It may be a reasonable position for you to take. But it is not a reasonable position for me to take.
This entire thread seems to be your attempt to provide reasons why I and others should adopt your position. In my opinion, this attempt has completely failed. You have successfully made the case that you prefer that position, but you have not provided any argument that I would find even slightly persuasive.
I can’t speak for scientists in general. Commenting only for myself, I think we would be better off if we abandoned metaphysics. I don’t know that reality has any actual nature.
Yes, I think about reality in terms of relativity. But I see that only as a useful way to think about reality. To me, it does not make sense to say “relativity is true”. Rather, I see relativity as a system of conventions that we follow in order to help us better manage our interactions with reality.
Those two sentences seem to contradict one another.
For me, the problem with that idea is that there isn’t any evidence.
Yes, we make all sorts of measurements and collect evidence. But we must first adopt suitable conventions that we will follow in order to make those measurements. And relativity has proven itself to be a useful part of those conventions.
There is no evidence prior to adopting conventions.
Not true at least among physicists. Indeed, I believe that most physicists (perhaps even most scientists) believe that there is real, objective reality.
There is no connection whatsoever between “relativity in physics” and the “relativity” in philosophy, e.g., moral relativity or the relativity of truths or whatever it is the postmodernists are talking about these days. This is just an unfortunate usage of the same term “relativity” that confused people (this was an issue back then when Einstein first introduced relativity as well).
The claim by @Jim that scientists in general (my self included, I guess) assume that physical relativity supports philosphical, moral relativity is absurd.
I learned about equivocation in freshman philosophy.
That when we speak of the location of an object, we normally speak of it in terms of it’s position relative to another object.
The problem I see derive from how they are measured, and what this allows us to say about locations.
Yes, and since such measurements only take the form of measurements of relative locations, they cannot speak to the absoluteness of locations, since we don’t actually know whether the locations are absolute. We have no way of measuring that. All we see are relative locations. Where things are placed in relation to other things. We cannot determine that some observed position is absolute just from a relative measurement. The position might be absolute, but that observation of a relative position does not allow us to conclude that, and given it’s nature as a relative measurement cannot even constitute an indication that the position is absolute.
No, my problem is epistemological, not ontological. I am not making claims about what the positions are really like. I am concerned only with what the evidence allows us to say.
A measurement of a relative location cannot be said to constitute evidence for an absolute position in any way that I can see.
We would have to figure out some other way of performing measurements of locations that does not depend on measuring positions of objects relative to each other. As long as that is what we are doing, we can’t say that our measurements constitue evidence for absolute positions. If you disagree I must repeat my question: How do you extract the absoluteness of a position from a relative measurement?
That is, how do you support the notion that some object A has an absolute location in space from observing it’s location in relation to some other object B? In what way is that measurement of A’s location in relation to B, support for the concept of A or B’s absolute location in space?
OK. So this is in regards to my connecting relativity and relative truth. I think it’s arguable whether or not there is no connection. But it does seem from my experience that it is a connection that is pretty commonly made among atheists in general, and I’m guessing that would include scientists who are atheists.
However, I would say that there is a possible connection with the success of relativity in physics as possible evidence for the nature of space being relational. And based on that there does seem to be at least a possible connection to infer relativity of truth.
OK. That’s kind of an answer along the lines of what I’d like to know. Of course I’d like to know whether or not someone agrees with me. But really the main thing I want to know is whether or not the argument I’ve presented itself is flawed or not.
Of course I would like it if I were to persuade others to adopt my position. But my main goal is to make the point that there are arguments based on evidence that can form a reasonable basis for taking the position that space is absolute in nature, and to some extent based on that, that it is reasonable to take an opposing position to the position that truth is relative.
My main concern is not about if the argument is persuasive. What I’m more interested in is whether or not it can stand up to scrutiny. In other words are there any objections to the argument that would disqualify it as being legitimate and within reason. So far there doesn’t seem to be any that I would consider substantive.
You’re certainly welcome to hold that opinion. And I think that it’s good that you at least acknowledge that you don’t know.
