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From: gordon@uw-june (Gordon Davisson)
Newsgroups: net.origins,net.religion,net.philosophy
Subject: Re: Fundamentalist Materialism
Message-ID: <141@uw-june>
Date: Wed, 7-Aug-85 23:40:47 EDT
Article-I.D.: uw-june.141
Posted: Wed Aug  7 23:40:47 1985
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>>>[Beth, I think]
>>>Exactly!  See, you *do* understand the line of thinking.  There exist
>>>*real things* where people, and people alone (no science, no "laws of
>>>nature"), make the rules.  And because scientific rules *can't* allow us
>>>to see them, we *must* take our subjective minds' word for it.

Why can't these things be studied scientifically?  Since people make these
things up, and people can be scientifically studied (psychology, sociology,
etc.), one should be able to study these things too.

>>>                                                                What
>>>alternative is there?  Write them off as "unreal"?  Breaking a law which
>>>has no physical existence and which is completely unscientific will
>>>nevertheless have very real consequences.  I don't think treating them
>>>as "unreal" would be particularly wise.

>>[Keith Doyle]
>>Give examples please.

>[Beth Christy]
>OK.  Stand in front of 3 police officers and 30 witnesses, and shoot and
>kill 5 civilians.  Chances are, within an hour you'll be physically unable
>to move more than 3 yards in any direction (cause you'll most likely be in
>jail).  The legal system is real, and I don't think it's wise to truly
>believe it isn't.

But, insofar as it has any effects, the legal system can be studied
scientifically.  Even parts of the legal system that have no effects can be
studied, if you can find them.

>                   Furthermore, of the infinite number of things you could
>choose to do in front of 3 police officers and 30 witnesses, there are a
>number of things you could do that would get you thrown in jail, and a lot
>more that wouldn't.  Can you scientifically determine which physical
>actions will result in incarceration and which things won't?  The legal
>system sure *seems* beyond science.

Consider this: science is based on experimentation, right?  What could be
simpler than the experiment you almost described above?  To determine
whether doing  is illegal, get together 3 police officers and 30
witnesses, then do  in front of them.  Wait a while, then check to see
whether you're in jail.  If you are, doing  is probably illegal.  If not,
it's probably legal.

Ideally, one would repeat this experiment several times to decrease the
chance of error, and also run control experiments:  get the cops and
witnesses together, then do  in front of them.  Wait the usual
time, and if you're in jail this time, there's probably something wrong
with your experimental procedure.

These experiments are, of course, based on a rather empirical view of law
(if you don't get caught, it wasn't illegal.  This becomes important when
 involves killing 3 cops and 30 witnesses.)  One could also study the
theoretical aspects of law, but since you stressed the practical side, so
did I.

>For that matter, knowledge itself is probably one of the (many :-) things
>that are real, but are beyond scientific inquiry.

Please don't tell that to anyone working in artificial intelligence.  AI
research may not be conducted like most science, but it's giving us a
basis for studying the kind of things you're talking about.


*Ahem*.  Well, having thoroughly disagreed with you, I'll now turn around
and come up with an example of something that exists, but is beyond the
capabilities of scientific investigation: the inside of black holes.  This
isn't a really great example, because we're not sure black holes exist,
let alone being sure they behave the way we think they would.  Um, it's
also kinda hard to be sure that the inside of a black hole really does
exist.  But this shows that it's not totally impossible for something to
exist and be beyond science.

There is, however, one aspect of this example you probably won't like.
There aren't any good non-scientific ways of finding out what goes on
inside a black hole either.  This is also true of all the other such
examples that I can think of offhand (an omnipotent being who is out to
hide its own existence, for example).

--
Human:    Gordon Davisson
ARPA:     gordon@uw-june.ARPA

ps.  What's this doing in net.origins?