What constitutes a "good explanation"?

Why do people value hearing a good explanation for things they don't understand? Explanations for the current weather, for why someone was late for work, for how chemistry works, for a tough concept in algebra, for moral/religious/philosophical questions, for a devastating flood. People want good explanations because they help them to better understand and make sense of the world around them. This very blog entry, which explains explanations is an example of that. Explanation provides a way to comprehend complex or abstract concepts, and it can help people to form a more complete and accurate understanding of how things work.

A good explanation also helps people to make informed decisions, solve problems, and communicate ideas effectively. When people have a clear and concise explanation for something, they can more easily explain it to others, or use the information to make decisions or take action. It has been determined experimentally, that a person presenting an explanation actually comes to a deeper understanding of the issue he is explaining. The process of providing an explanation actually helps the explainer improve their grasp of the topic. Overall, having a good explanation for things is an important part of learning and making sense of the world.

In addition, and possibly most importantly, having a good explanation can provide a sense of satisfaction or closure. It can help people to feel like they have a grasp on a topic, and give them confidence in their understanding of it. In fact, the "truth value" or correctness of an explanation may sometimes matter less than the positive feeling it gives the person who seeks it. This is because the act of finding an explanation can help to create a sense of predictability and understanding, even if the explanation is not entirely accurate or complete. It is the feeling of understanding, rather than actual understanding that may ultimately matter the most. In a "perfect world", that feeling of understanding would correspond very highly to actual understanding. For example, a primitive pre-scientfic person may accept the explanation for thunder being the gods throwing boulders, and feel that they "get it". This explanation is not correct, but it might suffice for this person. However, it would be entirely inadequate to their task of forming a "weather prediction model" since it doesn't actually correspond to reality.

In addition to the laudable desire to seek an explanation to help increase understanding, people can also sometimes feel a sense of powerlessness or lack of control when they don't have an satisfactory explanation. This can be particularly true in situations where the outcome is important to us or where we feel that we should have some influence over the situation. Seeking explanations is a natural human tendency, and it can be an important way of reducing anxiety, providing clarity, and enabling us to make informed decisions and take appropriate actions. Lacking, but desiring, a good explanation creates negative feelings that we are motivated to get rid of.

When one encounters an event or phenomenon that is unexplained, it is uncomfortable, not entirely dissimilar to the discomfort of being hungry, hot, thirsty, or otherwise distressed. We are motivated to find a way out of that psychological state, to reduce that stress. People seek explanations to dissipate that discomfort. The explanation does not actually have to be accurate to accomplish this, it just needs to be convincing and sufficient to the person who receives it. Ridding oneself of that ill ease is a large part of the motivation for seeking and obtaining an explanation. In this sense a "satisfactory" explanation has a very low bar, epistimologically. It just has to be "good enough" to allow the receiver of the explanation to feel that their understanding has reached an acceptable level.

Uncertainty and lack of understanding can create feelings of anxiety, stress, and confusion. Without a clear explanation, we may not know what to expect, how to respond, or what the consequences of a situation may be. This can be particularly challenging when we are faced with new or unfamiliar situations or when we encounter unexpected events that challenge our assumptions or beliefs.

It is important to note that requests for explanations may sometimes go unanswered. We are familiar with the repetitive childish question "why?" to every statement a parent makes. Some children go through a stage where the experience of asking for and receiving an explanation becomes a game, and the "why" question finally receives a "just because!" answer. At some deep level, things cease to have meaningful explanations, but just "are". Bertrand Russell addressed this in his essay "The Regressive Method of Discovering the Premises of Mathematics," where he wrote: "The world is full of facts, and these facts simply are. They do not derive from anything else, they are not to be explained in terms of anything else. They are unanalyzable, and there is no reason for them." In this passage, Russell is emphasizing that there are certain facts about the world that are "brute facts" in the sense that they exist independently of any explanation or justification. These facts simply are, and there is no underlying reason or cause for them.

