not going to look at this, going to take it as not only ontologically basic but real so I can avoid dealing with the infinite regress we find whenever we try to reduce everything”. And the catch is that we all must be pragmatists about something if we are to get on with anything, since the alternative seems to be uncomputable (again, due to the problem of the criterion and its many guises). So far so good, philosophy work discharged.
But then some people, especially people who identify as scientists and rationalists, have this idea that they don’t put up stop signs, they always keep going to the best of their ability, and when reality says “here, enjoy some actual unknowability” this creates serious problems for the person. Their identity is at stake in so much as it is tied to reductionism and realism (or, as is the case with Sabine, some kind of shadow realism? her position is not self consistent as you point out), they suffer cognitive dissonance, and they choose to resolve it by making the same epistemological leap of faith we are all forced to make by the problem of the criterion, but then denying that any leap was made and instead claiming it was just seeing things as they really are, and if pressed on it then doing some weird gymnastics like Sabine seems to do here to try to hide from what knowing even means.
This comment seems uncharacteristically uncharitable for you, guessing due to a certain level of frustration. Could be misreading it.
She does no such thing. She doesn’t even use the terms true or false! She says it’s not something she needs in her scientific work. You wouldn’t be confusing atheism with agnosticism, would you?
She is not saying that something exists or doesn’t, just that it doesn’t matter for the purposes of of evaluating the quality of a hypothesis.
She is doing physics, not linguistics or cognitive science or psychiatry. Or, as in your example, more like sophistry. Russel’s teapot has nothing to do with the topic.
Pot. Kettle. Her philosophy (or non-philosophy) certainly works for her and for most physicists, look at all the successes in physics over the last century. While certain people are still stuck on logical counterfactuals.
OK, the above was just as uncharitable to you.
Success and failure have to be gauged against what someone or something is intended to do. Science is intended to output knowledge about the world, so ceasing to even attempt that is failure.