The "objectivity" of empirism

[Tolya]

I have met someone, who is subjecting to this worldview that there is no objective truth and even the world that we see may simply be a construct of our minds. Thus, even being a rational atheist, we still believe in a world we see in a similar manner that a theist believes in god. We take it for granted that our mind does fool us.

I've already pointed out rationalism, logic and empirism actually works as a tool to analyze the world around us, while theological arguments based on pure belief, but that just kicks him back to square one: he asks to prove that empirism is more objective. Of course all of this is served as a philosophical theory.

To me, this is just playing with words and reversing the burden of proof. Basing on empirical evidence we are able to construct stuff like airplanes, which is really sufficient for me to take empirism for granted.

What's your take on this? I am discussing with an atheist, which kinda baffles me, because it seems like this guy does not believe what he actually says. If he would actually believe that empirism does not produce objective truth, why is he an atheist?

[Alyrium Denryle]

I have met someone, who is subjecting to this worldview that there is no objective truth and even the world that we see may simply be a construct of our minds. Thus, even being a rational atheist, we still believe in a world we see in a similar manner that a theist believes in god. We take it for granted that our mind does fool us.

I've already pointed out rationalism, logic and empirism actually works as a tool to analyze the world around us, while theological arguments based on pure belief, but that just kicks him back to square one: he asks to prove that empirism is more objective. Of course all of this is served as a philosophical theory.

To me, this is just playing with words and reversing the burden of proof. Basing on empirical evidence we are able to construct stuff like airplanes, which is really sufficient for me to take empirism for granted.

What's your take on this? I am discussing with an atheist, which kinda baffles me, because it seems like this guy does not believe what he actually says. If he would actually believe that empirism does not produce objective truth, why is he an atheist?

He is a solipsist. He takes Descartes' "Cognito ergo sum" I think therefore I am, and runs with it, claiming that while an individual knows that he exists, he cannot deductively absolutely prove that everyone else does.

The proper response is that there is a big difference between absolute proof and none at all, and at the end of the day because the probability is so high that things other than his own consciousness exist we must function as if they do.

[Marcus Aurelius]

What's your take on this? I am discussing with an atheist, which kinda baffles me, because it seems like this guy does not believe what he actually says. If he would actually believe that empirism does not produce objective truth, why is he an atheist?

He is a solipsist. He takes Descartes' "Cognito ergo sum" I think therefore I am, and runs with it, claiming that while an individual knows that he exists, he cannot deductively absolutely prove that everyone else does.

The proper response is that there is a big difference between absolute proof and none at all, and at the end of the day because the probability is so high that things other than his own consciousness exist we must function as if they do.

I would like to elaborate that you don't have to believe that empiricism produces an "objective" or "absolute" proof in order to be an empiricist. In fact empiricism is rather close to philosophical skepticism, which to put is simply means that you should not make absolute truth claims at all. You could say that an empiricist does not like to think in absolutes. Knowledge to an empiricist is more about potentials and likelihoods than objective or "final" truths.

[Count Chocula]

I tend to be empirical in my thoughts, which means I'm never 100% sure of anything, but reasonably sure of a lot of things. Your acquaintance is making a big leap by asserting that there is no objective truth; in fact, he's doing that thing by making a definite statement.

Hell, you could follow him down the solipsism rabbit hole, where he apparently lives, but why do it? This is my opinion, so take it for what it's worth: the world is a construct of our minds, but that does not mean that the world ain't real or that empiricism is a religion. Unlike religion, which urges believers to take the most important concepts on faith, empiricism can assign high probabilities of proof to objects and subjects, unlike religion. If he insists that you can't get to "absolute" proof with empiricism, simply ask him to bang his head on a brick wall and report if it hurts or not.

I guess it boils down to this: the empirical approach yields high order, verifiable data, while religion yields....ummm.....hmmm, I'm drawing a blank here.

[Garlak]

It seems like his arguement is... Religious people choose to believe in God. However, everyone is choosing to believe in the world around them, when they can't prove that they're not in the Matrix.

Um. I kind of got lost after that. Did the conversation seem to imply that he became an atheist because of his worldview? That because the world around you is unprovable, he chooses not to believe in it; ergo, he chooses not to believe in God.

This solipsism gives me a headache.