We must also recognize that simply desiring an explanation may not be reasonable. Simply because one can pose a question, like "why is it cold in Winter?" does not mean that a meaningful explanation is possible. Some requests for explanations may parse the same, lexically: "why is the case?". But not all such questions actually refer to things that exist or can be explained. Yes, we can answer the question about "why it is cold in Winter?", but may not be able to answer a question about "why does god allow suffering?" or "what is the afterlife like?" or "how many angels can stand on the head of a pin?". These questions make implicit assumptions about the nature of religious issues that may not be conceived of as being the same by everyone. They may also involve "category mistakes", where a property is being asked about that doesn't exist, "what color is the the number 2".

So, what is an explanation? It is a statement or set of statements that make something clear or understandable. It is typically backwards pointing, in that it attempts to increase understanding of an event that happened, providing a reason why or how it happened. In doing so, it increases understanding of how the world works, and may enhance our ability to make predictions about similar future events. From an evolutionary perspective, it allows us to form models of the world that will empower us to navigate the world with more certainty and mastery - to anticipate and deal with situations that have yet to occur, that may have some similarity to past, explained, situations.

Explanations are usually constructed to describe a set of facts, and which clarify the causes, context, and consequences of those facts. This description of the facts may establish rules or laws, and may clarify the existing rules or laws in relation to any objects, or phenomena examined.

It is a means of providing information, clarification, or insight into a concept, idea, or event. An explanation may involve breaking down complex concepts or processes into simpler, more accessible terms or providing additional context or examples to help clarify a point. In general, an explanation is an attempt to provide an understanding of something in a way that can be easily grasped and applied by others.

People often seek explanations for things that they don't understand because explanations provide a sense of understanding, clarity, and predictability. When we encounter something unfamiliar or confusing, we may feel a sense of uncertainty or anxiety, and seeking an explanation can help alleviate these feelings by providing a framework for understanding and making sense of the situation.

Explanations can also help us make better decisions, solve problems, and avoid mistakes in the future. When we have a better understanding of the causes and mechanisms behind a phenomenon or event, we can predict its outcomes, identify patterns or trends, and develop more effective strategies for dealing with similar situations in the future.

Furthermore, seeking explanations is a fundamental human trait that is driven by curiosity and a desire to learn and explore the world around us. We are naturally curious creatures, and seeking explanations is a way of satisfying our innate desire for knowledge and understanding. In many ways, seeking explanations is an essential part of the human experience and a driving force behind our intellectual and cultural evolution.

The main difference between scientific and religious explanations is their underlying methodology and epistemology. Scientific explanations are based on empirical evidence, logic, and reasoning, and they are subject to testing, falsification, and revision based on new evidence or insights. Scientific explanations seek to explain phenomena through natural causes and mechanisms that can be observed and measured. They do not rely on supernatural or mystical beliefs, and they are not based on authority or faith.

On the other hand, religious explanations are often based on faith, authority, and sacred texts, and they rely on beliefs in supernatural or divine entities or forces. Religious explanations seek to explain the nature of the world, the origins of life, and the meaning and purpose of human existence in a spiritual or metaphysical sense. They are not subject to empirical testing or falsification, and they do not rely on the same level of evidence or logic as scientific explanations.

In summary, the key difference between scientific and religious explanations lies in their underlying methods, assumptions, and epistemologies. Scientific explanations are based on empirical evidence and logical reasoning, while religious explanations are often based on faith and authority, and they rely on beliefs in supernatural or divine entities or forces.

In science, we have formalized explanations for the purpose of forming accurate and predictive models of the world. Science exercises a discipline of accepting explanations that meet certain criteria, rather than on how subjectively "good" the explanation may be. Scientic methods are used to develop a model of how the world works. Hypotheses and theories are only useful to the extent that they can explain nature, but explanations about past events are not enough. They must also make predictions about observations that have not yet been made and that can be tested. When there is more than one explanation that can account for data we already have, there must be a way to separate them experimentally. A theory is, therefore, only useful if it makes predictions that are different than other existing theories.

