Newtonian physics is a very good model of how large things (like planets) behave. Einstein's Theory of Special Relatively incorporates Newtonian physics and has more explanatory power.
I confess this made me smile - the frames of reference of the Special Theory of Relativity exclude gravity.
Well, relativity doesn't incorporate Newton; it replaces him with much harder maths that gives the same answers for anything not ridiculously dense and massive, or moving ridiculously fast.
Newtonian physics is a very good model of how large things (like planets) behave. Einstein's Theory of Special Relatively incorporates Newtonian physics and has more explanatory power.
I confess this made me smile - the frames of reference of the Special Theory of Relativity exclude gravity.
Sorry, not a physicist and desperately trying to remember how it fits together without getting stuck in the whole Special Relativity vs Quantum Mechanics and the Standard Model discussions because
a) I can't remember how it fits together and would have to go look it up
and b) I don't think it germain or helpful to the discussion.
As Newton put it, he was standing on the shoulders of giants. Science advances by new evidence supporting or refuting what we used to think. Newtonian physics is great because it still works for the stuff that it works for. In the context of the nature of facts and truth, I like Newtonian physics because it illustrates a key point. Newton's laws describe a model of how things work and provide testable hypotheses. Whether they actually describe how the world is is a very different question.
Newton's Laws of Motion are an approximation to Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity where speeds are less than a significant fraction of the speed of light.
Newton's Law of Gravity is an approximation to Einstein's General Theory of Relativity where space-time is not significantly curved.
The relationship between General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics is an ongoing field of investigation.
Newton's Laws of Motion are an approximation to Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity where speeds are less than a significant fraction of the speed of light.
Newton's Law of Gravity is an approximation to Einstein's General Theory of Relativity where space-time is not significantly curved.
The relationship between General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics is an ongoing field of investigation.
That's how I remembered it. Relativity explains why Newton's laws work when they do and why they fail elsewhere... is that the correct approximation? I.e. Newtonian physics was the best theory we had until we had a better one. That's how scientific knowledge moves on. Newtonian physics is not fact. Nor is Relativity. It's the best we have at the moment. Hence my point that science does not deal in facts.
That's how I remembered it. Relativity explains why Newton's laws work when they do and why they fail elsewhere... is that the correct approximation? I.e. Newtonian physics was the best theory we had until we had a better one. That's how scientific knowledge moves on. Newtonian physics is not fact. Nor is Relativity. It's the best we have at the moment. Hence my point that science does not deal in facts.
You're right - the only error that you made was talking about "special relativity" rather than just "relativity".
The corrections to Newton and Kepler as regards planetary orbits are effects from general relativity: the anomalous precession of the perihelion of Mercury is caused by the (general relativistic) consequence of Mercury sitting in significantly curved spacetime because it's close to the Sun. This is also the reason that clocks tick at different rates at different altitudes.
(It might amuse you to know that the first generation GPS satellites had a configuration switch that would switch the on-board atomic clocks between their earth-based configuration and the configuration assuming the general relativistic calculation for time dilation in low orbit was correct, because not everyone involved with the project was completely convinced that GR was "correct".)
Special relativistic corrections to Newtonian mechanics are associated with high speeds. That would include things like short-lived radioactive particles having longer lifetimes when they're moving quickly (you see this with muons in cosmic rays and in particle accelerators), and also things like Thomas precession in atomic physics.
That's how I remembered it. Relativity explains why Newton's laws work when they do and why they fail elsewhere... is that the correct approximation? I.e. Newtonian physics was the best theory we had until we had a better one. That's how scientific knowledge moves on. Newtonian physics is not fact. Nor is Relativity. It's the best we have at the moment. Hence my point that science does not deal in facts.
You're right - the only error that you made was talking about "special relativity" rather than just "relativity".
The corrections to Newton and Kepler as regards planetary orbits are effects from general relativity: the anomalous precession of the perihelion of Mercury is caused by the (general relativistic) consequence of Mercury sitting in significantly curved spacetime because it's close to the Sun. This is also the reason that clocks tick at different rates at different altitudes.
(It might amuse you to know that the first generation GPS satellites had a configuration switch that would switch the on-board atomic clocks between their earth-based configuration and the configuration assuming the general relativistic calculation for time dilation in low orbit was correct, because not everyone involved with the project was completely convinced that GR was "correct".)
Special relativistic corrections to Newtonian mechanics are associated with high speeds. That would include things like short-lived radioactive particles having longer lifetimes when they're moving quickly (you see this with muons in cosmic rays and in particle accelerators), and also things like Thomas precession in atomic physics.
Special relativistic corrections to Newtonian mechanics are associated with high speeds. That would include things like short-lived radioactive particles having longer lifetimes when they're moving quickly (you see this with muons in cosmic rays and in particle accelerators), and also things like Thomas precession in atomic physics.
Not quite. The rate at which muons decay doesn't change. What is changed is either the rate at which time passes for the muon (from the frame of reference of an observer watching the muon move) or the distance the muon travels (as seen from the frame of reference of the muon). This is a subtle difference, but it is important.
Special relativistic corrections to Newtonian mechanics are associated with high speeds. That would include things like short-lived radioactive particles having longer lifetimes when they're moving quickly (you see this with muons in cosmic rays and in particle accelerators), and also things like Thomas precession in atomic physics.
Not quite. The rate at which muons decay doesn't change. What is changed is either the rate at which time passes for the muon (from the frame of reference of an observer watching the muon move) or the distance the muon travels (as seen from the frame of reference of the muon). This is a subtle difference, but it is important.
If I'm sitting in a building and watching the rate of decay of a whole load of muons traveling at close to the speed of light, what I observe is that the muon lifetime is extended by the Lorentz factor. This is equivalent to saying that the rate at which time passes for the muon is slower. There is no difference. The statements are equivalent. And yes, sure "or length contraction in the muon frame".
If you make the claim "the rate at which muons decay doesn't change", then you're implicitly defining "the rate at which muons decay" as a measurement in the rest frame of the muon.
Facts in everyday discourse are consensus reality, if it’s disputed by enough people it is no longer accepted as fact and you have to start justifying the assertion you are making. Convince enough people you’re right, and then it becomes a generally accepted fact. Climate change, for example, has in most - but not all countries - reached the status of fact. Gravity is accepted as fact by basically everyone, even though it’s explanation is somewhat mysterious.