How so?
I suspect we may have a different take on what can be considered as evidence.
I would assume most scientists would acknowledge that there is a real, objective reality since that’s what science is centered around. But that’s not exactly what’s being addressed here.
What the discussion is centered around is the debate in philosophy of science regarding whether the existence of space is relational or absolute in nature, and somewhat inadvertently how the question about truth as absolute or relative gets tied into that discussion?
I think it would be safe to say that most atheists, which the majority of scientists seem to be, would argue that relativity in physics implies a relativistic nature to reality.
I’m not sure exactly what you mean by connection? But it seems to me there is arguably a connection of sorts between relativity in physics and relationalism in metaphysics considering the metaphysical position of relationalism of space is based at least partly, it seems, on the evidence of the success of the concept of relativity in physics?
And if that’s the case, it seems along those lines that the success of relativity in physics would at least be a possible consideration in the discussion about truth as relative or absolute. That’s what seems to be the general position taken among atheists, at least in my experience.
OK. So here you seem to be saying relative locations are about the physics of how they are measured. As far as I can tell, and as I previously mentioned, that would be evidence, but would not determine the nature of locations.
In other words, there are at least two options. It could be evidence that absolute measurements don’t exist, or it could be evidence of a human constraint that prevents us from being able to access existing absolute measurements due to human limitations. At least that’s how it seems to me.
So tell me how does the way a location is measured say anything about its objectivity? As far as I can tell, it doesn’t. You seem to keep wanting to make this an issue about measurement when the issue I’m raising is about objectivity.
As I mentioned above, the way a location is measured does not necessarily determine its nature. It may imply it, but it doesn’t determine it.
I believe I’ve given sufficient reason why it doesn’t follow from relative measurements that the objectivity of a location cannot be used to imply absoluteness of locations. And I’m not arguing for relative measurements as evidence for absolute locations as you seem to keep suggesting.
I’m arguing that objective locations are the evidence. Or maybe it’s more precise to say that the objectivity of the locations is the actual evidence that locations are absolute. I don’t see any problem with that inference. It has nothing to do with how the measurements are made. It’s simply about the fact that locations are objectively established.
As I’ve already mentioned and I think sufficiently demonstrated, that isn’t a relevant objection to my argument.
Again, that’s not a relevant objection to the argument I’m making. As I’ve stated before, I’m simply stating that objectivity of locations is evidence for absolute locations. As far as I can tell, objectivity is not about how the measurements are made, but simply about if location can be objectively established. And I don’t see any problem with the inference that objectivity implies absolute reality.
No, there is no connection whatsoever between relativity in physics and metaphysical “relativity”. Particularly, there is no connection between “relativity” in physics and “relativity” of truths and no physicist I know make this connection. This is again, an unfortunate consequence of the the use of the same term “relativity” that has plague relativity since the very beginning.
I believe that most physicists (even most scientists), would agree that there is absolute truth! I am not an atheist, and I believe that there is absolute truth. My atheist physicist friends also believe in the existence of absolute truth – why would we spend so much of our time trying to figure out scientific truths otherwise? Indeed, I have never met a physicist (or a scientist) who believe that there is no absolute truth!
If your only reason for posting is to defend that there exist absolute truths, all of the physicists I know are already in your camp. You can stop posting on this; your side has already won, or more accurately, there was never a battle to begin with (at least among physicists, or anyone who knew anything about relativity).
Some of us might disagree on the existence of or the absoluteness on some truths in matters such as morality or aesthetics, but this is a philosophical matter that does not tie itself to physics. No physicists I know make the argument that relativity in physics supports the relativity of truths in these matters – it is simply obvious to anyone who knew anything about relativity that these matters are not related at all.
Hi @Jim, what would your specific point be here? I see lots of vague talk only coming from you. Give me a philosophical or metaphysical analog of physical relativity. Velocity is relative, time is relative. Give me the analog of one of those or both as it pertains to “truth”. Be specific.
This is getting a bit confusing. Let me back up a bit. Correct me if I’m wrong, but as I understand it in classical mechanics space is conceptualized as absolute. And in SR and GR it’s conceptualized as relative.
