Philosophy of Science
Jan. 3rd, 2006 11:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pyesetzOver in ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ozarque's journal she is running a discussion on the linguistic semantics of "reality". I find this thread interesting.
I think Neonchameleon and Saavik are both making the same conflation here between using imprecise words and having a poor grip on reality. Both melt and dissolve carry semantic features of [+FALL APART] and [+BECOME LIQUID]. In many areas of discourse (i.e., when talking about political movements) the same meaning would be carried by either word. In chemistry these words have technical meaning and only dissolve describes what happens to C₁₂H₂₂O₁₁ molecules when combined with H₂O at STP. But Suzette's focus was not molecules but ingredients in her kitchen. To insist that her words *must* be interpreted as a (false) statement of chemistry instead of a (vague) statement of cooking is simply linguistic-register snobbery, or so it seems to me. Why is her use of melt vs. dissolve any different from her use of the Ozark yourall? Neither is more "wrong".
The term "computer virus", according to its original technical meaning, is obsolete: no one actually writes malicious programs of that type anymore. According to Neonchameleon and Saavik's views, as I understand them, anyone who refers to Melissa as a "virus" actually believes that it scans your hard drive and copies itself into all your other Word documents. This position is untenable. Instead, the word "virus" has been extended to cover the malware of today (technically called "worms"), perhaps because most Westerners are more familiar with viral infections than helmintic ones. This usage is vague rather than false, and indicates (at most) a poor grip on vocabulary rather than a failure to grasp the objective reality of today's Mobsters and their latest computer zombification techniques.
And don't get me started on "hard drive". That term grated on my nerves for years, but eventually I've gotten used to it. Originally, hard disks were sold separately from disk drives. Later it became popular to combine the two in sealed units, called HDD's (= hard disk drives). This name is just too long, so anybody with a clue shortened it to just "hard disk", since the "drive" part is less relevant from a software perspective. But somebody (computer salesmen?) decided to shorten it to "hard drive" instead. The battle is over, folks: the "hard drive" speakers have won, even though (or perhaps because?) their phrasing is technically meaningless.
I am firmly of the belief that SRROR actually exists, but is unknowable. So what is really happening when Suzette puts her sugar into the water? It seems to "melt". Really it is a dissolution process involving hydrogen bonding and various other fancy dances by electrons. But could we say that it is "really" an exceedingly-complex maneuver in the quantum foam, involving lots of renormalized particles doing God only knows what? One could argue that appealing to quantum mechanics is unnecessary here since the chemical view is sufficient, but then why not just stick with culinary terms instead of appealing to chemistry? The word "melt" existed before chemistry; chemists have no right to insist that any use of the word must be on their terms.
Maybe what is "really" happening is a collection of 12-dimensional strings interacting in various utterly-incomprehensible ways. Or maybe the strings aren't fundamental, either. It's just turtles all the way down; there's no way to know when you've reached the ultimate "objective reality". To paraphrase Adams, we can know that the answer is 42 without having any idea what the fully-elaborated question might be.
See also Jackson Pollack's view.
ozarque's journal she is running a discussion on the linguistic semantics of "reality". I find this thread interesting.| ozarque | I don't happen to believe in a Single Really-Real Objective Reality (SRROR) that's "out there" to be perceived and that remains the same no matter how well or how badly human beings perceive it.… The reality statements include "Birds have feathers, beaks, and two legs" and "Sugar melts in water." |
| neonchameleon | Sugar dissolves in water. Sugar melts if heated sufficiently in the absence of oxygen (it tends to burn if there is oxygen around). |
| pyesetz | Sugar cubes appear to melt in water. The difference you describe between "melt" and "dissolve" refers to technical terms in chemistry; Suzette was talking about her everyday life. |
| saavik | It doesn't matter to objective reality what one believes about it. One may believe sugar 'melts' in water, but what is really happening to the sugar is that it is 'disolving'.… Yes there certainly exists an 'SRROR', and we must deal with it, even in our everyday lives. |
I think Neonchameleon and Saavik are both making the same conflation here between using imprecise words and having a poor grip on reality. Both melt and dissolve carry semantic features of [+FALL APART] and [+BECOME LIQUID]. In many areas of discourse (i.e., when talking about political movements) the same meaning would be carried by either word. In chemistry these words have technical meaning and only dissolve describes what happens to C₁₂H₂₂O₁₁ molecules when combined with H₂O at STP. But Suzette's focus was not molecules but ingredients in her kitchen. To insist that her words *must* be interpreted as a (false) statement of chemistry instead of a (vague) statement of cooking is simply linguistic-register snobbery, or so it seems to me. Why is her use of melt vs. dissolve any different from her use of the Ozark yourall? Neither is more "wrong".