Climate change, for example, has in most - but not all countries - reached the status of fact.
There's a difference here, though. Things like climate change and evolution are generally considered facts in the big picture - there is consensus agreement that the human species descended from an ancestor ape that was also the ancestor of the chimpanzee, and so on. There is consensus agreement that the climate is altered by the effects of atmospheric greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, that there has been and will be a significant effect caused by the human production of such gases, and there's some idea of the likely outcomes.
Some of the details - both of climate modeling and of evolution - are unknown and the subject of further study. So these are facts, but they're somewhat fuzzy facts.
Gravity, by contrast, has a precisely-described mathematical model that works at human scales and at astronomical scales. It is known very much more precisely. We don't know how to treat gravity on the quantum scale, and we don't really know what causes the observed existence of a non-zero cosmological constant. ("Dark Energy" isn't an actual explanation.)
Facts in everyday discourse are consensus reality, if it’s disputed by enough people it is no longer accepted as fact and you have to start justifying the assertion you are making. Convince enough people you’re right, and then it becomes a generally accepted fact.
As I was saying there's an ambiguity between facts are things generally accepted as reality and saying facts are reality, which arises because if reality isn't generally accepted as reality we aren't in a position to talk about as though it is.
If someone says we don't know the facts yet, they're using facts in the sense of reality regardless of whether it's accepted or not.
At about 9:15 in this video by a Christian Evolutionary Biologist, he breaks down in detail these four terms as understood and used by Scientists that are often misunderstood and misused by everyone else: Hypothesis, Theory, Law, and Fact.
That video is excellent, I’m going to try to summarise the relevant section:
——summary——
There are several key words that we use in natural language that have technical meanings in science, Fact, Law, Hypothesis, Theory.
Fact has two meanings in science:
Meaning 1: a verifiable observation
Meaning 2: something in science that has been so rigrously tested and consistently supported that there is little utility in questioning its legitimacy.
Law
Meaning: a description, usually mathematical, of phenomena that - as far as we have observed - occur in the exact same way every time under a specific set of circumstances
Hypothesis
Meaning: a testable explanation of a small number of phenomena
Theory
Meaning: an testable explanation of a large number of disparate things that may otherwise appear only loosely related or unrelated.
Theory is the highest form of scientific truth, but will never become a law because a law is a description whilst a theory is an explanation. Via meaning two of fact, it may become a fact over time.
From getting out of bed in the morning to going to bed at night, the fact of gravity is about as everyday as facts can get - to the extent that we don't usually need to think about it at all.
Gravity is also a scientific concept - the subject of investigation and developing theories and descriptions of varying degrees of complexity.
In a hard-to-describe way, gravity is somehow both these things at the same time.
For the two people stuck in a space station for several months longer than planned, the scientific facts of gravity are unchanged - how gravity "works" stays the same - but the everyday fact of gravity is rather different. Getting out of bed in the morning requires a rather different approach.
But they adapt - it's what human beings do. Maybe having things we call "facts" helps. I'm wondering if our familiarity with them means we overlook how facts are a pretty astonishing, distinctly human, way of dealing with the world.
Another everyday activity is washing our hands, at least in cultures that have (or had) reasonable access to water. When, as children, we start learning to wash our hands, do we understand the facts of faecal contamination, or do we believe that dirt is "bad"?
Is there a difference between the things we learn as "facts" and the things we learn as "beliefs"? Does the process of acquiring facts and beliefs depend on trust in the same way?
Another everyday activity is washing our hands, at least in cultures that have (or had) reasonable access to water. When, as children, we start learning to wash our hands, do we understand the facts of faecal contamination, or do we believe that dirt is "bad"?
Is there a difference between the things we learn as "facts" and the things we learn as "beliefs"? Does the process of acquiring facts and beliefs depend on trust in the same way?
This, in itself, is an interesting story. I have heard it told that part of the reason the British Army was successful in building an empire was due to improve sanitation reducing disease and thus making for a much better fighting force. It's important to note in this context that in the 19th century more soldiers died from communicable disease than from battle.
The peculiar odour arising from swampy exhalations and the decomposition of vegetable matter, is very perceptible, and sometimes even offensive…. Here, as might be anticipated, the atmosphere is truly pestilential. “It is under these climactic conditions,” says Dr. Southwood Smith “that the worst forms of epidemics are engendered; the most sudden in their attack, the most rapid in their development, the most general in their prevalence, and the most mortal.” For the most part, adds the same author, these epidemics are strictly endemic, and are confined to particular regions in which they are engendered.
Thus is was this 'miasmic theory' - essentially that the odours were responsible for disease - in the middle of the 19th century that led to the introduction of key sanitation measures that reduced disease.
Certain groups appear to be allowed to present their information as fact (science is guilty of this). We cannot know for sure what is was really like in the Jurassic or Triassic periods. That doesn’t stop what we know being presented as fact. What is said is not prefaced by phrases like this is what we understand it to be like or the evidence suggests that they are right. We only have a small amount of knowledge that is presented are everything. Other groups don’t have that luxury so sound less authoritative.
I can see what you are getting at but don't quite see it that way.
One could argue that the Papal Magisterium had 'that luxury' and much more besides until comparatively recently.
I don't think scientists and palaeontologists are presenting us with what they consider to be cast-iron and incontrovertible 'facts' about conditions in the Triassic or Jurassic (or any other geological epoch) but presenting what they believe to be the best approximation given the available evidence.
Those presentations may be modified over time as new studies take place and new evidence comes to light.
Even in my lifetime depictions of dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures have changed as more studies are carried out. Those depictions were very different again back in the 19th century when serious paleontology was in its infancy.
In 50 or 100 years time there might very well be different approaches and understandingsvof the Triassic and Jurassic than those we have now.
You appear to be complaining that contemporary science has some kind of 'privileged' platform. That may very well be the case. But what would you put in its place?
I would have similar to the phrases I used. The evidence suggests this, we can deuce that.
I presume you mean 'deduce'.
But isn't this what contemporary science does already?
I don't recall seeing any presentations of conditions in the Triassic or Jurassic periods that don't implicitly or explicitly state that they are deductions based on available evidence or current understandings based on interpretations of fossil records etc.
I really don't recognise your caricature of contemporary paleontology or geology here.
