Tulpa.info - metaphysics

can't prove there isn't a teapot in orbit

It's an analogy about unfalsifiable claims.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot

Russell%27s_teapot

For example the universe will shrink requires evidence.

2:38 AM

We have evidence it will expand, no evidence it will shrink.

I am not saying that it will shrink

2:39 AM

but what evidence do we have that it will expand? as far as I know, the only reason why people think that it will is because that is what it always does, which isn't a good reason

Why? That's one of the laws of thermodynamics.

2:40 AM

Things that are not acted upon move forever if they are moving.

2:40 AM

That is what heat and planetoids are doing.

but the expansion of the universe isn't constant, it is accelerating

The laws of thermodynamics are very, very, very, well established and appear to be inviolable. Claiming that we'll just somehow be able to get around them because... handwaving, science! is effectively equivalent to believing in magic, in my opinion. Sure, maybe it's possible. But the amount of money I would bet on it is a mathematical limit approaching zero.

Yes, which means there is a dark energy force acting upon the model, hypothetically.

2:43 AM

But do we have a reason to expect it will reverse and double?

The difference with Greeks not knowing how to fly is they were not aware of well established laws that would prohibit flight.

Not only is the universe expanding, it's accelerating and no known force we understand appears posed to bring it back together.

In fact, the evidence of birds existing would heavily imply it a possibility.

Also interestingly, dark matter seems to have not dominated stellar mechanics until roughly 4 billion years ago.

2:44 AM

If it does indeed exist.

but is there any evidence for dark energy? as far as I know, the only thing we know about dark energy is that it makes the universe expand, so it's just another way to say "we have no idea why this is happening"

Our models of thermodynamics require a transfer of energy in all circumstances for something to increase in energy.

2:45 AM

The energy of acceleration must come from somewhere, then, if those laws hold up.

2:45 AM

Which they do in every other circumstance.

but we don't know what it is or why it works, so there is no reason to assume that it will continue to work or that it won't start doing something completely different

How many forces in nature randomly alter their direction?

Not knowing what it is or why it works doesn't mean we cannot observe its effects. And I see no reason to suspect it would just randomly... What Zen said.

2:47 AM

Beat me to it.

The only way I could see it being so... bizarre as to inverse spontaneously for instance, would be if it was artificial.

2:48 AM

Which would be an amusing thing to find out.

We don't completely know what gravity is, yet nobody honestly believes apples will just start floating upward tomorrow.

Zen

The only way I could see it being so... bizarre as to inverse spontaneously for instance, would be if it was artificial.

I would consider that reasonable initial evidence that we are living in a simulation, lol.

Indeed, to reiterate what Empiricism is: hypothesis ideally should flow from evidence rather than the other way around. All the evidence we have points to the universe expanding and accelerating. It has done that for the entirety of the history of the universe from what we can see. That doesn't neccesarilly conclude that it can't invert, merely that in a vacuum that information has priority over any hypothetical, because there are any number of hypothetical which could be unfalsifiable and true. But indulging them is un-empirical.

if you don't know anything about the mechanics of metal bars, but you hang from a metal bar 100 times and it never snaps, you might think that it is likely that it won't snap next time you hang from it as well, but in fact it is now more likely than ever that it will snap because it has wear from all of the previous times you hung from it

Actually that is an example of the failings of rationalism rather than empiricism. An empirical system models what metal is before the experiment has even begun and makes no presumptions it cannot trace.

2:54 AM

Rationalism meanwhile always relies on presumption on some level.

Scarlet

We don't completely know what gravity is, yet nobody honestly believes apples will just start floating upward tomorrow.

just because nobody believes that doesn't mean that nobody should believe that. we all act like things will stay the same, and as far as we know they will, but really, we don't know why any of the fundamental forces of the universe continues to work, and we don't know why there is more normal matter than dark matter. we act like we know things about the world, but all that we know is how things have been, and fundamentally we don't know why they have been that way

2:57 AM

but how do you model what metal is if you don't know what metal is?

Observation.

but just because you have observed it to be a certain way in the past doesn't mean that it will continue to be that way in the future unless you know why it was like that in the past

Yes it does though?