Some of these scientific/philosophical tests for measuring the quality of an explanation can be subsumed under the "Criteria of Adequacy" developed by several people, including Duhem, Popper. In summary, they include:

• Explanatory scope (or breadth) - refers to the range of phenomena or events that an explanation can account for. It refers to the ability of an explanation to provide a broad understanding of multiple related phenomena or events.
• Explanatory power (or depth) - refers to the degree to which an explanation can account for the details and mechanisms of a particular phenomenon or concept. In other words, it refers to the level of complexity and comprehensiveness in an explanation.
• Precision - not vague or subject to interpretation, but detailed and specific
• Fruitfulness (ability of a hypothesis to successfully predict novel and unexpected phenomena) like Fresnel lens dark spot, general relativity, bending around mercury, periodic table, evolution predicts missing links, quantum theory particle discovery
• Consistency - freedom from contradiction with other accepted explanations
• Simplicity - not the brevity of the hypothesis, but the number of assumptions it has to make
• Conservatism - how well the hypothesis fits with what we already know. Does the explanation conserve prior knowledge?
• Modesty (similar to Simplicity - all things being equal, logically less demanding hypotheses and hypotheses that make more modest claims are preferable to hypotheses that entail more assumptions, as are hypotheses that assume events of a familiar sort as opposed to those that assume unfamiliar events)
• Testability - can the explanation be tested, demonstrated, or disproved?

Karl Popper proposed a formal way to determine between multiple explanations that seem to be sufficient, but are incompatible with each other. When there is more than one explanation that can account for the observations we have made, there must be a way to separate them experimentally.: "if H and G are empirically equivalent (make the same predictions, but differ in their underlying assumptions or mechanisms) decide between H and G if one of them has stronger proven predictive power, is not ad-hoc, is a fuller (in scope or depth) explanation. Our inductive success in believing previous theories that had these traits should make us continue to prefer theories of this type."

White Priviledge Ad Hominem

I was recently told by a (now former) Facebook friend that I didn't have the right to ignore the "situation with Trump" (now a month into his presidency), and the problems of the disadvantaged people in the US have - all because of my white privilege. My white privilege insulates me from bigotry and, in fact, makes me part of the problem. I have studied this type of argument for a long time - it was introduced about 60 years ago during the early days of the Post Modernist philosophical movement as a debating technique that would allow anyone or any out-of-power group comprising non-Whites / non-Americans / non-Males to shut down any input from the in-power group - usually White Western Men (sometimes referred to as "dead white males"). It was used effectively by the Civil Rights, Women's Rights, Third-World Rights, and many other rights movements in recent history when a weak socio-economic group or nation was trying to unseat the dominant socio-economic group or nation.

Here is a very short article on the topic that is easy to read, and does a good job explaining at least one reason (it is an ad hominem attack) that it is a bad way to present an argument - "Privilege". We live in an era where body shaming, gender shaming, race shaming, and any other type of condemnation based on factors beyond one's control have become unacceptable. In this era of "identity politics", the one remaining group on which it is still "open season" is white American men.

But wait! Doesn't White Privilege actually exist? Yes, this does exist in U.S. Caucasian people (on average) do have an economic and social advantage over Black, Hispanic, and Native American people (not necessarily Asians, though). Does American have a racism/inequality problem? Absolutely! This country is far from perfect, and with the recent election of Trump, many racists and bigots in the U.S. are feeling freer about expressing, rather than hiding, that attitude. Yes, that is happening. However, there is great variation among individuals in this country. There are plenty of poor, uneducated, unemployed or underemployed, disadvantaged white people, just as there are well-off and educated people from the minority populations. The U.S. is not unique in racism and privilege-based inequality. In fact it ranks with Northern Europe in its racial and ethnic tolerance. See "Most Racist Countries". The multicultural U.S. is among the least racially intolerant countries, according to the data.