And yet I have come across it a lot in discussion on TV and other places. On subjects ranging from the existence of God to how the world functions. Maybe it is atheistic science. They do talk as though they is no doubt. If pushed they will say that they don’t know everything but that is if pushed. Also there is an acceptance that any scientist debating must be right.
Experiences vary. Your could be different from mine.
...
Thus is was this 'miasmic theory' - essentially that the odours were responsible for disease - in the middle of the 19th century that led to the introduction of key sanitation measures that reduced disease.
Effective hygiene measures predate germ theory.
Aye. And partially-effective hygiene measures predate it by thousands of years (as does miasma theory itself).
The Romans were famously fastidious about bathing (having apparently got the idea from the Greeks), but weren't inclined to change the water often, to the extent that there existed medical advice about avoiding the baths if you had an open wound.
The idea that hygiene matters has been around a long time, but could you look at the history of "fact-based hygiene" and "belief-based hygiene" as being two occasionally-overlapping tales, or two versions of one tale?
Certain groups appear to be allowed to present their information as fact (science is guilty of this). We cannot know for sure what is was really like in the Jurassic or Triassic periods. That doesn’t stop what we know being presented as fact. What is said is not prefaced by phrases like this is what we understand it to be like or the evidence suggests that they are right. We only have a small amount of knowledge that is presented are everything. Other groups don’t have that luxury so sound less authoritative.
I can see what you are getting at but don't quite see it that way.
One could argue that the Papal Magisterium had 'that luxury' and much more besides until comparatively recently.
I don't think scientists and palaeontologists are presenting us with what they consider to be cast-iron and incontrovertible 'facts' about conditions in the Triassic or Jurassic (or any other geological epoch) but presenting what they believe to be the best approximation given the available evidence.
Those presentations may be modified over time as new studies take place and new evidence comes to light.
Even in my lifetime depictions of dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures have changed as more studies are carried out. Those depictions were very different again back in the 19th century when serious paleontology was in its infancy.
In 50 or 100 years time there might very well be different approaches and understandingsvof the Triassic and Jurassic than those we have now.
You appear to be complaining that contemporary science has some kind of 'privileged' platform. That may very well be the case. But what would you put in its place?
I would have similar to the phrases I used. The evidence suggests this, we can deuce that.
I presume you mean 'deduce'.
But isn't this what contemporary science does already?
I don't recall seeing any presentations of conditions in the Triassic or Jurassic periods that don't implicitly or explicitly state that they are deductions based on available evidence or current understandings based on interpretations of fossil records etc.
I really don't recognise your caricature of contemporary paleontology or geology here.
And yet I have come across it a lot in discussion on TV and other places. On subjects ranging from the existence of God to how the world functions. Maybe it is atheistic science. They do talk as though they is no doubt. If pushed they will say that they don’t know everything but that is if pushed. Also there is an acceptance that any scientist debating must be right.
Experiences vary. Your could be different from mine.
Perhaps. I don't see any one questioning evolution on science programmes on the telly.
But then, I don't question it either. Only religious fundamentalists seem to do that.
The example I had in mind was a two-part documentary about possible conditions in the Jurassic when there was apparently a flash-flood or similar natural catastrophe along a recently excavated prehistoric river-bed. I felt some of the conclusions were conjectural but there was certainly fossil and other evidence to suggest that the paleontologists broad interpretation of events was probably close to the mark. Some of the detail I found a bit dubious.
There's a lot of conjecture involved, which is why the skeletal structure and possible appearance of prehistoric creatures keeps changing as new evidence comes to light or new discoveries are made or new interpretations applied.
We will never know the exact conditions in Triassic or Jurassic times, of course, but I think there's sufficient evidence that:
- the earth is very old.
- there were creatures around that are now extinct.
- that tectonic shifts have resulted in continental drift.
- that the climate was different back then.
All that is incontrovertible. Whether a dimetrodon was blue, green or red with yellow spots is impossible to say.
The comment from pease reminds me of something. My mother was at one time a teacher of nursing. She sometimes assigned her nursing students to read a passage from the OT about how to cleanse a house in which someone had died of disease (such as scraping the walls and burning the scrapings). Yes, some hygienic efforts predate modern science.
It maybe that the concept of ‘fact’ is too general for what is being discussed. Obviously given the preceding complex discussion of science, as a key to reliable knowledge, a fact for an experimental chemist needs to be precise. But what about the fact that grass is green or seasons change? These are more everyday things all ‘just know’ like 2 plus 2 is 4. It can’t be different on Thursdays. And there are legal situations where the facts are agreed eg there is a body and the person responsible for it is known but it still might not be murder; that must be established through a trial process. Also there are relational situations where we assume ‘fact’ status like Janet is ‘his’ daughter that no one who knows him or Janet would question. Maybe facts in the end are just really assumptions that make life predictable and comfortable for us. (I need coffee.)
Dimetrodon wasn't a dinosaur. It was a Synapsid - allied to mammals rather than reptiles. More closely related to us then them, in fact. Mammals are also Synapsids - the only living ones.
Dimetrodon wasn't a dinosaur. It was a Synapsid - allied to mammals rather than reptiles. More closely related to us then them, in fact. Mammals are also Synapsids - the only living ones.
Dimetrodon wasn't a dinosaur. It was a Synapsid - allied to mammals rather than reptiles. More closely related to us then them, in fact. Mammals are also Synapsids - the only living ones.
Meaning 1: a verifiable observation
Meaning 2: something in science that has been so rigrously tested and consistently supported that there is little utility in questioning its legitimacy.
Whereas belief,
wiki: A belief is a subjective attitude that a proposition is true or a state of affairs is the case. A subjective attitude is a mental state of having some stance, take, or opinion about something.
Science Daily: a conviction of the truth of a proposition without its verification
ChatGPT: In science, a belief is a statement that is not scientifically provable. Beliefs are subjective mental interpretations that are derived from perceptions, reasoning, or communication. They are stronger than baseless opinions, but not as strong as knowledge.
Back to wiki:
In epistemology, philosophers use the term "belief" to refer to attitudes about the world which can be either true or false.
To believe something is to take it to be true; for instance, to believe that snow is white is comparable to accepting the truth of the proposition "snow is white".
However, holding a belief does not require active introspection.
For example, few individuals carefully consider whether or not the sun will rise tomorrow, simply assuming that it will.
Moreover, beliefs need not be occurrent (e.g. a person actively thinking "snow is white"), but can instead be dispositional (e.g. a person who if asked about the color of snow would assert "snow is white").
