Sometimes very active discussions about peripheral issues overwhelm a thread, so this is a permanent home for those conversations.
I’ve opened a new “Sandbox” thread as a post as the new “ignore commenter” plug-in only works on threads started as posts.
Erik,
I’m not belittling human invention, nor human imagination, nor human convention. It’s how we are to some extent able to make sense of our world.
Well, then you belittled it unintentionally by saying “just human invention”. As a minimum, the statement means that abstracts are human invention and nothing else. What makes you so sure? If you’re not sure, then why say this?
Right now you are saying that they to some extent help make sense of our world. So you are saying that they serve like sense-perception, which is the more obvious way how we make sense of our world. If the analogy is true, then it follows that abstracts are not just human invention, but also similar to percepts, which are definitely not human invention. Exploring this analogy further, knowing that percepts are reflections of objects through our senses, then what could be the medium by which we perceive abstracts? It is commonly termed the mind, another irreducible concept.
Anyway, you are the type of man who can firmly hold that the mind is “just human invention” and that you are not belittling it at the same time. It’s amazing to behold.
Erik,
I was using “just” in the sense of “only”. If there is any other way of gaining knowledge of our surroundings than through sensory perception (individual, shared, or vicarious), I’d be interested to hear of it.
Yes, that is correct.
Mathematics is abstract, which is why there are no error ranges in calculations.
There are numbers, which are abstract and absolute, measurements (which have assumed errors), and counts (which have errors in nontrivial cases).
Outside of math textbooks, published numbers are usually the result of imprecise counts or measurements.
My point would be that calculations are always done by the rules of textbook math. Interpretation of results requires non-mathematical knowledge about causes and sources of error, and these differ depending on circumstance.
To prevent [stupid] people from assuming that published numbers are precise, science journalism needs to step up its game.
Unfortunately, journalism has perverse incentives. Rather than being motivated to educate, journalism is motivated by the need to acquire an audience, and that generally involves inducing fear, anger, and the like.
No, that’s a mistake.
“Measurement error” comes from the observation that repeated measurements do not exactly agree. So it is a statistical thing.
Presumably, somewhere back in prehistoric times, people discovered that measurement was a useful activity. The procedures that we currently use come from a long history and pre-history of trial and error.
Then it is back to the old drawing board. It means that you do not have a useful and reliable measuring procedure.
The notion of “point” is dubious, other than as an idealization.
Nonsense. I’ve been pretty clear that theory and philosophy are idealizations. We should not mistake them for reality.
Overall, I’m a pragmatist. I go with what works. And measurement of length works, whether or not there are such things as true lengths.
Yes, of course they are.
Why would that matter?
Keep in mind that we have many different time zones, each with their own intentional “systematic error”. There’s no such thing as the one true time zone. Yes, we can settle on UTC, and that’s the convention.
We cannot get away from reliance on useful conventions.
Well, that was out of the blue.
No, I don’t put sugar in tea.
Some time ago, maybe I was around 12 years of age, I attended a church summer camp. And the kids liked to play tricks, such as putting salt in the sugar bowl. That’s when I decided that it would be best to avoid putting sugar in my tea.
I’ll put Erik down as an extreme idealist.
I’m a fictionalist. I see abstractions as useful fictions.
Alan never suggested that abstractions do not matter.
Neil Rickert,
There was a UK BBC radio program called Does He Take Sugar. The message was that (handicapped, but not suggesting you are in any way) people can speak for themselves when asked.
Very similar in that I weaned myself off sugar to avoid whatever lurked amongst the sugar on construction sites
That seems correct. Abstracts are human invention and nothing else. But they can be very useful inventions. That’s not belittling them.
No, they are not like sense-perception.
There are no such things as “percepts”. Perception is a process, not a collection of objects.
No indeed. Imagining what may be round the next blind corner (predictive modelling) has kept me reasonably safe while driving, so far.
keiths:
Neil:
keiths:
Neil:
Haha. So the antenna starts out shorter, ends up not shorter, but there is no point at which it ceases to be shorter? How does that work, exactly?
The only way I can see for you to get around the problem is to assert that the antenna is both shorter and not shorter for the entire time. In that case there really is no point at which it ceases to be shorter. It’s always shorter, even when it’s longer.
But that view presents its own problems…
Zeno’s antenna.
Are there, though, really?
petrushka:
Haha. Good point. If the antenna starts out shorter, it remains shorter forever. The only way for it to be longer is if it starts out longer.
I bought the damn thing because it was a telescoping antenna. A lot of good that did me.
That’s an interesting question in itself.
keiths, to Neil:
Erik:
keiths:
Neil:
Pick a woodworking project. You’re going to build it twice, once using the Meas-o-matic with its 5-inch systematic error, and once using an ordinary ruler. Do you think you will be equally successful both times?
Systematic error matters, and if you want to detect it, you have to cross-check your methods and instruments against other methods and instruments. Which ones do you cross-check against?
For me, it’s easy. I cross-check against other methods and instruments that are designed to measure the objective property called length.
For you, it’s not so easy. There is no objective property called length. How, then, do you select the methods and instruments against which to perform your cross-checks? Or do you simply skip the cross-checks and wonder why your woodworking projects never pan out?
My advice would be take a class or two first. Accumulated human knowledge is a treasure store.
keiths:
Neil:
You don’t know that. The fact that the two procedures disagree doesn’t mean that they are both wrong. How do you determine which, if either, you’re going to use?