"In-group" favoritism exists all over the world. India, probably the most racist country in the world, has its in-group (light skinned Hindus). In Russia, you really need to be of pure Russian descent to have a chance at success. China prefers ethically pure Chinese over Koreans, Japanese, and its many tribal ethnicities. In all Islamic countries, one or the other of the several Islamic sects will be the in-group, depending on the country (and forget about being a non-Moslem in a Sharia-law Islamic country). Particularly racist are Indonesia, Iran, and Pakistan. Ethno-centrism and racism is the norm across most of Africa. Practically all of the countries and parts of the world just mentioned treat women as second class citizens and tightly restrict their rights. And with the influx of Islamic immigrants into many European countries, the world is seeing an Islamic backlash from those countries. Case in point - the recent Brexit vote and the rising popularity of Nationalist parties in Austria, France, Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, and others. What makes America different from these is that we see it as a problem, and we talk about it - a LOT. We reflect and make attempts to self-correct - thus all the talk about white privilege in the US, but not Russian privilege in Russia or Chinese privilege in China. America is better than that. I think America is exceptional, in the traditional sense of American Exceptionalism. We don't hold ourselves this low standard. Racism and inequality are problems in this country, and we are slowly dealing with them.

There are other reasons also, which I mention in one of my other blog posts on "What's Wrong with PostModernism". Telling some one or some group that their have "invalid" or "inauthentic" opinions because of who they are poisons the well against them. It is a form of "genetic fallacy", judging an opinion based on its origin rather than its merit. This is all inspired by an insulting Facebook post which specifically targeted white, middle class, college educated, employed, not-in-prison men (like me) in the US. It attempted to saddle us with a "yuppie guilt" that is totally underserved:

I want my friends to understand that "staying out of politics" or being "sick of politics" is privilege in action. Your privilege allows you to live a non-political existence. Your wealth, your race, your abilities or your gender allows you to live a life in which you likely will not be a target of bigotry, attacks, deportation, or genocide. You don't want to get political, you don't want to fight because your life and safety are not at stake.

It is hard and exhausting to bring up issues of oppression (aka "get political"). The fighting is tiring. I get it. Self-care is essential. But if you find politics annoying and you just want everyone to be nice, please know that people are literally fighting for their lives and safety. You might not see it, but that's what privilege does.

...etc

I reject the assertion made by this facile blurb. It amounts to the following "Either you see the political situation just as I do and are fighting alongside of me, or you are an irresponsible upper-class wretch who should be ashamed of yourself". It leaves no room for dissent. Implicit in this statement is the assertion that those who are NOT privileged ARE politically active and always thinking about these things, which is very, very far from fact.

This is a technique originated in the 1960s by the early Post Modernists, and first deployed on the political stage during the Afro-Asian Conference in April 1955 in Bandung, Indonesia. Hosted by President Sukarno, it launched the modern “Third World” movement, heralding the end of the dominance of the West, with its “rapacious capitalism” and overbearing colonial hegemony. It trumpeted the beginning of a new world order, a pacific, non-aligned, virtuous utopia, free from the colonial past and from white, Western dominance. These ex-colonial states were inherently “righteous” by the fact of their history of victimization. This shared experience united the new non-aligned nations under the flag of oppression. White former colonial powers were inherently evil, and poor third world countries were inherently virtuous.

Mainstream Philosophy has largely abandoned Post Modernism. It was chic for a few decades, but now it considered a failure. It is one of many half-thought-out and inadequate attempts at new philosophical schools (the same is true of Ayn Rand's Objectivism). Post Modernism is not taken seriously by other philosophers, but is still practiced in niches where out-of-power groups and the academics who support them continue to try to wrest power from the dominant group. It is a thin philosophical veneer overlaying what would otherwise be a naked power play. For an example of how it is currently being expressed, see this Harvard Law Record article describing how "Critical Race Theory" is justified by this same "White Privilege" excuse.