> I love that word, been using it on SoF for decades<
There are various ways that contemporary philosophers have tried to describe beliefs, including as representations of ways that the world could be (Jerry Fodor), as dispositions to act as if certain things are true (Roderick Chisholm), as interpretive schemes for making sense of someone's actions (Daniel Dennett and Donald Davidson), or as mental states that fill a particular function (Hilary Putnam).
Some have also attempted to offer significant revisions to our notion of belief, including eliminativists about belief who argue that there is no phenomenon in the natural world which corresponds to our folk psychological concept of belief (Paul Churchland)
and formal epistemologists who aim to replace our bivalent notion of belief ("either we have a belief or we don't have a belief") with the more permissive, probabilistic notion of credence ("there is an entire spectrum of degrees of belief, not a simple dichotomy between belief and non-belief").
So, I'm left with coherent justified true beliefs, facts, knowledge as the framework for my theory of being. Which necessarily excludes the Jesus of faith. But includes the historical, natural Jesus. About whom I've felt a thread coming on.
I think it’s important to bear in mind, that the scientific method is only one way of knowing about the world; and is only useful to answer certain kinds of questions. (Some biological reductionists have argued that if we only examined things minutely enough we could predict everything, a) I don’t believe this assertion and b) we are nowhere near having that information in a useable form.)
Science can’t tell me if a picture is beautiful, a decision is just or a whether I am loved. Nor, do I believe, can science answer the question as to whether an entity exists outside its own laws - i.e, science could never explain the supernatural.
In relation to everyday discourse, I was intrigued to see that, according to A Brief History of Facts:
The concept of ‘the fact’ first appears in Renaissance Latin, but the word only entered common usage in the 1660s. The Royal Society, founded in November 1660, was dedicated to experimental knowledge and declared that it would concern itself with ‘facts not explanations’. ‘Facts’ became part of a modern vocabulary for discussing knowledge – also including theories, hypotheses, evidence and experiments – which emerged in the 17th century. All these words existed before, but with different meanings: ‘experiment’, for example, simply meant ‘experience’.
It further points out that "the key point about facts is that they trump authority", and suggests that the authority (authoritativeness) of facts is now on the wane.
I think it’s important to bear in mind, that the scientific method is only one way of knowing about the world; and is only useful to answer certain kinds of questions. (Some biological reductionists have argued that if we only examined things minutely enough we could predict everything, a) I don’t believe this assertion and b) we are nowhere near having that information in a useable form.)
Science can’t tell me if a picture is beautiful, a decision is just or a whether I am loved. Nor, do I believe, can science answer the question as to whether an entity exists outside its own laws - i.e, science could never explain the supernatural.
We know about the world subjectively for sure, by how we feel about it, by how others express their feelings in words, music, art. By the unmeasured senses. By the sea of meaning we ascribe to it. The other magisterium is the vast rock of science that is swirled around by those waters.
I've never met such a biological reductionist. I've met the odd physicist who believed in the theory of everything that would enable us to do that. How utterly absurd. There is no such thing as absolute, objective reality, at either scale, quantum, general or relative, special. We're stuck in the middle.
Science frames, increasingly objectively informs and underwrites beauty, justice and love. Those emergent phenomena are entirely natural. And science doesn't have to answer a question for which there is no basis, no warrant in reality. Science could easily, instantly confirm the supernatural if there were any manifestation of it that was sustained long enough. But yes, it could no more explain such supernature than it can nature ultimately.
I think it’s important to bear in mind, that the scientific method is only one way of knowing about the world; and is only useful to answer certain kinds of questions. (Some biological reductionists have argued that if we only examined things minutely enough we could predict everything, a) I don’t believe this assertion and b) we are nowhere near having that information in a useable form.)
Science can’t tell me if a picture is beautiful, a decision is just or a whether I am loved. Nor, do I believe, can science answer the question as to whether an entity exists outside its own laws - i.e, science could never explain the supernatural.
To the extent that beauty and justice are values significantly influenced by society, I would expect an AI, trained on data sets which reflect the society which you inhabit (which is most of western AI), to be in reasonable agreement with what you consider to be beautiful or just.
I think it’s important to bear in mind, that the scientific method is only one way of knowing about the world; and is only useful to answer certain kinds of questions. (Some biological reductionists have argued that if we only examined things minutely enough we could predict everything, a) I don’t believe this assertion and b) we are nowhere near having that information in a useable form.)
Science can’t tell me if a picture is beautiful, a decision is just or a whether I am loved. Nor, do I believe, can science answer the question as to whether an entity exists outside its own laws - i.e, science could never explain the supernatural.
To the extent that beauty and justice are values significantly influenced by society, I would expect an AI, trained on data sets which reflect the society which you inhabit (which is most of western AI), to be in reasonable agreement with what you consider to be beautiful or just.
Intelligence myths arise from the reliance on metaphors of thinking in building automated systems. These metaphors – learning, understanding, and dreaming – are helpful shorthand. But intelligence myths rely on hazy connections to human psychology. They often conflate AI systems inspired by models of human thought for a capacity to think.
We could maybe discuss this more if anyone was interested.
--
On the main topic, I think we are just discussing the reality that "facts" are almost always dependent on context.
So it is entirely possible for something to be a fact on one level or in one context but not in another. In the contexts in which we need to operate, we need to have a grasp on what level of precision we actually need, and whether the faults in the model we are using actually matter.
"All models are wrong.. but some are useful" as the statisticians say
Science frames, increasingly objectively informs and underwrites beauty, justice and love. Those emergent phenomena are entirely natural.
... and obviously not all of us will agree that those concepts are "entirely natural."
And science doesn't have to answer a question for which there is no basis, no warrant in reality.
Or questions which science is simply not equipped to answer--such as the existence of the supernatural, or of beauty, justice, love, or other abstract concepts.
Science frames, increasingly objectively informs and underwrites beauty, justice and love. Those emergent phenomena are entirely natural.
1) ... and obviously not all of us will agree that those concepts are "entirely natural."
And science doesn't have to answer a question for which there is no basis, no warrant in reality.
2) Or questions which science is simply not equipped to answer--such as the existence of the supernatural, or of beauty, justice, love, or other abstract concepts.
1) Indeed. Although how can it be disagreed?
2) That's no lack of science. Just our capacity for meaningful discourse.
