Bas van Fraassen - How Does Philosophy Illuminate the Physical World?

We think we understand the physical world but we do not. For example, some features of the world are derived from others, which makes the latter more fundamental and the former less so. Some scientists believe that only science can tell us how things work. Philosophers do not agree. Do philosophers see things that scientists cannot?

Bas C. van Fraassen is a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at San Francisco State University and the McCosh Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Princeton University. He teaches courses in the philosophy of science, philosophical logic and the role of models in scientific practice.

Closer To Truth, hosted by Robert Lawrence Kuhn and directed by Peter Getzels, presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers.

[paul-d-mann]

How awesome is it to listen to a conversation that is mutually interested and engaged with the sharing insightful thought.

[fredm]

Thank you for this interview. This is the way.

[peweegangloku]

Thanks for this episode. Excellent one.

[simonhibbs]

Empiricism is deference to observations, to the best descriptions we have at any given time for the observations we have and our predictive mathematical models of causation. This is basic empiricism. As he says in the interview, empiricism and the scientific method is about how to give up your beliefs. It's about the criteria for updating our models of the world. That's what makes it about evidence, not faith. It's also what makes science an ongoing project, because we're not finished yet, there is more to learn and there are further updates to our models to be made.

Physicalism is an opinion that goes a bit beyond that and says that all the phenomena we observe can be explained by these models of causation. This is refutable. If we came across a phenomenon that could not be explained by a mathematical model of causation, where we cannot evaluate the initial conditions and calculate the system's later future state, then physicalism would be proved wrong. This is what makes physicalism a falsifiable scientific position and not a faith based belief.

[michaelluhrmann]

Really great - I feel at peace when I listen to him! 🙂

[monkerud]

the people who say, now we know this or now we know that are really only saying they are satisfied with their own understanding of a model, whether they admit it is a toy or not.

[offtheradarsomewhere.]

If the mind is illuminated the outside physical world will be too, if the mind is dark the outside world will be dark, the stars illuminate the whole universe nothing but pure energy and light and we our the fabrics of stars ✨💙🙏

[JustAThought]

Information is not physical - it is more. We store information in physical structures; but, information itself is not physical.

[monkerud]

the material world makes its own sense, and that is the only sense there is, it includes human beings who are wrong, and who are careful just as well, and the true character carrying us into these predicaments has to be somewhat obscure to us and can only be gotten at by a slow process of understanding our own mistaken notions of it.

[jamesruscheinski]

what ways can approach the Anselm argument that which is greatest is really greatest?

[billyblim]

The Light has chosen this man to prepare the way for the one who will guide us.

[gettaasteroid]

O star-eyed science, hast though wandered
there,
To waft us home the message of despair? - Thomas Campbell

[kallianpublico]

What does understanding understand?
Between sensibility and reason lies subjectivity - personal interest if not personal purpose. Can we untie the self from science?
Is electricity out there or is it, partially, in us? In what part of us, our sensibility or our reason?
Is there anything completely outside our sensibility? If there is can reason not infer it? Even that which is outside our sensibility and inferrability can be summed up in a word..unknowability. Even the unknowable is inferrable. Why? How?
It is one thing to be ignorant. It is another thing entirely to be cognizant of ignorance. Is humility or insecurity at the foundation of that probing which is called science? If so atheists have no shoes to stand on, only rebellion to hang their hat on.
Between fear of the unknown and desire man eats and sleeps. Caught in between suspense and anticipation, his good sense and sensibility force his life into an attitude of expectation. This manifests as entitlement or duty, obsequy or assiduousness and either skepticism or contempt.

[wagfinpis]

Excellent is the first word that comes to mind and I see in the comments it is a popular occurrence. I love his definition of imperialist! 💚

[patientson]

Jesus, so far, questioned everything. But, he also did his work, only ones. Nonstop.

[J]

"Everything we call real is made up of things that cannot be regarded as real” - Niels Bohr.

[monkerud]

easy, i believe that the universe has its own form of substance, that includes all details of reality carried on its own back, meaning in its own form, it has embodied all that moves and how it moves, all the is and how to changes, with no reliance on an equation, or mystical ideas. it has to be self assembling and self consistent, with no loose ends, it acts upon itself locally in the manor it makes sense in its own context and so on, the result of that self carrying substance is what matter is to me, it is unknown in character to us, it has all these consequences that are known and all these consequences that are not, it produces consciousness and plate tectonics alike, it is not subordinated to a human derived physical law, it is only subject to its own law and state which are one and the same. that is the only materialism i subscribe to, everything done in science is just modeling it approximately with loose ends attached.

[readyfireaim]

Materialist/Empiricist:

Zero is not-necessary and nonzero is necessary.

Contradiction: in counting numbers 0 is the subject and 1, 2, 3, 4 are the objects. If the subject is not-necessary then who is doing the counting?

A year ago quantum physics proved the universe is "not locally real" which means 1D, 2D, 3D and 4D are not-necessary and 0D is necessary.

Leibniz calculus and physics (Realist) is based off zero being necessary and nonzero being not-necessary.

Humanity chose the wrong guy.

[HughChing]

Good presentation checks with CLQ (Culture Level Quotient) = 7 as shown below: The 16 Methods of Reason identify CLQ with examples in brackets:

1) Fuzzy Complete Logic (Self-Creation)
2) Fuzzy Complete Mathematics (Social Prediction)
3) Fuzzy Complete Empirical Verification (Robot)
4) Fuzzy Complete Other Methods of Reason (Religion of Knowledge)
5) Exact Complete Logic (Completely Automated Software)
6) Exact Complete Mathematics (Solution of Value)
7) Exact Complete Empirical Verification (Science)
8) Exact Complete Other Methods of Reason (Religion)
9) Fuzzy Incomplete Logic (Fuzzy Logic)
10) Fuzzy Incomplete Mathematics (Fuzzy Mathematics)
11) Fuzzy Incomplete Empirical Verification (Contact Problem)
12) Fuzzy Incomplete Other Methods of Reason (Beliefs)
13) Exact Incomplete Logic (Logic)
14) Exact Incomplete Mathematics (Mathematics)
15) Exact Incomplete Empirical Verification (Social Science)
16) Exact Incomplete Other Methods of Reason (Mysticism)

[ItsEverythingElse]

"Treat our beliefs as worldly goods". What does that even mean.