Scientific Certainty

I recently had a conversation with a fellow skeptic regarding scientific certainty, specifically that we cannot be 100% sure of the correctness of our theories. He was adamant that nothing in science is certain, and that some level of skepticism regarding scientific knowledge was always appropriate. I, however, argued that that was an overstatement, possibly dogmatic. I felt that some things are certain (such as the mathematics used by scientists, for reasons stated in the last paragraph of this section), and many things are almost (though not completely) certain, such as what are sometimes called "our best theories". Admittedly, we lack full certainty for things "of the world" - the world of experience - for well known philosophic reasons. Anything based on empirical evidence, collected through repeated observations, and accounted for by theory, is subject to some level of uncertainty. Conclusions reached through inductive reasoning and evidence, rather than deduction, will always be subject to potential future updating, modification, or even disproof through new observations and tests, or revamped theories. We can't say, for example, that we have "proved" that all copper transmits electricity, because we haven't tested all instances of copper. We can only infer that all copper probably conducts electricity because we have never seen a case where it doesn't, and because our theories about the properties of copper and of how electricity works supports this idea.

A Bayesian approach can shed light on this. We assign very high prior probabilities and confidence in the correctness of our best and most rigorously tested theories and hypotheses. The likelihood of encountering counter-evidence given that these hypotheses are true is very low (will we find a crystal sphere of stars in the heavens? will we find rabbit fossils next to trilobite fossils?). Given how Bayes Theorem works, the probability of discarding our existing theories is extremely low - low enough not to waste much time thinking about.

So, some theories are so well supported that they are "practically" certain. The confidence we can have in some well supported theories is very high, asymptotically approaching 100%, and is established to such a degree that no one spends any research time trying to find alternate explanations (e.g., there is no serious research into Flat Earth, Phlogiston, Geo-centrism, Astrology, or Young Earth Creationism). But, philosophically, the level of confidence cannot be 100%. To put any weight on the lack of certainty for quantum theory, evolutionary theory, atomic theory, or the helio-centric model of the solar system would be perverse, arbitrary, contrary, and unproductive. These are among our best theories, and until something better comes along, they are best treated as being essentially correct (though, of course, subject to continued refinement and elaboration).

I am confident (though not certain) that 100 or 1000 years from now there will be some logical entity that occupies the concept that we currently call an "atom", and that two oxygen atoms and one hydrogen atom will continue to be the basis of a wet substance called water. The basis of the feeling of certainty is the knowledge that, although the details of what makes up the entity we call an "atom" have changed, the "placeholder" for an atom-like thing persists. The model of the atom has evolved, and will probably continue to change in the future (i.e., the models proposed by Democritus, Dalton, Thompson, Rutherford, Heisenberg/Chadwick/Bohr, up to the current quantum mechanical "cloud" model). Atomic theory may be subsumed as a special case of some more comprehensive theories of matter and energy. But it will still have applicability in chemistry and normal daily living, just as Newtonian physics, though extended by Relativistic physics, is still appropriate in a subset of cases. "F=MA" is probably not going away, though exceptions outside the bounds of normal human experience can be found. Newton will almost certainly continue to be applied in low-mass, low-velocity scenarios for which it is appropriate, while more sophisticated models will be used for cases outside those environments. As Stephen Jay Gould wrote,

In science, "fact" can only mean "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent." I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms.

As mentioned above, there are some things in which we do have 100% confidence. These involve "analytic statements" (Kant), also called "relations of ideas" (Hume), where a statement is true or false based on its meaning or definition. For example - no bachelors are married, 2+2=4, and triangles have 3 sides. These statements are "analytically true", by virture of their meanings. When the premises are true, and valid logic is used, then the conclusion is fully contained in the premises and 100% certainty is established.

