Uncertainty, no foundation for knowledge

Every source of knowledge about the world has limits, not just naturalism and science. By "the world", I am referring to things and processes in our universe, i.e. Nature. This relates to Kant's "synthetic" propositions and Hume's "statements of fact", not Kant's "analytic" propositions or Hume's "relations of ideas", which deal with closed logical systems. Existence encompasses what Wittgenstein called “states of affairs” in the world. Christian fundamentalists' unshakable faith in the foundation and supposedly solid basis of their religion, rather than being set in stone, is based on premises and assumptions that happen to appeal to them - premises about what a god is and what he can do, and most of all the premise that says that god is the explanation for everything. It is only their opinions that the basis of religion is sound. As Massimo Pigliucci said recently,

"It's pretty clear at this point that foundation projects in all areas have failed. There's no foundations to logic, there is no foundations to mathematics, and therefore, there's no foundation to science, there's no foundation to any other belief system or way of acting. What we need is a different metaphor."

Massimo goes on to describe the metaphor introduced by Quine in the mid 20th century - the "web of beliefs", a "knowledge network" metaphor. An insistence on or expectation of finding a "basis" for all knowledge is old fashioned and no longer seriously considered by most philosophers, who instead prefer a "coherentist" or network approach which emphasizes the discovery of an interconnected, mutually consistent, coherent network of information about the world, not an ultimate foundation. As Gödel and others showed, attempts to find the foundation of even the most solid logical systems is ultimately doomed. Russell, after years trying to derive a basis for Mathematics, finally gave up.

Both "foundational" and "infinite regress" projects in science, logic, and philosophy have all failed. Religion fails at this also, but Christian just won't own up to it and admit it - they are in denial. The only real available recourse is "coherentism", which those in the religious community dislike. They crave their "certainty", even at the expense of intellectual integrity. So, abandoning the attempt at having "ultimate knowledge", we have an important difference between science and religion - science generates results that happen to strongly agree with what is happening in the real world, and religion does not. As Hilary Putnam put it: "Realism is the only philosophy that doesn't make science a miracle" (called the "no-miracles argument"). In other words, we have strong empirical reason to trust the basis of science because of the amazingly consistent and productive results it generates. If naturalism were false, then the clear fact that science "works" would be a miracle. A far more economical explanation for why science and naturalism works is that they are reliable and sound.

Religion generates none of the same types of useful and consistent results as science - it entails no novel predictions, is unable to retro-dict past events, and has generated no increased understanding of the cosmos (in fact, has been behind many historical misconceptions about how things work). The last time religion did anything useful in advancing knowledge was 800 years ago during the era of Medieval scholasticism. Its been downhill ever since.

Accepting the inherent uncertainty in all knowledge and the impossibility of certain knowledge, Naturalism is probably the correct way to see the world. Barbara Forrest, for example, describes Naturalism as "a generalization of the cumulative results of scientific inquiry". In other words, the best explanation for the success of science is that Naturalism is true. Given the proliferation of successful scientific explanations for phenomena, Forrest concludes that there is "an asymptotic decrease in the existential possibility of the supernatural to the point at which it is wholly negligible". If Naturalism were false, there would be some phenomena that could not be explained solely in terms of natural causes. However, because science can explain all of the "uncontroversial phenomena" we have encountered (i.e., known to have actually occurred) in terms of natural causes, there probably are no phenomena which cannot be explained in terms of natural causes. Therefore, Naturalism is probably true.

To quote Donald Simanek, of Lock Haven State College:

Some people are profoundly disturbed by the fact that reason alone can't generate truths. When the use of mathematics and logic in science is explained to them they respond, "If mathematics and logic can't produce absolute truths, then they produce only untruths or partial truths, and are therefore worthless." This sentence is itself an example of nonsense clothed in the appearance of logic.

It must be admitted at the outset that science is not in the business of finding absolute truths. Science proceeds as if there are no absolute truths, or if there are such truths, we can never know what they are. As the pre-Socratic skeptics observed: If we were to stumble upon an absolute truth, we'd have no way to be certain it is an absolute truth. The models and theories of science are approximations to nature—never perfect. But in most cases we know rather well how good they are. We can state quantitatively the limits of uncertainty of numeric results, and their range of applicability. Yet there's always the possibility that we may find exceptions to one of our accepted laws, or may even find alternative theories that do a better job than older ones.

Some critics of science attack this process of science, on the grounds that it cannot produce absolute truths. Theirs is a black/white view of the scientific process. Never mind that they have not proposed any other process that is capable of producing anything near the power and comprehensiveness of present science. They say that "Theory X" isn't perfect therefore it is "wrong".