[PeZook]

So? Even if we're all part of a perverted experiment, stuffed into jars at some military base somewhere and wired to a computer simulation, you can still use rational analysis to figure our stuff about our world. It's useless to wonder if the world is real, since you're not going to be getting out of the fantasy/simulation/whatever anyway! Nobody ever managed that, what makes you think that an average Joe Jerkoff will?

[Rye]

He came up with that idea based on concepts he abstracted from sensory information, constructed it using language gathered from sensory perception and tried to convince someone (determined to exist via sensory perception) else of it's truth as a response to their comments. He only responded to some comments because he heard or read them and that spurred him to action in the confines of his empirically derived data.

His position is absurd. 1) It's gained by the very method he's refusing (thus undermining his own argument). 2) If he believes it to be true, it makes no sense to try and convince anyone of it. 3) His definition of objectivity is in error, (he is equivocating between epistemology [i.e. the mechanisms by which we accrue knowledge] and metaphysical truth) when he should be talking about accuracy through comparative analysis. In other words, objectivity is a matter of the "best and most accurate we can get through increasingly minute measurement by independent people" rather than the absolute ideal (and thus imaginary) definitions which are unreasonable to apply to real knowledge and the means by which we accrue it.

[Feil]

The proper response is that there is a big difference between absolute proof and none at all, and at the end of the day because the probability is so high that things other than his own consciousness exist we must function as if they do.

Or you could invoke Solipsism Response Alpha: knee him in the balls, and ask him why he hates himself. Repeat the process, begging him to stop hurting himself, until he understands that the world around him is not, in fact, a construct of his mind.

[Patrick Degan]

The proper response is that there is a big difference between absolute proof and none at all, and at the end of the day because the probability is so high that things other than his own consciousness exist we must function as if they do.

Or you could invoke Solipsism Response Alpha: knee him in the balls, and ask him why he hates himself. Repeat the process, begging him to stop hurting himself, until he understands that the world around him is not, in fact, a construct of his mind.

For some reason, that makes for a ripping Monty Python skit.

[Surlethe]

Thus, even being a rational atheist, we still believe in a world we see in a similar manner that a theist believes in god. We take it for granted that our mind does fool us.

True. From one point of view, the difference here is that believing in a God takes more faith, piled on top of the "faith" that we're not being deluded. See, everybody has that basic faith; they act on it every single time they do something based on information gleaned from the world around them. It's just that theists have to have more faith because belief is not justified from the world around them.

If he would actually believe that empirism does not produce objective truth, why is he an atheist?

It's not inconsistent, per se. Rational empiricism is not a necessary condition for atheism, though it is almost certainly a sufficient condition.

[Aranfan]

It's funny, the first time I came upon this idea/philosophy/whatever, it was in a horror story. It was a good mix of Lovecraft, Ranma, and Harry Potter. I should look and see if it's updated.

Anyway, even if it's true, it doesn't matter. It makes no testable predictions that can distingish it from there being an objective reality that the senses can, well, sense. So there's really no difference in how we interact with the world.

[Akkleptos]

Knowledge to an empiricist is more about potentials and likelihoods than objective or "final" truths.

Rightly so!

The expression "beyond reasonable doubt" comes to my mind.

Certanly, as The Matrix (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0133093/) has shown (yep, the first film, however flawed the sequels were), we would have no way of figuring out whether the universe we perceive is "really real" or not. Yes, it is Descartes twisted to extremes: "The only thing I can be sure of is that I exist, for I'm pondering my own existance, which I couldn't do If I didn't exist".

Nevertheless, the important thing is how we go about things. Should we get our hands into an open flame, since nothing can absolutely prove that neither the hand nor the fire are real? Or, for a different wording: "For there was never yet philosopher that could endure the toothache patiently" (Shakespeare, W.; Much Ado About Nothing Act 5, scene 1, 31–38).

We, as humans, must go on with our lives as if the things we perceive were real, for we have evolved to be that way. That fact (empyrical knowledge about how evolution works aside) is telling, by itself. With the evidence we have examined, and through logical reasoning, we acknowledge that we, beyond reasonable doubt, work like this. So, if we -as a species- have survived thus far, it must imply that our empyrical knowledge has indeed allowed us to do as much.

EDIT: Orthography.