What is Science (according to Kevin Lyon)

Kevin Lyon is a Professor in the Science department at Jones County Junior College, Ellisville, MS. He was interviewed in an episode of the "You are not so Smart" podcast about the misuse of "common sense" to understand the world. Towards the end of the podcast, the host, David McRaney, asked him for his brief "go-to" definition of science. His response was something like this:

1. It's a way of knowing things that is characterized by objectivity, absence of bias towards one answer over another, of restriction to empiricism. This makes it unable to answer some of our dearest questions. Science can provide very little help in answering questions that cannot be addressed empirically (like life after death). Science can't explore those kinds of questions because they are not subject to empirical analysis. That's not to say that all things outside the empirical realm don't exist - just that science can't treat them.
2. It's characterized by the use of certain rules of logic. You have to use appropriate deductive reasoning, or if you use inductive reasoning you should rely on Occam's Razor (parsimony).
3. The hypotheses that you investigate have to be disprovable, and the conclusions you draw based on the data you get must be tentative. Science doesn't seek to "prove" hypotheses, but only to disprove them (or show them to be very unlikely to be true). Science tries not to use the word, "prove", with respect to theories and hypotheses. Instead it frames conclusions like, "the data we have collected supports this or that conclusion". To say that something has been "proved" lacks tentativeness so necessary to good science, and the ego gets involved. When the ego is involved, it is difficult to let go of old conclusions in the face of new evidence.
4. A person taking a scientific approach to understanding the world maintains a skeptical attitude. Don't rely on authority, but on evidence. Don't buy into an idea unless you have a good reason to do so.

Objectivism and Ayn Rand

I recently got into some conversations with friends who claimed to have been, at an earlier time in their youth, Objectivists - followers of Ayn Rand. Like many others, I had read some of her books (The FountainHead, Atlas Shrugged, The Virtue of Selfishness). As a teenager about to go into college, I was in thrall to her ideas. They seemed to make perfect sense and provide an absolutely correct answer to how one should live ones life. She was so certain, and so was I.

But I gradually lost interest in her as my understanding of other branches of philosophy grew. I eventually quit thinking about Objectivism and Ayn Rand, altogether. When I revisited it recently, I realized why. It's a half-baked, fake philosophy. It has such gaping deficiencies and limitations that philosophers from other disciplines (Continental, Analytic, Epistimological, Empiricists, etc) don't even consider it to be a real philosophy. They don't just disagree with it - they think of it as a pretender, wanna-be philosophy. It has a degenerate ethics. It has no place for altruism, no place for social welfare, for living as a member of society. It focuses entirely on doing everything for exactly one person - yourself. To do otherwise is not only considered incorrect and illogical, but evil and immoral. Objectivism is a thin intellectual, academic veneer on top of sheer greed. It excuses sociopathic behavior by dressing it up in elevated language. Prior to the advent of Objectivism in the mid 20th century, someone's only excuse for being a greedy, uncaring, selfish asshole was that they were greedy, selfish, uncaring assholes. Now they can say, "I'm following a philosophy - I'm an Objectivist!"

In addition to its ethics being repugnant and disgusting (neither of which prove it to be incorrect), the Objectivist ethical framework also does not sit on firm ground. It assumes one's highest value should be one's self, but its so-called proof (a multi-step syllogism) has problems and deficiencies at every step. See "Problems with selfishness". It is at odds with cognitive science and neuroscience, which show that Human Reason alone (the idol of Objectivism) is incapable of generating good ethical choices. The Objectivist assertion that “Reason is the ultimate virtue” and “Emotions are not tools of cognition” are startling out of synch with everything we know today about how human moral judgements are made. To want the world and Human Nature to be different than they are, or ever could be, or ever were, makes Objectivism simply irrelevant. We have seen the Communist "New Soviet Man", and Adam Smith's "rational self-interest" put forth as models for how humans are, or ought to be. Neither is consistent with how humans beings actually are. Any philosophy or social program that starts off with disregard for human nature is doomed to failure from the start.