There is no evidence of, or compelling reason to believe in, a metaphysical/religious teleology (an externally imposed purpose). We cannot detect any conscious entity or force that shapes our destinies, that cares about us, that reveals knowledge to us, or which has a stake in our existence. In other words, there is no evidence of an "intelligent design" or overall purpose or goal for the universe other than to continue to do what it does - exist. That minimal, modest, and economical claim is the only claim that the form of Naturalism I subscribe to asserts. It even allows for non-natural (supernatural) things to exist. But, if they do exist, they don't appear impact the natural world in any detectable way. This form of Naturalism doesn't restrict the natural world to the known forms of material existence with which we are familiar, and avoids the messy issue of the existence of abstract entities such as mathematical concepts, properties of objects, love, beauty, ideas, etc. It only subtracts teleology / supernatural causation, because we don't see it happening.

Your Reality is not My Reality

I often hear statements along the lines of:

• "Your truth is not my truth"
• "That's your truth"
• "Everyone has their own truth"
• "Everything is relative"
• "Your reality is not my reality"

I don't like these types of expressions because they are glib, throw-away lines that convey no actual meaning. They are examples of "deepities" - true (but trivial) on one level, and profound (but false or meaningless) on another more important level. Of course some things are relative (as in taste, preference, opinion, or subjective impressions), but so what? This is common knowledge. Other things are not relative, but are the same for everyone, for example the laws of math and physics. We may have different opinions on how good chocolate tastes, or how to interpret the 2nd amendment, but there is no room for disagreement on whether a dropped ball falls, or what the sum of 2 + 2 is, or whether it is raining right now.

No, these types of statements do not convey anything useful. In fact, they destroy meaning. They drain meaning out of what could otherwise be a useful and interesting conversation. In my experience, they seem to be shorthand for, "I don't agree with what you are saying, but I don't know exactly why, nor can I frame a counter argument that would be worth sharing with you, so I am going to sabotage the conversation." This type of dismissive statement short-circuits the discussion and becomes a barrier to further investigation and discovery.

Among the more serious problems with these assertions is that if all "truth is relative", then there is no possibility of any sort of objective truth, and nothing can ever be posited as fact. This includes the statement itself, that "truth is relative". Such a stance creates a logical contradiction and voids all hope of logical communication. It is philosophical game playing at best, vandalism at worst. This is nothing but immature intellectual "heckling" whose only real purpose is to interfere with the real business of inquiry. When people use these statements about truth, they are using the word "truth" in a way that is not typically used in traditional logic of philosophical discourse. For a person who views truth in terms of "logical truth", where propositions are either true or false, but not both, this kind of statement is surprising, simply incorrect, and completely unhelpful.

When talking about relativism of truth or reality, it is crucial to designate the thing or concept with which the relationship exists. Moral and ethical relativism, cultural relativism, religious relativism, and artistic relativism are concepts that clearly have value. Perhaps in your society it is acceptable to eat dogs, while in mine it is OK to eat pigs, but not vice versa. This kind of relativism makes sense. There is no one dietary or culinary "Truth". But relativism in discussions of logical or factual truth is another matter, entirely. While cultural phenomena or matters of taste are based on habit, tradition, and local customs, matters of fact are not. Even some cultural standards are not (or should not) be up for debate - a culture that insists on neutering all of its children could unambiguously be said to be in a state of grave, objective moral error - the type of error that would quickly destroy that society.

I think this objective truth applies to moral philosophy also - there are objectively better ways of living and acting than others. Author Stephen Pinker argues in The Better Angels of our Nature that civilization has made real moral progress and become aware of "moral mistakes" prior generations have committed. As civilization has evolved, we have come to accept certain social premises: A society should value the health, productivity, flourishing, and thriving of its members (minimally, so that society should prosper, maximally so that its members can). Societies that flout these standards are accurately described as degenerate - they are self-defeating and doomed. Given these premises, certain behaviors are counter productive and destructive to achieving social prosperity. Torture, rape, slavery, extreme forms of punishment, disastrous inequality, totalitarian control, corruption, and pillaging are just a few examples. Yes, civilization HAS learned valuable moral lessons. This is not cultural relativism. It is a growing sophistication of how culture should develop.

