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Carnap's statement is false, humans find all sorts of non-verifiable beliefs and experiences cognitively meaningful. Dreams, religions, ancestor worship, coincidences, hypothesises, potentials, the future, stories....
Carnap is falling into the fallacy of scientism, in neglect of anthropology, sociology, fiction writing, and any number of other humanities subjects and activities.
Humanity being interested in unknowns and unverifiable understandings and forms of belief is vital to having a broad human experience which is vital to having a good life, and a good understanding of humanity.
We are not a solely rational species.
Carnap’s statement is false, humans find all sorts of non-verifiable beliefs and experiences cognitively meaningful.
I think Carnap's conception of "meaningful" differs from the "cognitively meaningful" term you use here. Which from context, I gather means something like "personally fulfilling" or "socially important". Carnap along with the other logical positivists were trying to develop a philosophy of science that didn't depend on metaphysical claims and was ultimately grounded in empiricism. Carnap's use of the term "meaningful" is more akin to saying that a concept can be connected to the empirical world. Meaningless claims, then are the opposite, they cannot be connected to the empirical world.
Imagine for example that you and a friend were the victims of an attempted mugging turned violent, but to you and the mugger's surprise you discovered that you were impervious to attacks with lead pipes and laser guns. As you are searching for an explanation for these newfound powers your friend suggests that the reason you have these powers is that you both, without your knowledge, are wearing magical rings that give you super powers, but the rings are invisible and cannot be felt by the wearers. Carnap would say that is meaningless because the ring explanation cannot be connected to the empirical world. The explanation requires an imperceptible entity.
Trying to draw a bright line between empiricism and metaphysics is not scientism, in the pejorative sense that you mean here. I think to qualify as such Carnap would need to dismiss all meaningless (in Carnap's sense of the term) propositions as totally lacking in personal value. I don't know his writing well enough to say whether or not he holds that view, ( a brief reading of his entry in the Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy suggests, no he did not hold those views) but I don't think that conclusion is a particularly charitable reading of Carnap's criticisms of metaphysics.
I didn't introduce the term "cognitively meaningful" - it's in the comic we're all replying to.
This pretense that myself and others don't understand what's trying to be said is faulty. The comic would have worked had it said "substantively meaningful" instead...
...but my point (fuck Carnap, he's not here, and people need to think for themselves and present their own opinions from time to time) is that in human collective societies, truth claims themselves are as meaningful as they are broadly believed - or at least discussed.
That is dealing in some sense of human social meaning (and is also a statement on how hard it is to avoid each other these days). Where as logical positivists are trying to approximate some statement about the validity of perceptions of the universe, perceptions which which themselves can't escape our human contexts for understanding them.
So the logical positivists are discussing tools for gathering meanings the universe immediately cooperates with, where as I'm discussing what humans will co-operate with (and hence what is cognitively meaningful to our social brains). Which I find more interesting... As logical positivism is a boring, old, basic, and unavoidable premise for any reasonable person.
I'm superior, because I found an errant word in the comic and made a bunch of commenters online actually have an interesting discussion. :P j/k
Either that or I'm a kind of troll.
YOU NEED TO BELIEVE IN THINGS THAT AREN’T TRUE. HOW ELSE CAN THEY BECOME?
- Death, Hogfather
Eh just because an individual or a group finds something “meaningful” doesn’t mean, well, anything
Personal beliefs expressed en masse seem to have shaped huge chunks of history and our planet, so…
Agree to disagree.
So has slavery and war but I am not advocating for either. We don't need any more moral ought from and is. What we need is to demand that critical decision be based on the science not based on someone having a dream of a witch turning them into a newt.
I’m not advocating for them either, but they all definitely mean something.
Ok? Not sure what to do with that. You assert your feelings and I am supposed to what exactly?
Humans can be wrong. Humans in large numbers can be wrong. Humans for thousands of years in large numbers can be wrong. This is why we don't determine what is true and what is false by polling.
Eh just because an individual or a group finds something “meaningful” doesn’t mean, well, anything
This is the comment from a different user I was originally replying to. I’m not asserting anything other than that widespread belief has “meaning” through its impact on the world. I’m not asserting that those beliefs are factually correct or morally good.
You seem to think I’m advocating for religion, but I have not been doing that.
I get what you’re saying, but to me it seems to be conflating anthropological constructs for intrinsic properties.
Another way to look at it is, what would be the nature of something if someone is not human, or if a human didn’t exist?
You're ultimately just re-expressing the fallacy of scientism though, because in your example you're just going to end up with aliens who have religions, or stories, or ideas about the future, or ideals, or dreams, or other unverifiable yet alien versions of everything we've already discussed.
Hell, there's already suggestions out there that animals have such beliefs.
It's a natural product of information systems when they get complex enough, there will be confusion, false commitments, compressions, duplications, signs without signifiers, and errant beliefs.
I get what you're saying, you're saying physically A = A, and that "all is all" is all that should concern us, and there is nothing else... But that's not true for information systems theory.
You just have to accept that information systems are a factor of what is, even though information isn't technically physical... It's more, trans physical. My brain fats are currently typing some information, and it may be stored in another couple of computer languages before it gets to you ... but it's still information, as it willbe inthose other forms and places... In terms of information systems, a container can hold more than it's capacity... Because there's information about the information... And that's difficult to comprehend. But there's information about the bible that isn't contained by the bible for instance... Information about someone's brain that isn't necessary within that person's brain.... It's heady stuff.
So what you're claiming (A = A = all that matters) shows your beliefs off as a rationalist belief-minimalist realist and logical positivist. It shows you value science and the scientific method ...but that's not the whole of what is, or what can be thought... That's why philosophy outranks science in its capacity for defining the world...
...and why sciencism is still a limiting beliefs, regardless of its metaphysical ideals of obtaining total one to one accuracy (yep, science has its own metaphysical ideals).
Science is one of the most powerful tools humanity has, but you should hold the tool, not the other way around.
There’s a lot to unpack in your response, but ultimately it reminds me of idealism (in the metaphysical sense) vs empiricism. People will firmly believe one way or another as suits them, but if even if we didn’t exist to have this conversation (and our beliefs didn’t exist) there would be indisputable and fundamental aspects to reality and existence. What are those, and how do we probe them? I don’t think we can answer this without abandoning the metaphysical to some extent. To me it seems like non-materialist povs just muddy the waters and give a lot of voices to things that sound nice and interesting, but are ultimately just nothing 🤷♀️
Also I think it’s necessarily idealism that lends itself to relativism (your point about the aliens and animals) and not materialism. I think for me the crux of the matter is that systems and information contained therein exist with some fundamental properties, and none of that has to do with what we necessarily think of them
Edit to your point about brains: not sure if this is what you were eluding to, but even if you recreate someone’s brain outside their body to the point that both entities can affect each other, it doesn’t change the reality of the original brain and it doesn’t diminish the existence of the replicant. I think there’s enough stochasticity in physical systems that the original and replicant essentially become distinct entities over time despite having some degree of effect on each other. It’s not unlike being with another person, we all affect each other in some way.
I see no evidence that metaphysics is even a thing. Where is it located? What units does it have?
Science works on the verifiable. It doesn't work on things we don't have to tools to measure, or things which choose not to be measured.
Correct. It has no power to deal with the fictional. Skydaddy and unicorns for example. Which is why we need to turn to logic to defeat those
Your biases are showing. There are non-fictional things that science can't solve. What makes a person good? What is the purpose of this universe and our lives within it? This isn't even touching on the testing of an unwilling subject. How much can you bench press? If you refuse to take the test, I can only guess.
There is a place in the world for philosophy, just as there is for science. Using the wrong tool for the job leads to poor results.
Which is why we need to turn to logic to defeat those
Literally acknowledged it and you are arguing with me. What's the point? I admitted it. We use philosophy to deal with the fictional. You mention meaning and I agree, meaning is a fiction. The only thing we are "supposed" to do is be vehicles of selfish genes, fucking until the sun explodes.
You keep on harping on those things that can't be verified, while studiously ignoring those which are unknown. The only reasons I can think of are you are avoiding the topic or you are being a troll. There could be other reasons, which could be entirely valid, but they are unknown to me. That doesn't negate the possibility of their existence, of course, because reality isn't dependent on my knowledge, or belief.
No.
Did you run this by Clippy? Or at least, by the history of nation states and religious wars?
Because some very unverifiable and in that sense "unreal" beliefs have had some very meaningful and pivotal roles in history and civilization.
Thought-acts and speech acts can make the metaphysical meaningful, and have done so throughout human history.
..... remember how I said our species wasn't soley rational?
Because some very unverifiable and in that sense “unreal” beliefs have had some very meaningful and pivotal roles in history and civilization.
That’s besides the point though, and I think that’s what you’re not getting.
Forget humans exist, what exists then? Rationality has nothing to do with this. Secondly, why is the nature of reality impinged on human rationality or lack there of? Doesn’t make sense, sorry.
Enlighten us on what does mean anything.
One could easily argue that we are all just some vibrating mass and nothing means anything.
If we all got together and built a giant super science rocket and colonized mars would that "mean anything"?
I think we don’t necessarily need to assume anything, but simply keep an open and critical mind towards examining anything. All frameworks are open to revision, but if there is any merit to the metaphysical we are able to discern it somehow (logically, philosophically etc if not empirically).
To clarify, by metaphysical I mean some of the medieval era logic regarding the nature of reality. Other people also use metaphysical to mean mind-independent reality (I am not criticizing this latter definition).
Are you a CEO because I just read an overcomplicated sentence saying absolutely nothing.