Re: Joy of this, Joy of that

On Mon, 9 Dec 2024, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

On 08/12/2024 20:49, D wrote:

  On Sun, 8 Dec 2024, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
 

On 08/12/2024 05:31, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:

On 12/7/24 6:59 AM, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

On 06/12/2024 17:12, D wrote:

If you postulate something which can never be known, it is kind of useless. It goes the same way as god, or a postulated first mover etc.

 And yet that is what people do all the time. In fact it is the necessary foundation of thinking.
 All metaphysics - and we all use it, whether we understand that we do or not -  is to assume the framework for our understanding, and use it not because it is demonstrably true, but because it *works* for us.
 We don't  and can't *know* that time and space exist - at least in the way we understand them, but they do *work* for us, the way we understand them.

    Careful ... the "luminiferous aether" WORKED - at least
   with the existing physics  :-)
 

Exactly. That was Karl Poppers point. We don't discover the  laws, we actually make them up, and if they work, we use them.

 If you are interested, Bas van Fraassen probably has some interesting things to add as well. There was also a german guy who wrote something interesting in the 1920s I think on that theme, but for the moment the name does not come back to me.
 

>

Ahh, here we go!
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Philosophy_of_%27As_if%27 .
 

Yes. That is exactly what I meant.
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Except more so, He argues that if it works, even if its wrong, its OK.

On that theme, did you read any Feyerabend?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Feyerabend#Departure_from_Popper

My point goes further. We can never know for sure if its *right* so the *only* criteria we can have is that it works.
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Which was where Karl Popper came in. He arrived at that point and wanted to clarify what separated good science from bullshit.
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And pseudo scientists have been trying to shout him down ever since

Note that Vaihinger quickly fell out of favour, and that his, Feyerabend, and to a certain extent The natural ontological attitude (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Natural_Ontological_Attitude) by Arthur Fine is a very minority position.
That, however, is not an iron clad proof against it, but I'm happy I could dig out something which perhaps traces your path (unless you haven't already seen it). When I find something similar for myself, I very much enjoy reading the criticism of the position to see if it will sway me.
I hope you find the links above interesting and enlightening! =)
As you know, I'm an all out materialist (however it is defined) guy, but, with that in mind I do appreciate the "agnosticism" of the natural ontological attitude, if I interpret Fine right. In a way it is quite an elegant solution, alas the anti-realists do say he got their position wrong, and that his position can be collapsed into the anti-realist one.
That is kind of what I mean with my thought play agnostic monism. Monism however, being an assumption that there is some kind of "unified" principle or machinery giving rise to what we see, although that remains to be seen.
It seems like unified explanations, simplifications are deep psychological reflexes and we have taken steps toward a theory of everything, so perhaps this is even mirrored in nature?