Just as we can see that the old way of performing surgery in filthy conditions was an "error", or the practice of throwing sewage into the streets was an "error", or treating diseases as possessions by devils was an "error", or drinking water from lead pipes was an "error", we can now see that some past (and current) cultural practices were (and are) in just as much "error". We may well be committing moral errors today that will only be visible to future generations. One cannot legitimately say that filthy operating rooms, lack of sewage treatment, ineffective medical care, or lead poisoning were "good" or "correct" in the past. At best we can really only say that those people were ignorant of important information about disease, sanitation, and chemistry. Similarly one cannot legitimately argue that torture, slavery, pillage, corruption, and rape were "good" in their time. We only say that the cultures which permitted them were ignorant of or indifferent to moral and ethical information that we have access to today. Even if the Nazis had won World War II, and everyone who survived agreed that it was morally good, that would not make Nazism good. Why not? It is not just a matter of consensus of the survivors. It would just mean that all opposition had been eliminated. Because Nazism is a moral philosophy that promotes suffering and oppression, not flourishing and prosperity for all.

To say that morality is "relative" may be true if you mean "relative to a state of ignorance, indifference, or lack of vision", but that is not granting very much. It is a very insipid type of relativism. We wisely and correctly avoid the practical mistakes of the past (such as not throwing sewage in the streets, not drinking water out of lead pipes, not casting out devils, and not performing surgery in unsanitary conditions). Likewise, we need to avoid the moral mistakes of the past, such as genocide, mass murder, rape, and torture. These are not "relative", unless one wants to make the silly argument that the social premises of health, productivity, flourishing, and thriving are arbitrary or wrong. That would be simple, perverse, argumentative obstinance.

It is not "relative" to state an objective moral truth with respect to the premise that "flourishing (of conscious creatures) is objectively preferable to suffering". Rejecting a premise of this type would simply be arbitrary, combative, and argumentative. As Sam Harris writes, it is no stretch to assert that a reality that involves maximum suffering and pain for all living creatures, involving no "silver cloud", no "learning", and no "redemption" from the experience is objectively less preferable to a reality that involves prosperity and flourishing of those beings. Given this, morality is reduced to a navigation problem through the "moral landscape" to avoid these obstacles, and guide ourselves toward the various peaks of maximum flourishing for ourselves and others.

One might then counter with "so, your morality assumes the premise that flourishing and prosperity is better than languishing and suffering". Yes, objective morality is based on this premise, which is rooted in human nature and the nature of all conscious living beings. What do you expect? All systems which make truth claims rest on something outside themselves (on foundational premises, infinite regress, or a "network" of other truths - Munchausen's Trilemma).

Even in mathematics, the expression "2+2=4" relies on underlying premises (axioms), specifically on "Set Theory". In Set Theory when you apply the logical union on two disjoint sets that each have cardinality of "2", and then count the members of the combined set, it will have a cardinality of "4". We use the arithmetic shorthand, "2+2=4" to represent these underlying Set Theory concepts. If we had chosen to base arithmetic on other premises, then "2+2=4" would not necessarily be true. For example, if the two sets being combined were not required to be disjoint, then the operation, "2+2" could mean something else. The same is famously true in Euclidean geometry - it is based on an axiom "parallel lines do not cross". Non-Euclidean geometry is not based on this axiom, and therefore has a very different set of "truths".

Confusing opinion and taste preferences with actual matters of fact is not intellectually acceptable. Equating their levels of indeterminacy creates a philosophical structure that is impossible to attack. It deflects all external assaults by disqualifying the attack as not being applicable, so when the going gets tough, then "it's all relative!" and "your truth is not my truth!". This practice bears a similarity to Solipsism or "Last Thursdayism". Radical relativism, like those metaphysical positions, has the advantage of being immune from attack, but that is all it has. It gives its defenders an infinite, unhindered ability to special plead against any evidence that exists. It is arbitrarily ad hoc, possessing a wild card that answers all questions, intellectually dishonest, childish, disingenuous, and deceptive.

This "cute" rhetorical trick does not grant it any depth or strength. Although it is able to successfully disarm objections by just denying their relevance, it is completely unable to provide justification for itself. Adherents of this peculiar brand of thinking have only shallow satisfaction. They are left with a philosophy that has no use, no applicability, no morality, no ethics, no metaphysics, no aesthetics, and not a single interesting problem to solve. It consists of only one thing, a smart aleck opinion expressed as a slogan. This paucity of substance, which immediately terminates any discussion, does not necessarily discredit the philosophy, but it leaves one wondering what possible use it has. "Your truth is not my truth" is the philosophical equivalent of the childish taunt, "I know you are but what am I?". It is a not a serious philosophical statement.