Science frames, increasingly objectively informs and underwrites beauty, justice and love. Those emergent phenomena are entirely natural.
1) ... and obviously not all of us will agree that those concepts are "entirely natural."
And science doesn't have to answer a question for which there is no basis, no warrant in reality.
2) Or questions which science is simply not equipped to answer--such as the existence of the supernatural, or of beauty, justice, love, or other abstract concepts.
1) Indeed. Although how can it be disagreed?
2) That's no lack of science. Just our capacity for meaningful discourse.
1) By saying “I don’t agree that those concepts are entirely natural.”
2) I literally don’t know what you’re trying to say here.
Science frames, increasingly objectively informs and underwrites beauty, justice and love. Those emergent phenomena are entirely natural.
1) ... and obviously not all of us will agree that those concepts are "entirely natural."
And science doesn't have to answer a question for which there is no basis, no warrant in reality.
2) Or questions which science is simply not equipped to answer--such as the existence of the supernatural, or of beauty, justice, love, or other abstract concepts.
1) Indeed. Although how can it be disagreed?
2) That's no lack of science. Just our capacity for meaningful discourse.
1) By saying “I don’t agree that those concepts are entirely natural.”
2) I literally don’t know what you’re trying to say here.
1) In what way are they unnatural?
2) Science wants for nothing in explanatory power. Our imaginations do.
2) Science wants for nothing in explanatory power. Our imaginations do.
But, explanation isn't in a vacuum. If something is explained but no one can comprehend the explanation, is that really explaining something? If we lack the imagination to ask science the right questions or to understand the answer, then isn't science lacking in explanatory power because of our inability to understand?
If the answer given is 42, surely to understand that we need to know the question.
2) Science wants for nothing in explanatory power. Our imaginations do.
But, explanation isn't in a vacuum. If something is explained but no one can comprehend the explanation, is that really explaining something? If we lack the imagination to ask science the right questions or to understand the answer, then isn't science lacking in explanatory power because of our inability to understand?
If the answer given is 42, surely to understand that we need to know the question.
LOL! There is no question. And yes, the answers of science and rationality are ultimately utterly beyond us, very quickly at the quantum and relativistic (dang! I should have used that above, 'at either scale, quantum, general or relative, special') borders. To infinity and beyond. To 5D branes clashing in bulk space. That's not 'their' problem. And it's not our fault. We're stuck in the middle, scratching our very, extremely, limited heads. When we need to get on being kind and grateful. There's nothing else.
Science frames, increasingly objectively informs and underwrites beauty, justice and love. Those emergent phenomena are entirely natural.
1) ... and obviously not all of us will agree that those concepts are "entirely natural."
And science doesn't have to answer a question for which there is no basis, no warrant in reality.
2) Or questions which science is simply not equipped to answer--such as the existence of the supernatural, or of beauty, justice, love, or other abstract concepts.
1) Indeed. Although how can it be disagreed?
2) That's no lack of science. Just our capacity for meaningful discourse.
1) By saying “I don’t agree that those concepts are entirely natural.”
2) I literally don’t know what you’re trying to say here.
1) In what way are they unnatural?
2) Science wants for nothing in explanatory power. Our imaginations do.
You’re the one making the claim that “beauty, justice and love” are “emergent phenomena” that are “entirely natural.” I see no reason to believe this, not least of which that, as I said above, the sciences can’t measure abstract philosophical concepts. That’s not what the sciences actually do.
Science frames, increasingly objectively informs and underwrites beauty, justice and love. Those emergent phenomena are entirely natural.
1) ... and obviously not all of us will agree that those concepts are "entirely natural."
And science doesn't have to answer a question for which there is no basis, no warrant in reality.
2) Or questions which science is simply not equipped to answer--such as the existence of the supernatural, or of beauty, justice, love, or other abstract concepts.
1) Indeed. Although how can it be disagreed?
2) That's no lack of science. Just our capacity for meaningful discourse.
1) By saying “I don’t agree that those concepts are entirely natural.”
2) I literally don’t know what you’re trying to say here.
1) In what way are they unnatural?
2) Science wants for nothing in explanatory power. Our imaginations do.
You’re the one making the claim that “beauty, justice and love” are “emergent phenomena” that are “entirely natural.” I see no reason to believe this, not least of which that, as I said above, the sciences can’t measure abstract philosophical concepts. That’s not what the sciences actually do.
I see no reason to believe otherwise. Especially as none of the above are abstract philosophical concepts. But if they were, how is that unnatural?
I think you are making a god out of science, it’s a useful tool to understand the world in which we live but it’s not the only tool we have nor is it always the most appropriate.
... Fact has two meanings in science:
Meaning 1: a verifiable observation
Meaning 2: something in science that has been so rigrously tested and consistently supported that there is little utility in questioning its legitimacy.
Fortunately for scientific progress, there have long been scientists who treat the second meaning as a challenge.
Intelligence myths arise from the reliance on metaphors of thinking in building automated systems. These metaphors – learning, understanding, and dreaming – are helpful shorthand. But intelligence myths rely on hazy connections to human psychology. They often conflate AI systems inspired by models of human thought for a capacity to think.
We could maybe discuss this more if anyone was interested.
--
On the main topic, I think we are just discussing the reality that "facts" are almost always dependent on context.
So it is entirely possible for something to be a fact on one level or in one context but not in another. In the contexts in which we need to operate, we need to have a grasp on what level of precision we actually need, and whether the faults in the model we are using actually matter.
Something else to take into consideration is who controls the facts and beliefs we use - the authorities concerned (authority in the widest sense of the sources from which we learn). Whose interests are served by defining certain things as facts (by identifying something as being an item of "knowledge" and giving it a name) or presenting facts in certain ways?
For example, what is the effect on our thinking and our attitudes of the concept of "the third world" or "the developing world"?
I think you are making a god out of science, it’s a useful tool to understand the world in which we live but it’s not the only tool we have nor is it always the most appropriate.
I think that's all you've got as rhetoric. We have our entirely natural three legged, rhetorical faculties stool; apart from logos there's ethos and pathos. Logos is slave to pathos at least, and to some extent ethos; justice raises passions. If we just did logos we'd be machines. It's not logos' fault that it shaves pathos and ethos in that order if we let it. And once let, we can't forget the bare face. We can make it four legs with kairos, the essence of humour: timing, and context.
I think you are making a god out out of pathos. Which is no bad thing as a meaning, as a reason to be kind.