The term "computer virus", according to its original technical meaning, is obsolete: no one actually writes malicious programs of that type anymore. According to Neonchameleon and Saavik's views, as I understand them, anyone who refers to Melissa as a "virus" actually believes that it scans your hard drive and copies itself into all your other Word documents. This position is untenable. Instead, the word "virus" has been extended to cover the malware of today (technically called "worms"), perhaps because most Westerners are more familiar with viral infections than helmintic ones. This usage is vague rather than false, and indicates (at most) a poor grip on vocabulary rather than a failure to grasp the objective reality of today's Mobsters and their latest computer zombification techniques.
And don't get me started on "hard drive". That term grated on my nerves for years, but eventually I've gotten used to it. Originally, hard disks were sold separately from disk drives. Later it became popular to combine the two in sealed units, called HDD's (= hard disk drives). This name is just too long, so anybody with a clue shortened it to just "hard disk", since the "drive" part is less relevant from a software perspective. But somebody (computer salesmen?) decided to shorten it to "hard drive" instead. The battle is over, folks: the "hard drive" speakers have won, even though (or perhaps because?) their phrasing is technically meaningless.
I am firmly of the belief that SRROR actually exists, but is unknowable. So what is really happening when Suzette puts her sugar into the water? It seems to "melt". Really it is a dissolution process involving hydrogen bonding and various other fancy dances by electrons. But could we say that it is "really" an exceedingly-complex maneuver in the quantum foam, involving lots of renormalized particles doing God only knows what? One could argue that appealing to quantum mechanics is unnecessary here since the chemical view is sufficient, but then why not just stick with culinary terms instead of appealing to chemistry? The word "melt" existed before chemistry; chemists have no right to insist that any use of the word must be on their terms.
Maybe what is "really" happening is a collection of 12-dimensional strings interacting in various utterly-incomprehensible ways. Or maybe the strings aren't fundamental, either. It's just turtles all the way down; there's no way to know when you've reached the ultimate "objective reality". To paraphrase Adams, we can know that the answer is 42 without having any idea what the fully-elaborated question might be.
See also Jackson Pollack's view.
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no subject
Date: 2006-01-04 06:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-04 10:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-04 07:27 am (UTC)The artifacts that come from the conventions and vagaries of language are a sociological phenomenon. Granted they are important to how people interact with each other and the real world, but they nevertheless do not alter the reality whether it's turtles or n-dimensional multiverses.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-04 10:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-04 01:28 pm (UTC)The fact that you believe objective reality is unknowable, and I do not is also a minor difference when compared to the existence or nonexistence of that reality.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-04 05:16 pm (UTC)I've noticed this is a major problem in human understanding of reality, and is pretty widespread. I've begun to refer to it as us "making the leap" whenever I notice it.
Basically, there seems to be some very, very powerful motivating force that drives human beings to want to bridge the gap between absolyte reality and absolute knowledge. We're so determined to bridge it that we are eager to "make the leap" and conclude that if reality is objective, it must be objectively knowable.
In liguistics, people still try to claim that words reflect an objective reality, but I've yet to meet a serious linguist who still holds to such an outdated view. Words are certainly subjective, not objective. They are simply symbols that point to other symbols, and any agreement on what they mean is the result of subjective consensus, not an objective reality.
As you put it, the best we can do is to come up with better and better approximations.