It might be useful to introduce the thoughts of a philosopher who has thought about this more deeply than most. Here is a snippet of a dialogue between Socrates and Protagoras, a sophist:

Protagoras: Truth is relative. It is only a matter of opinion.
Socrates: You mean that truth is mere subjective opinion?
Protagoras: Exactly. What is true for you is true for you, and what is true for me, is true for me. Truth is subjective.
Socrates: Do you really mean that? That my opinion is true by virtue of its being my opinion?
Protagoras: Indeed I do.
Socrates: My opinion is: Truth is absolute, not opinion, and that you, Mr. Protagoras, are absolutely in error. Since this is my opinion, then you must grant that it is true according to your philosophy.
Protagoras: You are quite correct, Socrates.

In other words, Protagoras is uttering pure nonsense. If a logical system allows something to be both true and false in the same sense at the same time (such as "truth is relative" and "truth is absolute"), then it is powerless to make any meaningful assertions about anything at all. It is a broken system; it is nonsense. No serious person should waste their time debating nonsense or arguing with a person making fatuous and useless assertions like this - just walk away - every argument you make against this view will be countered with a version of "that's true for you, not for me".

"Truth" in its logical sense says something about "propositions": it is not possible for "it is raining" and "it is not raining" to both be true. One, and only one, of these is true. This is the basic Law of Non-Contradiction (one of Aristotle's three "Laws of Thought"). It is simply not possible to have a meaningful conversation if one of the participants violates this law - it renders communication impossible. And really, it is probably not likely that the person you are trying to discuss an issue with really does believe that the world operates in such a contradictory manner. They are using the "truth" in more than one way in the same conversation to derail the conversation. "Truth" has more than one meaning in common English.

The alternative form of "truth" that appears in these types of statements does not relate to the logical truth of propositions. Instead, it denotes "your worldview, your values, the things you think really matter, your subjective experience of life, your philosophy, your religion, your interpretation of events, are not the same as mine." I can accept that. However, either consciously or not, I think that people making this type of relativistic philosophical statement are committing the informal logical fallacy of "Equivocation" (calling two different things by the same name). They are being sloppy with their use of English. Their use of "truth" begins by meaning "worldview", but the unspoken implication frequently moves onto "actual state of the universe". So, during a discussion about how the Theory of Relativity works, or whether the universe is expanding or not, or whether smoking is bad for you, or about some other state of affairs that actually has a real answer, if they become uncomfortable with what is being said, then "your truth is not my truth". The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy says this about "Relativism":

"The problem is exacerbated by the fact that relativistic theses often come in two forms: a bold and arresting version, which is proclaimed, and a weaker, less vulnerable version, which is defended--with the first having a tendency to morph into the second when under attack."

For example, it is true the statement, "chocolate ice cream is delicious" is relative (to one's tastes), but the statement, "chocolate ice cream is colder than hot chocolate" is not relative - it is true for all observers. We can allow that matters of taste and opinion are relative, but not matters of fact. They are absolute (although we sometimes be mistaken or in disagreement about what we believe the facts to actually be). There is an old saying coined by Senator Daniel Moynihan,

"Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts."

Opinions about the personal experience of reality may vary (you may interpret events differently than I). However, we can't argue about the fact that events do occur and things do exist in that reality. If confronted with the incoherent statement that everyone has their own reality, you can be fairly certain the person saying it is just parroting some aphorism they heard or read, and has previously benefited from its argument-derailing properties. It is a meaningless statement if you take reality to mean the entire set of phenomena that we think of as existing in the external world. Reality is that set of things that exists for all of us - it is not different for you than it is for me. Your experiences in the world will certainly differ widely from mine, and the significance of those events will differ for us. But the same world contains both of us. The science fiction writer, Philip K. Dick, put it well:

"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."

As with "truth", a common (and looser) usage of the word "reality" can mean "perceptions, beliefs, and attitudes toward the external state of affairs". If interpreted this way, "My reality is not your reality" is perfectly true. This kind of statement is often used colloquially, indicating that the parties to a conversation agree to, or should commit to, not quibble over different conceptions of value systems, beliefs, religion, politics, economical theories, etc. In this usage, reality does NOT mean that portion of the universe that extends outside our bodies and continues to exist even when we are not paying attention. In this use, reality means our subjective interpretation of our experiences in that universe.

So, to argue that we each have our own truth or reality is no more than saying that we each have subjective internal experiences that are shaped by the objective events that actually happen in the world. So, yes, we all have our own "internal realities" (and by that I mean our own internal feelings, thoughts, and perceptions about things). We do not each have our own objective reality, though our perceptions of it will differ widely. It is important to make sure we are all using the terms "truth" and "reality" in the same way when having a discussion about them.