Seems to me that there are three possibilities:
1 & 2 are both unreliable
1 is reliable but 2 is not
2 is reliable but 1 is not
I initially ruled out
1 and 2 are both reliable
…because in my world, that would be impossible. They give conflicting results, after all. But since you don’t think length is an objective property, and that 1 and 2 therefore are not measuring anything real, it’s quite possible that in your world they both are reliable, as long as repeated measurements using 1 give the same results, and repeated measurements with 2 give the same results — despite the fact that 1 and 2 disagree.
If they are not a reality, then why have idealizations? We could have a long and completely fruitless discussion about what idealizations are. Been there done that with a few nominalists.
Guess what, it fully works to treat you as a nominalist. So, for practical purposes, you are a nominalist, regardless of what you self-identify as.
And we could have a long and completely fruitless discussion about what it means for something to work. Been there done that with a few nominalists.
Edit: For example, presumably you imply that idealizations are useful, they work. Yet you say that idealizations should not be mistaken for reality. Hence it follows that you are saying that something unreal can work. Care to explain this away?
The concept of concept works. Similarly, the concept of percept works also. I dare you to prove otherwise. And if you are not up to the challenge (I predict you are not), then it stands proven that you are a nominalist rather than pragmatist.
I doubt anyone, least of all Neil, claims that measurement at the appropriate level of accuracy is not critical in construction, from bookcases to buildings. Claiming length is an objective property is not useful or informative, however. As Neil says, model makers are pragmatists for the most part. Models are useful and we keep them or they are not and we improve or discard them.
Erik,
Why not write that up as an OP and a challenge to nominalists and pragmatists everywhere, Erik? The sandbox is showing its limitations as a vehicle for discussion.
Alan,
Neil asked why systematic error matters:
I told him why it matters. Do you think it doesn’t matter?
IN context, of course *it matters. I pragmatically constructed an iron railing. I had to scrap my first attempt as I was not attentive enough to cutting the railing length precisely enough for it to not look a bit amateur when welded up.
ETA One error was to forget to use the same cut railing as a template for cutting the others.
ETA*
Is there a universal property we can call length?
Alan:
Sure. Objects occupy space, and length is just a way of quantifying an object’s extent along a chosen dimension.
Depending on what is in your set of “objects” maybe. Universal? At all scales? Time not an issue?
Length is a dimension of space. It depends on the presence of space, not of objects.
Where there’s space, there’s length. (It can be abstracted away from objects.)
ETA: Ninja’d by Erik.
Erik, Mind you, how do you know there is space unless there are things in it? 🙂
There are no points. Here, “point” is an abstraction. It doesn’t really exist.
It is useful to talk about points in our models. But it is bogus to assume they actually exist in order to get a contradiction.
Yes, well said.
keiths, How do you measure it for length?
You can measure distance. It’s the same as measuring length, except there is no object. There is just space.
But how?
Pick two arbitrary points in space. That’s how.
Neil:
So in Neil World, there are no such things as points in time? ‘Now’ doesn’t exist? (Don’t bother invoking relativity. We’re talking about a single frame of reference here.)
This is when it matters — when it isn’t really a systematic error, but a discrepancy between different measuring systems.
If this were a real problem, then we would not be able to measure temperatures. But we seem to manage quite well, by sticking to the one system throughout (whether it be Celsius, Fahrenheit or Kelvin).
I mostly agree with that. So what are you arguing about?
People find it useful to use the word “concept”. But they cannot give a clear account of what they mean.
I have never found the word “percept” to be useful.
Neil:
Fixed that for ya.
Neil:
You’ve already told us that it’s a measurement error when a series of measurements produces discrepant results. If discrepancy over time counts as error, why not discrepancy between two devices or methods?
keiths:
Neil:
A temperature scale is not a method for measuring temperature. It’s a way of expressing temperature. You can express temperatures in °F whether the thermometer you use is mercury-based or infrared.
Sticking to a single scale does not eliminate systematic error, not even if you stick to a single type of instrument, such as mercury-based thermometers. It is possible for one mercury-based thermometer to consistently read 5° higher than another, for instance.
You can’t avoid the need for cross-checking.
Alan:
You didn’t just try a bunch of stuff randomly, stumbling upon the fact that lining up objects next to each other and then cutting them tends to make your projects work in the long run. You chose the lining-up technique based on your concept of length and of the idea that if two objects are the same length, they can be placed next to each other in such a way that their ends will coincide.
We don’t arrive at our measurement techniques by sheer trial and error. We design our measurement techniques to quantify properties that we see in the real world. There can be some trial and error involved in perfecting a technique or an instrument, but we don’t just arrive at the basic idea randomly, by sheer trial and error.
Erik,
But this is not measuring anything
Neil,
At time t1 the antenna is shorter than the ruler. At a later time t2 the antenna is longer than the ruler. You are denying that there is a point when the antenna ceases to be shorter. Do you at least agree with the obvious fact that it does cease to be shorter? That change has occurred?
Do you think that change is not a temporal phenomenon?
I didn’t. My first concern was economy. Rolled high carbon steel strip is sold in various cross sections but (in the stockholder I use) always in 6 metre lengths. So I chose a length of railing that would create least waste. Pragmatism.
It is not measuring anything you would like, but it is measuring. It measures distance. Didn’t your geometry teacher teach you anything?
All school is like this. You learn nothing what you’d want to, and almost nothing useful for later life, but you are being taught and you are learning.
So your subjective opinion settles it. This is consistent with all nominalists I have encountered.