Now a scientific realist would say that the concepts in our most successful theories are true to reality, or at least approximations of that truth. On that view that would implicate space as most likely relative in nature based on the success of relativity theory, would it not?
I repeat, given your definition of absolute, and saying nothing of your chain of reasoning that culminates to this conclusion,
You seem to be very confused as to what relativity in physics imply or not imply.
Regardless, no physicists I know uses physical relativity to support the following, where the “relativity” here is metaphysical, philosophical “relativity”:
Or the following:
And especially not the following:
Who are these physicist, or these “scientists in general”, who made the leap that “relativity” in physics means things like “truth” is “relative”?!?! Again, we scientists toil hard to learn absolute truths of the world – most wouldn’t have done this if truth is relative. I know hundreds of scientists; I have talked about philosophy to many of them. Why have I never met this enemy of yours? I am well read on the philosophy of physics; why have I never met this argument? Where is the paper giving this argument? Where is this argument even laid out?
It seems that you just imagined this enemy for yourself, or that someone who doesn’t actually know much about either physics or philosophy gave this argument to you.
We are in the same camp – we (and pretty much all scientists I know) do not support that there are no objective truths, and among all physical “relativists”, none of us support the notion that physical “relativity” can be used to support anything regarding philosophical “relativity” of things like truths. I repeat again, this was just an unfortunate consequence of using the same term “relativity”.
Stand down, soldier, we have won a long time ago. You are fighting with shadows.
I think I can agree with you if what you are saying is that there is a definite distinction between physics and metaphysics. And that there is no connection between physics and metaphysics concerning crossing the line from physics into metaphysics.
But I would argue that when going the other way around there is a recognizable connection from metaphysics to physics in the sense that metaphysics depends significantly on physics as a source of evidence.
You’re missing the point. Whether there is a link or not is not what I want to discuss.
The point is that there is essentially no physicist, or scientists in general (or any philosopher of physics/science that I can find), who uses physical “relativity” to support any position for the philosophical “relativity” of things like truths – everyone already agrees with you. You are just imagining an enemy for yourself to spar against.
Edit: deleted some comments that are a bit rude – I certainly don’t think you should stop posting on this forum.
I’m not sure that it follows from what you’re saying that it’s not the often assumed position among scientists in general, and western academia at large that relativity in physics is a slam dunk for the metaphysical position that reality is relativistic in nature.
The impression I get is that most scientist, and probably academics, and certainly philosophers of science, are scientific realists. This is from the SEP on scientific realism.
Scientific realism is a positive epistemic attitude toward the content of our best theories and models, recommending belief in both observable and unobservable aspects of the world described by the sciences. This epistemic attitude has important metaphysical and semantic dimensions, and these various commitments are contested by a number of rival epistemologies of science, known collectively as forms of scientific antirealism.
The problem that I see with that is that by that definition it seems the success of the concept of relativity in physics to some extent entails the assumption that space is relative in nature, and in essence that reality is relative in nature in general. Is that not the case?
Again, using your definition of absolute, and saying nothing of your chain of reasoning to get there, the answer is NO. I’ve answered this before. It’s like you didn’t even read them…
I want to focus on one claim you made about people using the physical “relativity” as support against the absoluteness of truths:
Can you give me some atheist physicists or philosopher of physics that give this argument? It seems to me that everyone already agrees with your position and there is no reason for you to keep arguing.
Sorry, I don’t see how what you posted is relevant to the question I’m asking. The question is:
if in scientific realism basically whatever the content of the best models and theories is, it should be believed for both observable and unobservable aspects of the world described by science, as far as I can tell, that would include the theory of relativity, and therefore entail the assumption that space is relative in nature, would it not?
That’s not the question you asked. The question you asked was:
And I answered that question. (Edit: just to be clear, it is NOT the case that “the concept of relativity in physics to some extend entails the assumption that space is relative in nature” based on your definition of absolute etc) Before I answer your next question, it’s your turn to answer my question: