(January 17, 2022 at 11:27 am)GrandizerII Wrote: But again, something you glazed over here, is that science is rooted in philosophical assumptions. These philosophical assumptions (such as empiricism and the reality of the external world and uniformity) may be "common sense" reasonable, but they are not something you can scientifically justify. You have to assume certain epistemological and metaphysical positions (even if you do so subconsciously) before you can accept the validity and legitimacy of science.
But then the question is, what is special about those positions that underpin science? If we can't justify those via science, but we think they are very reasonable positions to hold, then what does this really say about our worldview?
Wait, I thought that empiricism and uniformity can be scientifically justified.
If person 1 can observe a piece of mineral and collect data on it and person 2 makes the same observations, what does this tell us? It looks like observation is functional which means that empiricism is functional.
You can keep making the same observations on the piece of mineral day after day. This suggests that there is a uniformity. So, it looks like uniformity is functional.
So, statistically speaking, empiricism and uniformity are functional. I say statistically since we keep on observing and keep on adding data and 100% of the time, the data matches the data of the previous day.
