Truth is subjective?

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(2019-09-14, 03:48 PM)Stan Woolley Wrote: He’s recently also completed a second PhD in Philosophy.

Yeah I think he's gone through a couple gauntlets! -> I remember him talking about his work at CERN at some point but can't recall exactly when/where that was.

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(2019-09-14, 04:36 PM)nbtruthman Wrote: Maybe it's just that Horgan hasn't fully worked out his ideas here, so they are kind of confused or incoherent. The following quote from his article seems to clearly imply that on this particular scientific and philosophical mind-body problem a one and only true solution simply does not exist - just an array of subjective choices that scientists can freely adopt based on their subjective preferences. That sure looks like "truth is subjective" post-modernism.   


Whereas you found the quote where he suggests the issue is to realize that some problems necessitate the pragmatic engineering approach, just finding the best practical solution among many, all having different tradeoffs. Implying that there in fact may be one and only one true understanding of nature with respect to the problem at hand, but that it may be forever beyond our grasp. 

Which interpretation is his true opinion? Maybe he hasn't defined that yet.   

I think he worded it poorly, but my understanding he's saying any solution just comes down to opinion [with some caveats].

Admittedly he is claiming there is no ultimate solution [so we can pick from a large set of acceptable options], but IMO he's going a bit far. We should be able to narrow down things just by looking at structure - for example whether quantum biology is involved or not.
'Historically, we may regard materialism as a system of dogma set up to combat orthodox dogma...Accordingly we find that, as ancient orthodoxies disintegrate, materialism more and more gives way to scepticism.'

- Bertrand Russell


(This post was last modified: 2019-09-14, 09:21 PM by Sciborg_S_Patel.)
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(2019-09-14, 09:17 PM)Sciborg_S_Patel Wrote: I think he worded it poorly, but my understanding he's saying any solution just comes down to opinion [with some caveats].

Admittedly he is claiming there is no ultimate solution [so we can pick from a large set of acceptable options], but IMO he's going a bit far. We should be able to narrow down things just by looking at structure - for example whether quantum biology is involved or not.

It seems to me there will always be a one true explanation, that reality fundamentally has a oneness to its existence. But, that truth may forever be beyond our intellectual grasp, like for a chimpanzee to understand electronics. The best we can do may sometimes be to choose the candidate that explains the most features or properties or qualities of what is being attempted to be explained. With mind/consciousness that would be the hypothesis that explains the longest list of its immaterial properties that can't be reduced to or derived from physical properties (what can be experimented with by science). Unfortunately, to date there doesn't appear to be even one such scientific hypothesis that can explain even one of the immaterial properties of mind.
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