2:58 AM

If it doesn't change that means it hasn't changed.

without understanding the causality, there is no information about the future that can be gained from the past

Breloomancer

just because nobody believes that doesn't mean that nobody should believe that. we all act like things will stay the same, and as far as we know they will, but really, we don't know why any of the fundamental forces of the universe continues to work, and we don't know why there is more normal matter than dark matter. we act like we know things about the world, but all that we know is how things have been, and fundamentally we don't know why they have been that way

Why on earth would we presume laws suddenly changing overnight instead of them continuing to do as they always have? Science would be impossible in such a universe if things actually behaved that way.

2:59 AM

But they do not appear to.

it hasn't been, but there is no good reason to assume that it won't be

We don't presume anything can change unless we observe it to.

You can believe vanishingly unlikely things if you like, though you can't provide any good reason for anyone else to do so.

but we do presume that it can stay the same?

There is: that's what empiricism is. Accepting that truth emerges from only observation.

3:00 AM

There is no other presumption than that the universe is observable and real in empiricism.

3:00 AM

We do not make claims other than that, or they are presumptions and have no place in empiricism.

3:00 AM

The presumption is that they change. Not that they stay the same.

3:00 AM

That is a positive change.

3:01 AM

We presume nothing until we see the universe fly apart faster and faster. Until we can hear the radiation from the big bang, and so on.

3:01 AM

Anything else is just unfalsifiable hypothesis.

it is just as illogical to think that something will stay the same as to think that it will change

Again, you're thinking in rationalistic terms. The idea that logic can actually unravel the universe.

3:02 AM

It can't.

3:02 AM

It observably sucks at doing that.

3:02 AM

Hypothesis must emerge from evidence

3:02 AM

Don't think unless it emerges from evidence.

but what is the basis for empiricism?

That's really how science works.

3:03 AM

Because science that does not rely on empiricism falls apart.

3:03 AM

And usually quite rapidly.

science is not the be all end all

!?

3:03 AM

Science is literally the be all and end all, I'm not sure what you mean by that.

Yes, it is the only thing that has been demonstrated to actually work

it has been demonstrated to work in the past, but we have no idea if it will work in the future because we don't know why it worked in the past

3:05 AM

saying "empiricism works because it worked in the past" is circular

Empiricism as mentioned requires one presumption: That the universe is observable and its laws can effectively be written. Believing that the universe is observable, it's laws can be written, and that those laws can change randomly, is another presumption - and one that we have not observed. (edited)

3:05 AM

Extra assumptions are the bane of science.

3:05 AM

They are a flaw in how we as humans think (edited)

3:06 AM

do not listen to them.

but to say that laws can't change randomly is also a presumption

No, empiricism just wouldn't make a statement at all on law-changing.

3:07 AM

Until it happens.

so then empiricism doesn't back up science as you say it does

I'm saying that the urge to generate possibilities in the way you are doing actively restricts scientific reasoning, which is based on empiricism.

1

laws are just things that have always been observed to be true, but since we don't know why they have been true, we can't know if they will continue to be true

Sure, but again, that's actually a positive presumption. Surely you see that something changing is an example of action, of movement, whereas a lack of that is actually not a presumption at all, but a continuation of observed traits?

the only way to actually know anything is to find some sort of self proving law, that causes itself to exist by existing

Yes, that's why rationalism doesn't work. On some level it requires presupposition.

3:11 AM

That's why we only make conclusions based on evidence.

3:11 AM

And otherwise no conclusion should really be made.

3:11 AM

Without acknowledging it is unscientific and merely an adaptive, likely wrong, model, in the absence of the real knowledge.

yes, we should make conclusions based on evidence. the problem is, based on the evidence, we can't make any conclusions

Yes we can. "The universe is several billion years old and is accelerating and expanding"

3:12 AM

These are conclusions that rely on one premise: the universe exists.

This is the conversation you'd hoped for, @Unfastened Belts ? Truly you are a sadist.

1

Every part of that conclusion can be traced down to basic math

3:13 AM

The proofs of thermodynamics, observation of things.

3:13 AM

In a vacuum we can also presume that it will continue to do these things, because it always has.

3:13 AM

It's clearly not a chaotic system

I suppose that I was wrong, we can make conclusions about the past based on the evidence, just not on the future

Why though? That's what science is actually useful for.

Zen

In a vacuum we can also presume that it will continue to do these things, because it always has.

but that is a presumption, so it is no longer empirical, right?

We use thermodynamic rules to determine the future of how much energy will be released from a chemical reaction

3:15 AM

On the contrary, we observe these future things happening