|
Hi Tim,
***perhaps i'm being way to simplistic but let me give this a shot anyway. in essence this unexaminable pipeline is any given person's fundamental definitions that such person holds as true in the sense that in mathematics we have axioms of math that require no need of examination.***
My understanding of Dick's use of the term 'pipeline' is different than your's. My undestanding is that we have an image of reality. This image includes our definitions, but it also includes our perceptions, our interpretations, etc. In other words, this image is the total sum of everything we know or think we know of what we believe to be 'out there'. This, though, is not reality because reality is beyond our image's reach. No matter how good your image, there's always some possible error in your image. What connects the image of reality to reality is a pipeline. This pipeline is 'fed' information from reality going to your image. Few, according to Dick, question their image (which includes definitions), and therefore they assume that this image is correct. If Dick wants to restrict our image of reality to just definitions and axioms only, then he should say so.
***so the question is then so what? well first of all nature shows us as individuals how intuitively far off from reality we can be. example: Galileon tranformations as opposed to Lorentz tranformations with respect to velocity.
this has also proven to be an example in the history of science of how assumptions we take for granted can be problematic.***
If the question is so what, the answer is also certainly so what. This is what Bruce and myself have tried to drill into Dick's head. As long as experiments are found that falsify (or verify) a model of science, we can keep moving forward. It was, after all, science and not Dick who found the Lorenzian transformations must supercede the Galilean transformations. Trying to construct science on first principles is fine and good, but if it can't do what science does by advancing to new and better understanding (i.e., useful information that lets us exploit a more fundamental view of nature), then the answer is definitely so what. Dick's model gets a big so what written on it.
***so now comes along Dick and says let me try and strip away as many assumptions as i can and then consider reality from a perspective of logic and mathematics and lets see what results. well what results is a picture of reality with out viewing it through the pipeline. we become cognizant of what constraints we are forced into inorder to even consider reality without assumptions afforded us via our senses. so now we can juxtapose the fundamental constraints we were forced into against the fundamental definitions we presumme in our sensual world when we design experiments or think about that world.***
Dick hasn't eliminated as many assumptions as you think, and he has left out some key assumptions that science uses that if he kept then he would be all the wiser. The key assumption that Dick has forgotten is that if you can predict new observable phenomena, then this feat endorses your scientific model. In Dick's case, he has been obliviant to this assumption and it costs him all credibility from a scientific perspective. For the assumptions that he has eliminated (e.g., scientific realist assumptions), he has added hidden assumptions that really do damage to the philosophical underpinnings of his work. One hidden assumption is that you can model an unobservable phenomena by just imagining what that phenomena (in this case, our 'pipeline with reality') must be like from a mathematical perspective. Another terrible, terrible hidden assumption is that you can come to reliable results with your conclusions even if you have no way to validate your modeling of an unobservable phenomena. Others include the assumption that just producing previous scientific results is due to correctly modeling the unobservable phenomena (i.e., the pipeline). There are so many of these hidden assumptions that are so damaging to his model, it is a wonder that Dick cannot see this. Well, when you want to believe something bad enough, you will believe just about anything.
Your conclusions are very faulty in that you think that Dick has somehow bypassed a pipeline when in fact he is using his 'pipeline', if you will, to construct his faulty model.
Harv |