[Winston Blake]

So? Even if we're all part of a perverted experiment, stuffed into jars at some military base somewhere and wired to a computer simulation, you can still use rational analysis to figure our stuff about our world. It's useless to wonder if the world is real, since you're not going to be getting out of the fantasy/simulation/whatever anyway! Nobody ever managed that, what makes you think that an average Joe Jerkoff will?

Yeah, this basic idea is the kicker that pops into my head when I encounter solipsism. David Deutsch said it more clearly than I could:

Despite Descartes's desire to base his philosophy on this supposedly firm foundation, he actually allowed himself many other assumptions, and he was certainly no solipsist. Indeed, there can have been very few, if any, genuine solipsists in history. Solipsism is usually defended only as a means of attacking scientific reasoning, or as a stepping-stone to one of its many variants. By the same token, a good way of defending science against a variety of criticisms, and of understanding the true relationship between reason and reality, is to consider the argument against solipsism.

There is a standard philosophical joke about a professor who gives a lecture in defence of solipsism. So persuasive is the lecture that as soon as it ends, several enthusiastic students hurry forward to shake the professor's hand. 'Wonderful. I agreed with every word,' says one student earnestly. 'So did I,' says another. 'I am very gratified to hear it,' says the professor. 'One so seldom has the opportunity to meet fellow solipsists.'

Implicit in this joke there is a genuine argument against solipsism. One could put it like this. What, exactly, was the theory that the students in the story were agreeing with? Was it the professor's theory, that they themselves do not exist because only the professor exists? To believe that, they would first have had to find some way round Descartes's cogito ergo sum argument. And if they managed that, they would not be solipsists, for the central thesis of solipsism is that the solipsist exists. Or has each student been persuaded of a theory contradicting the professor's, the theory that that particular student exists, but the professor and the other students do not? That would indeed make them all solipsists, but none of the students would be agreeing with the theory that the professor was defending. Therefore neither of these two possibilities amounts to the students' having been persuaded by the professor's defence of solipsism. If they adopt the professor's opinion, they will not be solipsists, and if they become solipsists, they will have become convinced that the professor is mistaken.

This argument is trying to show that solipsism is literally indefensible, because by accepting such a defence one is implicitly contradicting it. But our solipsistic professor could try to evade that argument by saying something like this: 'I can and do consistently defend solipsism. Not against other people, for there are no other people, but against opposing arguments. These arguments come to my attention through dream-people, who behave as if they were thinking beings whose ideas often oppose mine. My lecture and the arguments it contains were not intended to persuade these dream-people, but to persuade myself — to help me to clarify my ideas.'

However, if there are sources of ideas that behave as if they were independent of oneself, then they necessarily are independent of oneself. For if I define 'myself' as the conscious entity that has the thoughts and feelings I am aware of having, then the 'dream-people' I seem to interact with are by definition something other than that narrowly defined self, and so I must concede that something other than myself exists. My only other option, if I were a committed solipsist, would be to regard the dream-people as creations of my unconscious mind, and therefore as part of 'myself' in a looser sense. But then I should be forced to concede that 'myself' had a very rich structure, most of which is independent of my conscious self. Within that structure are entities — dream-people — who, despite being mere constituents of the mind of a supposed solipsist, behave exactly as if they were committed anti-solipsists. So I could not call myself wholly a solipsist, for only my narrowly defined self would take that view. Many, apparently most, of the opinions held within my mind as a whole would oppose solipsism. I could study the 'outer' region of myself and find that it seems to obey certain laws, the same laws as the dream-textbooks say apply to what they call the physical universe. I would find that there is far more of the outer region than the inner region. Aside from containing more ideas, it is also more complex, more varied, and has more measurable variables, by a literally astronomical factor, than the inner region.

Moreover, this outer region is amenable to scientific study, using the methods of Galileo. Because I have now been forced to define that region as part of myself, solipsism no longer has any argument against the validity of such study, which is now defined as no more than a form of introspection. Solipsism allows, indeed assumes, that knowledge of oneself can be obtained through introspection. It cannot declare the entities and processes being studied to be unreal, since the reality of the self is its basic postulate.