Functional MRI and other newly developed brain analysis techniques show that many portions of the brain are involved in generating value judgements - Rationality comes from the prefrontal lobe and frontal Lobe (logical moral judgement, analytical weighing of consequences). Emotional influences originate in the temporoparietal junction (intuitive judgements, empathy). The ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC) allows us to evaluate all moral alternatives against each other. To deduce that only logic should be used in moral decision making is simply out of step with evidence about how Human Beings actually work. It is unrealistic, to say the least. When either logic/reason or emotion/empathy are taken out of the picture (through injury or through experimental manipulation) bizarre and ineffective moral judgements are made. When the VMPFC is temporarily neutralized through Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), all moral decisions become extremely difficult, as hard (for example) as deciding between several different models of refrigerator to buy. You become overwhelmed with choices even for what should normally be simple choices. Even figuring out what food to eat, what to wear, or whether to go to work or not. In fact the decisions you would think are purely logical are just as hard, because you lack the motivation to even solve those problems. This demonstrates dramatically Humes famous quote, "Reason is and ought only to be the slave of the passions". In summary, the utopian Objectivist ideal of a purely logical decision making process is fiction - the kind of fiction found in one of Ayn Rand's books, but not found in real life. Thomas Jefferson, who obviously predated modern brain research, put today's findings very succinctly when he characterized what he called our "moral sense" or "moral instinct": "Nature [has] implanted in our breasts a love of others, a sense of duty to them, a moral instinct, in short, which prompts us irresistibly to feel and to succor their distresses".

Although her presentation of a proof that self-interest is the only true goal someone should have is structured as a deductive proof, it is both invalid and unsound. Other critics have shown her arguments for selfishness as the highest value to be circular. There is no logical reason one could not have a goal outside one's self (for example, to help others), or even prefer death to life, or to live a completely amoral life. Objectivism begs the question (i.e., engages in circular reasoning) in this regard. It assumes that selfishness is the highest value, and then uses that fact to prove that it is illogical to behave unselfishly.

Additionally, it is riddled with inconsistencies, contradictions, circular reasoning, and other logical errors. It is out of step with modern science, rejecting both Quantum Theory (because of its reliance on random events) and Evolution (because it does not draw a clear separation between Man and other animals). Anti-environmentalism and outright climate-change-denial are closely tied to Objectivism.

For a good summary of what Objectivism is, and a straightforward explanation of its problems, see "Rational Wiki - Objectivism"

!!!!!!!!!!!! todo

perception and the external world

other areas of weakness

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. For example, a culture that insists on neutering all of its children could unambiguously be said to be in a state of grave moral error - the type of error that would quickly destroy that society.

Does this mean that their morals are "objectively" wrong? Not in a strict definition of "objective", meaning existing independent of human minds and opinions. It refers to a belief based on facts and evidence, without personal feelings, or biases influencing the outcome, aiming for impartiality and accuracy. It does not refer to an ontological Platonic form or existing independently of any human minds. 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 use the argument that the premises of health, productivity, flourishing, and thriving are arbitrary or wrong. Indeed there have been cultures that did not have these values, and those cultures suffered.

We should not get derailed by what "objective" means. In this post I do not mean it in the pure ontological sense of existing independent of humanity. I am not arguing that moral truths exist as Platonic abstract "forms" outside of space and time, as some would argue that "2 + 2 = 4" is objectively true. Human morality is contingent on the existance of humanity, and is contingent on a preference for human flourishing as opposed to human degradation and suffering. In this sense, it is not objectively true, but true based on assumptions and premises. Human morasl are clearly a result of "moral constructivism" - they are created by human beings and societies. They are "real" is the same sense that the rules of chess are real. They exist because we invented them. It is not "relative" to state a moral truth starting with 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. But yes, as previously stated, humans invent moral codes to promote the goals of society in the same way they invent the rules of chess so that the game can be played. Moral codes and chess rules do not exist "out there" in the universe independent of humans and chess boards.

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.