Especially as none of the above are abstract philosophical concepts.
Beauty, justice, and love most certainly are abstract philosophical concepts.
But if they were, how is that unnatural?
Science doesn’t determine value judgments, such as how “beautiful” or “just” something is, nor does it measure “love.”
If those concepts have real meaning, and are not merely illusions of “meaning” that have helped the human species survive in one way or another, then that meaning is not to be found in the kind of analysis science does of the physical world. The sciences can help point to how attraction to certain things, and repulsion from others, could help an organism or species to survive, but that’s not the same thing as beauty. The sciences can suggest that certain kinds of behaviors prolong the life of organisms and are viral notions that continue and spread by being useful for the survival of groups of organisms, but that’s not the same thing as genuine, real justice. And, depending on which kind of “love” you mean (affection, friendship, romantic love, charity, filial, parental, and more), science can talk about how various impulses and behaviors can help organisms, groups of organisms, or species survive, but that’s not the same thing as love mattering in the way we usually talk about it. If love is just a survival mechanism, not something with genuine metaphysical meaning, much less a “virtue” (science doesn’t measure whether charity is or is not virtuous—that’s not its job, and it’s not what science does), then as far as I’m concerned, who cares?
Especially as none of the above are abstract philosophical concepts.
b) Beauty, justice, and love most certainly are abstract philosophical concepts.
But if they were, how is that unnatural?
c) Science doesn’t determine value judgments, such as how “beautiful” or “just” something is, nor does it measure “love.”
d) If those concepts have real meaning, and are not merely illusions of “meaning” that have helped the human species survive in one way or another, then that meaning is not to be found in the kind of analysis science does of the physical world. The sciences can help point to how attraction to certain things, and repulsion from others, could help an organism or species to survive, but that’s not the same thing as beauty. The sciences can suggest that certain kinds of behaviors prolong the life of organisms and are viral notions that continue and spread by being useful for the survival of groups of organisms, but that’s not the same thing as genuine, real justice. And, depending on which kind of “love” you mean (affection, friendship, romantic love, charity, filial, parental, and more), science can talk about how various impulses and behaviors can help organisms, groups of organisms, or species survive, but that’s not the same thing as love mattering in the way we usually talk about it.
e) If love is just a survival mechanism, not something with genuine metaphysical meaning, much less a “virtue” (science doesn’t measure whether charity is or is not virtuous—that’s not its job, and it’s not what science does), then as far as I’m concerned, who cares?
a) Absolutely, vive la difference!
b) They are part of everyone's waking moment one way or the other, in their want and limited realisation. Whereas highbrow consideration of them, abstract philosophization, isn't for the lowbrow and isn't much for the highbrow either even when they make a living out of it.
c) It's made significant inroads, just ask ChatGPT 4. Again, what's unnatural about those aspects of consciousness?
d) They don't. That 1st 'If' the sound of one hand clapping.
e) Ah, on the other hand. I care. Or aspire to in the odd semi-enlightened moment. Where somebody else's pain gets through.
Comments
Sorry, not a physicist and desperately trying to remember how it fits together without getting stuck in the whole Special Relativity vs Quantum Mechanics and the Standard Model discussions because
a) I can't remember how it fits together and would have to go look it up
and b) I don't think it germain or helpful to the discussion.
As Newton put it, he was standing on the shoulders of giants. Science advances by new evidence supporting or refuting what we used to think. Newtonian physics is great because it still works for the stuff that it works for. In the context of the nature of facts and truth, I like Newtonian physics because it illustrates a key point. Newton's laws describe a model of how things work and provide testable hypotheses. Whether they actually describe how the world is is a very different question.
AFZ
Newton's Law of Gravity is an approximation to Einstein's General Theory of Relativity where space-time is not significantly curved.
The relationship between General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics is an ongoing field of investigation.
That's how I remembered it. Relativity explains why Newton's laws work when they do and why they fail elsewhere... is that the correct approximation? I.e. Newtonian physics was the best theory we had until we had a better one. That's how scientific knowledge moves on. Newtonian physics is not fact. Nor is Relativity. It's the best we have at the moment. Hence my point that science does not deal in facts.
You're right - the only error that you made was talking about "special relativity" rather than just "relativity".
The corrections to Newton and Kepler as regards planetary orbits are effects from general relativity: the anomalous precession of the perihelion of Mercury is caused by the (general relativistic) consequence of Mercury sitting in significantly curved spacetime because it's close to the Sun. This is also the reason that clocks tick at different rates at different altitudes.
(It might amuse you to know that the first generation GPS satellites had a configuration switch that would switch the on-board atomic clocks between their earth-based configuration and the configuration assuming the general relativistic calculation for time dilation in low orbit was correct, because not everyone involved with the project was completely convinced that GR was "correct".)
Special relativistic corrections to Newtonian mechanics are associated with high speeds. That would include things like short-lived radioactive particles having longer lifetimes when they're moving quickly (you see this with muons in cosmic rays and in particle accelerators), and also things like Thomas precession in atomic physics.
Thank you
Not quite. The rate at which muons decay doesn't change. What is changed is either the rate at which time passes for the muon (from the frame of reference of an observer watching the muon move) or the distance the muon travels (as seen from the frame of reference of the muon). This is a subtle difference, but it is important.
If I'm sitting in a building and watching the rate of decay of a whole load of muons traveling at close to the speed of light, what I observe is that the muon lifetime is extended by the Lorentz factor. This is equivalent to saying that the rate at which time passes for the muon is slower. There is no difference. The statements are equivalent. And yes, sure "or length contraction in the muon frame".
If you make the claim "the rate at which muons decay doesn't change", then you're implicitly defining "the rate at which muons decay" as a measurement in the rest frame of the muon.
There's a difference here, though. Things like climate change and evolution are generally considered facts in the big picture - there is consensus agreement that the human species descended from an ancestor ape that was also the ancestor of the chimpanzee, and so on. There is consensus agreement that the climate is altered by the effects of atmospheric greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, that there has been and will be a significant effect caused by the human production of such gases, and there's some idea of the likely outcomes.
Some of the details - both of climate modeling and of evolution - are unknown and the subject of further study. So these are facts, but they're somewhat fuzzy facts.
Gravity, by contrast, has a precisely-described mathematical model that works at human scales and at astronomical scales. It is known very much more precisely. We don't know how to treat gravity on the quantum scale, and we don't really know what causes the observed existence of a non-zero cosmological constant. ("Dark Energy" isn't an actual explanation.)