Thus we see that if we take solipsism seriously — if we assume that it is true and that all valid explanations must scrupulously conform to it — it self-destructs. How exactly does solipsism, taken seriously, differ from its common-sense rival, realism? The difference is based on no more than a renaming scheme. Solipsism insists on referring to objectively different things (such as external reality and my unconscious mind, or introspection and scientific observation) by the same names. But then it has to reintroduce the distinction through explanations in terms of something like the 'outer part of myself'. But no such extra explanations would be necessary without its insistence on an inexplicable renaming scheme. Solipsism must also postulate the existence of an additional class of processes — invisible, inexplicable processes which give the mind the illusion of living in an external reality. The solipsist, who believes that nothing exists other than the contents of one mind, must also believe that that mind is a phenomenon of greater multiplicity than is normally supposed. It contains other-people-like thoughts, planet-like thoughts and laws-of-physics-like thoughts. Those thoughts are real. They develop in a complex way (or pretend to), and they have enough autonomy to surprise, disappoint, enlighten or thwart that other class of thoughts which call themselves 'I'. Thus the solipsist's explanation of the world is in terms of interacting thoughts rather than interacting objects. But those thoughts are real, and interact according to the same rules that the realist says govern the interaction of objects. Thus solipsism, far from being a world-view stripped to its essentials, is actually just realism disguised and weighed down by additional unnecessary assumptions — worthless baggage, introduced only to be explained away.

By this argument we can dispense with solipsism and all its related theories. They are all indefensible.

[Tolya]

Thanks Winston, great article.

I still wonder, can you dismiss solipsism (or for that matter, any unsound philosophical theory) on the basis of burden of proof?

I mean, we do it do dismiss religion which is in a way a form of philosophy. So can we get rid of half-cooked philosophical ideas by simply demanding proof? And without being dragged into what proof is, since I would demand an empirical proof?

[Vendetta]

I have met someone, who is subjecting to this worldview that there is no objective truth and even the world that we see may simply be a construct of our minds. Thus, even being a rational atheist, we still believe in a world we see in a similar manner that a theist believes in god. We take it for granted that our mind does fool us.

The world we sense is a construct of our minds. Our senses, particularly focus vision, which actually has a very small arc, even though everything around us appears to be "in focus" in our peripheral vision, are far more limited than they appear, and the mind does a lot of "filling in" of details.

That construct is created based on external objects, but it remains an internal construct, that's why the scientific method demands such rigour, because it has to account for the inherent problems in our internal modelling (particularly pattern recognition, we are very bad at spotting genuine randomness because we have evolved to search actively for patterns)

[FA Xerrik]

I mean, we do it do dismiss religion which is in a way a form of philosophy. So can we get rid of half-cooked philosophical ideas by simply demanding proof? And without being dragged into what proof is, since I would demand an empirical proof?

Except that many philosophical ventures don't revolve around notions of "proof" in the empirical sense. Ethical philosophy in particular would be difficult to construct "proof" for, since it's less an exercise in correct/incorrect than it is ought/ought not. That's a value judgment. Philosophers of course always try to find "right" answers, but what's "right" and what's "wrong" has less to do with what you can prove than what you can convince others of.

I'll probably have people correcting me on this, but I would say that asking for "proof" of philosophical ideas is like asking for a Richter-scale rating on a fart. That's just not really what the scale is for. There are valid and invalid philosophical arguments, not true and false ones.

[Tolya]

Except that many philosophical ventures don't revolve around notions of "proof" in the empirical sense. Ethical philosophy in particular would be difficult to construct "proof" for, since it's less an exercise in correct/incorrect than it is ought/ought not. That's a value judgment. Philosophers of course always try to find "right" answers, but what's "right" and what's "wrong" has less to do with what you can prove than what you can convince others of.

I'll probably have people correcting me on this, but I would say that asking for "proof" of philosophical ideas is like asking for a Richter-scale rating on a fart. That's just not really what the scale is for. There are valid and invalid philosophical arguments, not true and false ones.

So what's really the use of a philosophical system if it does not apply to real life? By proof I mean extracting some kind of prediction that will be valid for real life. And actually useful.

Or am I being overly empiristic?

[FA Xerrik]

I think we might be talking about two different things here. Could you provide an example of what you mean by a "philosophical system?" I gather you mean by that phrase concepts such as the aforementioned solipsism, or Berkeley's Idealism?

