i would contend that it is not actually possible for the mind to pose a question with no possible empirically-derived answer.
there is simply no element of human experience upon which to base such question; no perspective from which it could be asked.
whether the answer is functionally available to us is doubtful, but the existence of that answer, in some concrete and logically measurable way, should not be.
We pose all sorts of questions that grasp at answers that cannot be empirically-based, though. Listen to mystics. Listen to children. Aside from the declaring the unlikely flipside that "If we can conceive of it, it MUST be out there empirically" there are several possible explanations for this, such as:
1) There is an empirical fraction within all human inquery, however limited in some cases. 2) What counts as empirical knowledge (traditionally through the 5 sensory organs) is too narrow and must include other ways it can enter our experience (intuition, visions, dreams, etc). 3) We pose questions by piecing empirical bits and pieces together in our minds -- the resulting chimeras that we conjure might never be experienced outside of our imagination, like a unicorn! :D
i agree that traditional definitions of empirical knowledge are too narrow. that's why i wouldn't usually consider myself an empiricist.
upon reflection, i suppose that i consider real that which forms an element of experience for more than one mind. so, if someone else can perceive what you perceive, then it is real, regardless of what form that perception takes.
i believe that we can and will harness technological ingenuity, allowing access to new and hereto unimagined forms of perception. heck, we've already figured out how to record and play back visual images of dreams.
aren't unicorns the classic counter-argument to Descartes' proof of God?
I realize that technology may reveal more ways to indirectly observe phenomena that we cannot otherwise experience directly (like magnetic fields and information from our brains), but these aren't the sort of problems that I'm talking about. I'm talking about questions that belong to an entirely different category of investigation than what science can conceivably persue. Questions like, "What is it like, subjectively, to be an earthworm?" or "Which moral principle should guide our actions?". But more particularly the Big Questions that have divided people into camps from the time of the ancients and continue to distinguish people today when these beliefs become part of an entire belief systems (ideas about God, the afterlife, and other metaphysical features of the universe). I hope now that you can understand how magnetic fields and dreams are not metaphysical in the same way that Plato's Forms, for instance, are.
Re: If you can catalog it then it can be cataloged.strawcatJanuary 12 2011, 05:15:07 UTC
..and if you can't see, hear, smell, touch, or taste something, then it can't be studied empirically. It is outside the realm of human knowledge at least as far as empiricism is concerned. Science makes no attempt and cannot attempt to resolve metaphysical problems that cannot be reduced to physical problems, nor problems of value and morality that cannot be reduced to problems of fact. It cannot tell us whether there is such a thing as "intrinsic value" and where it can be found. This is because science purports to be detached, objective and only studies the observable physical world, and everything else is thereby out of its scope. I'm not stating an opinion here, I'm just regurgitating the methodology that makes science what it is. If it purported to do otherwise, it simply wouldn't be science as we know it.
A difference in definitionsvindonnusJanuary 17 2011, 02:13:13 UTC
I wouldn't describe purely conceptual issues (i.e. Those w/o physical consequences) as "problems." Then again we clearly differ on this point. I'm almost with Dr. Szasz here, in fact, if there is no lesion there is no disease. However, this does NOT mean there is no lesion to discover... Just that we don't know what it is yet.
Re: A difference in definitionsstrawcatJanuary 17 2011, 20:59:49 UTC
I would emphasize that a crisis of the psyche/spirit (e.g. existential angst, the 'problem' of evil, issues of guilt, etc.) is a problem for those who experience it, and would precipitate many questions about the universe and our place in it, that are no less substantial as "problems" (and perhaps moreso) as issues of mass and volume. And nor are these the sorts of problems that necessitate the finding of a reducibly physical cause in order to validate them or solve them. To even search around for such as if there could be one (like turning over stones to find intrinsic value) may be wrongheaded. On that note I would also urge that most questions are prompted by perfectly healthy individuals in case certain physicalists start chanting about chemical imbalances in the brain and such
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there is simply no element of human experience upon which to base such question; no perspective from which it could be asked.
whether the answer is functionally available to us is doubtful, but the existence of that answer, in some concrete and logically measurable way, should not be.
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We pose all sorts of questions that grasp at answers that cannot be empirically-based, though. Listen to mystics. Listen to children. Aside from the declaring the unlikely flipside that "If we can conceive of it, it MUST be out there empirically" there are several possible explanations for this, such as:
1) There is an empirical fraction within all human inquery, however limited in some cases.
2) What counts as empirical knowledge (traditionally through the 5 sensory organs) is too narrow and must include other ways it can enter our experience (intuition, visions, dreams, etc).
3) We pose questions by piecing empirical bits and pieces together in our minds -- the resulting chimeras that we conjure might never be experienced outside of our imagination, like a unicorn! :D
Reply
i agree that traditional definitions of empirical knowledge are too narrow. that's why i wouldn't usually consider myself an empiricist.
upon reflection, i suppose that i consider real that which forms an element of experience for more than one mind. so, if someone else can perceive what you perceive, then it is real, regardless of what form that perception takes.
i believe that we can and will harness technological ingenuity, allowing access to new and hereto unimagined forms of perception. heck, we've already figured out how to record and play back visual images of dreams.
aren't unicorns the classic counter-argument to Descartes' proof of God?
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I mean, David Lewis wasn't an ancient Greek.
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