If someone says we don't know the facts yet, they're using facts in the sense of reality regardless of whether it's accepted or not.
——summary——
There are several key words that we use in natural language that have technical meanings in science, Fact, Law, Hypothesis, Theory.
Fact has two meanings in science:
Meaning 1: a verifiable observation
Meaning 2: something in science that has been so rigrously tested and consistently supported that there is little utility in questioning its legitimacy.
Law
Meaning: a description, usually mathematical, of phenomena that - as far as we have observed - occur in the exact same way every time under a specific set of circumstances
Hypothesis
Meaning: a testable explanation of a small number of phenomena
Theory
Meaning: an testable explanation of a large number of disparate things that may otherwise appear only loosely related or unrelated.
Theory is the highest form of scientific truth, but will never become a law because a law is a description whilst a theory is an explanation. Via meaning two of fact, it may become a fact over time.
——summary——
From getting out of bed in the morning to going to bed at night, the fact of gravity is about as everyday as facts can get - to the extent that we don't usually need to think about it at all.
Gravity is also a scientific concept - the subject of investigation and developing theories and descriptions of varying degrees of complexity.
In a hard-to-describe way, gravity is somehow both these things at the same time.
For the two people stuck in a space station for several months longer than planned, the scientific facts of gravity are unchanged - how gravity "works" stays the same - but the everyday fact of gravity is rather different. Getting out of bed in the morning requires a rather different approach.
But they adapt - it's what human beings do. Maybe having things we call "facts" helps. I'm wondering if our familiarity with them means we overlook how facts are a pretty astonishing, distinctly human, way of dealing with the world.
Is there a difference between the things we learn as "facts" and the things we learn as "beliefs"? Does the process of acquiring facts and beliefs depend on trust in the same way?
This, in itself, is an interesting story. I have heard it told that part of the reason the British Army was successful in building an empire was due to improve sanitation reducing disease and thus making for a much better fighting force. It's important to note in this context that in the 19th century more soldiers died from communicable disease than from battle.
Looking for some scholastic work on this point I'm came across this thesis entitled "‘The most complete experiment in army hygiene’ British military reform in sanitation from the Crimea to India, A comparative account of sanitary reform in the 19th Century ":
A very short exert, quoting writing from the time:
Thus is was this 'miasmic theory' - essentially that the odours were responsible for disease - in the middle of the 19th century that led to the introduction of key sanitation measures that reduced disease.
Effective hygiene measures predate germ theory.
AFZ
Three kinds of research.
A lot of science is a lot more like the third one than philosophising about science often acknowledges.
And yet I have come across it a lot in discussion on TV and other places. On subjects ranging from the existence of God to how the world functions. Maybe it is atheistic science. They do talk as though they is no doubt. If pushed they will say that they don’t know everything but that is if pushed. Also there is an acceptance that any scientist debating must be right.
Experiences vary. Your could be different from mine.
The Romans were famously fastidious about bathing (having apparently got the idea from the Greeks), but weren't inclined to change the water often, to the extent that there existed medical advice about avoiding the baths if you had an open wound.
The idea that hygiene matters has been around a long time, but could you look at the history of "fact-based hygiene" and "belief-based hygiene" as being two occasionally-overlapping tales, or two versions of one tale?
And I suspect the fourth one isn't that rare.
According to Calvin and Hobbes, scientific progress goes "Boink".
Perhaps. I don't see any one questioning evolution on science programmes on the telly.
But then, I don't question it either. Only religious fundamentalists seem to do that.
The example I had in mind was a two-part documentary about possible conditions in the Jurassic when there was apparently a flash-flood or similar natural catastrophe along a recently excavated prehistoric river-bed. I felt some of the conclusions were conjectural but there was certainly fossil and other evidence to suggest that the paleontologists broad interpretation of events was probably close to the mark. Some of the detail I found a bit dubious.
There's a lot of conjecture involved, which is why the skeletal structure and possible appearance of prehistoric creatures keeps changing as new evidence comes to light or new discoveries are made or new interpretations applied.
We will never know the exact conditions in Triassic or Jurassic times, of course, but I think there's sufficient evidence that:
- the earth is very old.
- there were creatures around that are now extinct.
- that tectonic shifts have resulted in continental drift.
- that the climate was different back then.
All that is incontrovertible. Whether a dimetrodon was blue, green or red with yellow spots is impossible to say.
Well, we're getting there...
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fossil-pigments-reveal-the-true-colors-of-dinosaurs/#:~:text=Our examinations of dozens of,other animals from deep time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinosaur_coloration
https://nhmu.utah.edu/articles/2023/05/how-we-came-see-dinosaurs-color
Dimetrodon wasn't a dinosaur. It was a Synapsid - allied to mammals rather than reptiles. More closely related to us then them, in fact. Mammals are also Synapsids - the only living ones.
Yes.
Gosh.
Who says you don't learn something new every day.
"But facts are beliefs"
(but but only in the epistemological philosophical sense).
Thanks to @Doublethink,
Fact has two meanings in science:
Meaning 1: a verifiable observation
Meaning 2: something in science that has been so rigrously tested and consistently supported that there is little utility in questioning its legitimacy.
Whereas belief,
wiki: A belief is a subjective attitude that a proposition is true or a state of affairs is the case. A subjective attitude is a mental state of having some stance, take, or opinion about something.
Science Daily: a conviction of the truth of a proposition without its verification
ChatGPT: In science, a belief is a statement that is not scientifically provable. Beliefs are subjective mental interpretations that are derived from perceptions, reasoning, or communication. They are stronger than baseless opinions, but not as strong as knowledge.
Back to wiki:
In epistemology, philosophers use the term "belief" to refer to attitudes about the world which can be either true or false.
To believe something is to take it to be true; for instance, to believe that snow is white is comparable to accepting the truth of the proposition "snow is white".
However, holding a belief does not require active introspection.
For example, few individuals carefully consider whether or not the sun will rise tomorrow, simply assuming that it will.
Moreover, beliefs need not be occurrent (e.g. a person actively thinking "snow is white"), but can instead be dispositional (e.g. a person who if asked about the color of snow would assert "snow is white").