I would imagine the answer to your question depends on how you weight a priori vs a posteriori knowledge. Empiricism by its definition does not accept a priori claims, yet we accept plenty of intuitive truths everyday. It's going to come down to what level of proof you deem acceptable or sufficient, as with any empirical knowledge. Science, after all, never proves a thing. That doesn't always invalidate scientific findings, however. We accept those findings which meet our criteria for sufficient evidence.

[Tolya]

Solipsism encompasses a certain worldview, just as idealism. Sorry for not being specific, yes, I meant things like you mentioned. Philosophical systems that try to explain how the world works or how is it constructed.

I do not expect a 100% certainty from any evidence (just as Im not a 100% pure atheist). I guess it would be difficult for me to define "sufficent evidence" without refering to intuition at some point. I really never thought about that.

[Surlethe]

I still wonder, can you dismiss solipsism (or for that matter, any unsound philosophical theory) on the basis of burden of proof?

I mean, we do it do dismiss religion which is in a way a form of philosophy. So can we get rid of half-cooked philosophical ideas by simply demanding proof? And without being dragged into what proof is, since I would demand an empirical proof?

Well, that depends. In order to use burden-of-proof arguments against an opponent, you both need to accept some form of rational empiricism because the notion of "evidence" depends on belief in an objective (or at least consensus) reality. If I am a solipsist and reject consensus reality, then I also reject methods of establishing that reality -- in particular, I reject scientific "convergent probability" notions, and so I reject the necessity of evidence to verify or dismiss claims regarding particulars of reality. So it wouldn't work against a solipsist, or even against some types of religion. It's also possible for the burden-of-proof argument to fail because of falsifiability: if a claim is unfalsifiable (say, it is impossible to know whether my perceived reality is constructed or objective), then evidence one way or the other cannot exist. That's where Occam's Razor comes into play.

Instructive example: think about The Matrix and compare it with your ordinary solipsist's conception of 'reality'. In the matrix, it's in principle possible to figure out that something's up; you could videotape people running on walls, dodging bullets, etc. It may not be possible to fully describe it from within, but it is possible to accumulate evidence of internally contradictory natural laws. Meanwhile, in your ordinary solipsist's conception, it is utterly impossible for him to gather evidence of any sort that his world is constructed. So if you run across someone claiming we're in the matrix, you can demand evidence and use burden-of-proof arguments; if you run across a solipsist, it may be better to use Occam's Razor. This is precisely the same difference in tactics between arguing with a fundamentalist and arguing with someone who thinks God is inscrutable.

Interestingly, it occurs to me that Occam's Razor is useful even to solipsists. Once a solipsist has got past that everything's in his head and starts trying to describe and model the reality he perceives, he needs to start to use Occam's Razor -- and he will necessarily dismiss his solipsism.

[Rye]

Thanks Winston, great article.

I still wonder, can you dismiss solipsism (or for that matter, any unsound philosophical theory) on the basis of burden of proof?

I mean, we do it do dismiss religion which is in a way a form of philosophy. So can we get rid of half-cooked philosophical ideas by simply demanding proof? And without being dragged into what proof is, since I would demand an empirical proof?

No, but you can dismiss solipsism on the basis of language. If they're right, what they say has no meaning.

[Oskuro]

Or you could simply not dismiss it at all. If reality is but a dream, then science is an attempt to understand the rules of said dream, and in this context is perfectly valid.

In most instances, Solipsism is an smoke screen put up to distract from an acute lack of knowledge or debating skills. Or, in other words, it's similar to plugging your ears with your fingers and chating "La la la! I can't hear you!".

[PeZook]

In my experience, it is an attempt to make yourself feel smarter than you actually are:

Person 1 makes a decent, well supported argument advocating something Person 2 is uncomfortable about.

Person 2 then says "A-ha! But you can't know your sources are even real! What is science worth in this case, huh?" and feels all better, because he doesn't have to adress the argument at all.

[Kanastrous]

Well...the sources are as real as you or I. Which is exactly the degree of real, that ought to interest us.

[Samuel]

Well...the sources are as real as you or I. Which is exactly the degree of real, that ought to interest us.

Except there is no way to know that. It is like conspiracy theories- each layer is a successive peal of the onion, yet another conspiracy to distract from the true conspiracy, but at the core... there is nothing.