> I love that word, been using it on SoF for decades<
There are various ways that contemporary philosophers have tried to describe beliefs, including as representations of ways that the world could be (Jerry Fodor), as dispositions to act as if certain things are true (Roderick Chisholm), as interpretive schemes for making sense of someone's actions (Daniel Dennett and Donald Davidson), or as mental states that fill a particular function (Hilary Putnam).
Some have also attempted to offer significant revisions to our notion of belief, including eliminativists about belief who argue that there is no phenomenon in the natural world which corresponds to our folk psychological concept of belief (Paul Churchland)
and formal epistemologists who aim to replace our bivalent notion of belief ("either we have a belief or we don't have a belief") with the more permissive, probabilistic notion of credence ("there is an entire spectrum of degrees of belief, not a simple dichotomy between belief and non-belief").
So, I'm left with coherent justified true beliefs, facts, knowledge as the framework for my theory of being. Which necessarily excludes the Jesus of faith. But includes the historical, natural Jesus. About whom I've felt a thread coming on.
Science can’t tell me if a picture is beautiful, a decision is just or a whether I am loved. Nor, do I believe, can science answer the question as to whether an entity exists outside its own laws - i.e, science could never explain the supernatural.
It further points out that "the key point about facts is that they trump authority", and suggests that the authority (authoritativeness) of facts is now on the wane.
We know about the world subjectively for sure, by how we feel about it, by how others express their feelings in words, music, art. By the unmeasured senses. By the sea of meaning we ascribe to it. The other magisterium is the vast rock of science that is swirled around by those waters.
I've never met such a biological reductionist. I've met the odd physicist who believed in the theory of everything that would enable us to do that. How utterly absurd. There is no such thing as absolute, objective reality, at either scale, quantum, general or relative, special. We're stuck in the middle.
Science frames, increasingly objectively informs and underwrites beauty, justice and love. Those emergent phenomena are entirely natural. And science doesn't have to answer a question for which there is no basis, no warrant in reality. Science could easily, instantly confirm the supernatural if there were any manifestation of it that was sustained long enough. But yes, it could no more explain such supernature than it can nature ultimately.
Absolutely. And loving.
We could maybe discuss this more if anyone was interested.
--
On the main topic, I think we are just discussing the reality that "facts" are almost always dependent on context.
So it is entirely possible for something to be a fact on one level or in one context but not in another. In the contexts in which we need to operate, we need to have a grasp on what level of precision we actually need, and whether the faults in the model we are using actually matter.
"All models are wrong.. but some are useful" as the statisticians say
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_models_are_wrong
... and obviously not all of us will agree that those concepts are "entirely natural."
Or questions which science is simply not equipped to answer--such as the existence of the supernatural, or of beauty, justice, love, or other abstract concepts.
1) Indeed. Although how can it be disagreed?
2) That's no lack of science. Just our capacity for meaningful discourse.
1) By saying “I don’t agree that those concepts are entirely natural.”
2) I literally don’t know what you’re trying to say here.
1) In what way are they unnatural?
2) Science wants for nothing in explanatory power. Our imaginations do.
If the answer given is 42, surely to understand that we need to know the question.
LOL! There is no question. And yes, the answers of science and rationality are ultimately utterly beyond us, very quickly at the quantum and relativistic (dang! I should have used that above, 'at either scale, quantum, general or relative, special') borders. To infinity and beyond. To 5D branes clashing in bulk space. That's not 'their' problem. And it's not our fault. We're stuck in the middle, scratching our very, extremely, limited heads. When we need to get on being kind and grateful. There's nothing else.
You’re the one making the claim that “beauty, justice and love” are “emergent phenomena” that are “entirely natural.” I see no reason to believe this, not least of which that, as I said above, the sciences can’t measure abstract philosophical concepts. That’s not what the sciences actually do.
I see no reason to believe otherwise. Especially as none of the above are abstract philosophical concepts. But if they were, how is that unnatural?
Something else to take into consideration is who controls the facts and beliefs we use - the authorities concerned (authority in the widest sense of the sources from which we learn). Whose interests are served by defining certain things as facts (by identifying something as being an item of "knowledge" and giving it a name) or presenting facts in certain ways?
For example, what is the effect on our thinking and our attitudes of the concept of "the third world" or "the developing world"?
Or "artificial intelligence"?
I think that's all you've got as rhetoric. We have our entirely natural three legged, rhetorical faculties stool; apart from logos there's ethos and pathos. Logos is slave to pathos at least, and to some extent ethos; justice raises passions. If we just did logos we'd be machines. It's not logos' fault that it shaves pathos and ethos in that order if we let it. And once let, we can't forget the bare face. We can make it four legs with kairos, the essence of humour: timing, and context.
I think you are making a god out out of pathos. Which is no bad thing as a meaning, as a reason to be kind.
Well, we’re at an impasse then. Such is life.
Beauty, justice, and love most certainly are abstract philosophical concepts.
Science doesn’t determine value judgments, such as how “beautiful” or “just” something is, nor does it measure “love.”
If those concepts have real meaning, and are not merely illusions of “meaning” that have helped the human species survive in one way or another, then that meaning is not to be found in the kind of analysis science does of the physical world. The sciences can help point to how attraction to certain things, and repulsion from others, could help an organism or species to survive, but that’s not the same thing as beauty. The sciences can suggest that certain kinds of behaviors prolong the life of organisms and are viral notions that continue and spread by being useful for the survival of groups of organisms, but that’s not the same thing as genuine, real justice. And, depending on which kind of “love” you mean (affection, friendship, romantic love, charity, filial, parental, and more), science can talk about how various impulses and behaviors can help organisms, groups of organisms, or species survive, but that’s not the same thing as love mattering in the way we usually talk about it. If love is just a survival mechanism, not something with genuine metaphysical meaning, much less a “virtue” (science doesn’t measure whether charity is or is not virtuous—that’s not its job, and it’s not what science does), then as far as I’m concerned, who cares?
a) Absolutely, vive la difference!
b) They are part of everyone's waking moment one way or the other, in their want and limited realisation. Whereas highbrow consideration of them, abstract philosophization, isn't for the lowbrow and isn't much for the highbrow either even when they make a living out of it.
c) It's made significant inroads, just ask ChatGPT 4. Again, what's unnatural about those aspects of consciousness?
d) They don't. That 1st 'If' the sound of one hand clapping.
e) Ah, on the other hand. I care. Or aspire to in the odd semi-enlightened moment. Where somebody else's pain gets through.