Submitted by BernardJOrtcutt t3_y6c1wy in philosophy
Gentlerwiserfree t1_it1y34r wrote
Reply to comment by Capital_Net_6438 in /r/philosophy Open Discussion Thread | October 17, 2022 by BernardJOrtcutt
Isn’t this a signified/signifier thing?
I’ve heard of an example about two languages both having a word that more or less means “stool” and a word that more or less means “chair”, but then there’s some kind of seat where one would call it a stool and the other would call it a chair…
Either way, it’s not an issue of authorities.
The “authorities” didn’t decide that Pluto wasn’t a planet. Scientists discovered a celestial body far out in the universe that changed a lot of the models they were operating on, and when they tried to make new models — which are necessary and useful for understanding a lot of things, and for formulating new experiments to learn more things — they realized Pluto didn’t fit.
There’s a book, called “How I killed Pluto and why it had it coming” or something cheesy like that, that’s by the actual scientists involved.
As for colors… define “a color” and “not a color”. Could physicists discover some new aspect of light particles that makes primary colors so much more fundamentally different from secondary colors that it has to change even how these are taught to 4 year olds? I guess it’s possible.
It’s also possible for the evolution of human biology to fall over some tipping point, or for climate change to affect standard air pressure, or something so that the line between “red” and “infrared”, or between “violent” and “ultraviolet”, changes.
But short of that, “green is no longer a color” seems as likely as “five is no longer a number”.
Capital_Net_6438 t1_it20jof wrote
So you’re familiar with some of the further intricacies of the Pluto development. That’s cool. Is it true that Pluto is considered a dwarf planet? If so, that makes the idea that Pluto is not a planet puzzling in a different way. Generally speaking, blank planets are planets, just as far as how English works. I gather the phrase or its elements work differently here.
I don’t see the relevance of multiple languages since the phenomenon (Pluto, thumb, red) is intralinguistic.
You say it’s not an issue of authorities but you elaborate by emphasizing how what happened with Pluto was not a decision. That puzzles me.
I think you’re right that it’s not a matter of authority. I think the international astronomical union could look at the data, make some calculations, and make a false inference. I believe that’s how our concept of planet works. (Unlike say the supreme court’s interpretations of some legal issue, which arguably are dispositive.)
The thing that is distressing to me is how the theoretical adjustments can impact paradigmatic cases.
Don’t know what you mean by a tipping point of human biology. The number example had occurred to me. I gather you think you know that 5 is a number. Isn’t it possible that mathematicians concluded an annual convention just yesterday where they reassessed - as they do every year - how math should be understood? One of their conclusions was that 5 is not a number. It never has been. I assume the proper attitude isn’t to waive that hypothetical assertion out of hand, right? You should go look at the data, inferences etc to see if the whole new theory works. Which I gather is what the astronomers did for Pluto and what I could do for the thumb.
Gentlerwiserfree t1_it26nyc wrote
Mathematicians didn’t decide that 5 is a number.
The fact that you can pick up one rock, then another rock, then another, then another, then another, then stop, means that five is a number.
If some government decided that they were only going to register numbers in binary, or base 3, or base 4, then 5 would still be a number, it would just be written differently (say, as 101, or as V, or as ○, or 五… but it’s still the same number).
Physicists, artists, whoever you’d consider the “authority” on color didn’t decide what wavelengths of light are visible to the human eye.
When light enters the majority of human eyes that are considered “healthy”, the rods and cones in those eyes notice things about the wavelengths of the light, and send signals to the brains they’re connected to, and call it “colors”.
Doctors could decide that actually, colorblind people are the healthy ones, and seeing color is a disease. That wouldn’t change the fact that the majority of human eyes recognize light with 550nm wavelengths as a thing that English calls “green” (some languages don’t have a separate word for “green”, and use the same word for 470nm (“blue”) light as green).
(Tipping point of human biology after which point, humans who can’t detect red outnumber those who can).
Capital_Net_6438 t1_it34az1 wrote
I apologize if i said something to suggest I believe mathematicians made it the case that 5 is a number through some actions of theirs. I definitely do not believe that. But the hypo remains re the mathematician convention etc. That seems intriguing to me. But maybe it doesn't seem like an intriguing hypo to you. Or not possible. Or whatever.
Gentlerwiserfree t1_itb63gk wrote
If “they” didn’t decide that 5 is a number in the first place, how could they change and decide it’s not?
If some group of professors got together and decided to declare that 5 isn’t a number, how could that affect the real world?
They could send out some guidance of how math teachers are supposed to teach differently, but schools would all ignore it. There just isn’t any organization with that kind of power in most of the world.
Even if in, say, North Korea, they decided to try that, it would probably involve creating a new symbol or word for 5.
Math simply does not work if you try to pretend that adding 4+1 is impossible.
I guess the point I’m trying to make is that there is no “they”. There is no board of experts that can make a declaration like that. It’s an extremely childish worldview to believe that there could be (again, aside from places like North Korea).
Humans realizing that they were wrong to label Pluto the same way they labeled Neptune, Uranus, etc. does not affect anything that happens in space. It’s the reverse, actually — when humans realize that their labeling systems are wrong, the humans must change. If a human scientist insists that since they learned xyz when they were a child, xyz must be true, despite evidence, then that human is not a true scientist and is harming humanity.
Saying “Actually, Pluto isn’t really a planet” (that is, “Actually, bodies in space under a certain size have certain properties that make them different from planets”) is no different from saying “Actually, the Earth revolves around the Sun and not the other way around” all those centuries ago.
The whole “dwarf planet” thing was done to placate people who are uncomfortable with science, and that’s something any thinking person should be uncomfortable with.
(Also, if there were a board of scientists that powerful, tobacco would no longer be a thing. If only.)
Capital_Net_6438 t1_itbh3zt wrote
It seems like you are missing the thrust of the number 5 example. Here goes again. Possible: math professors get together to discuss (er) math. Possible: after much deliberation, math professors announce that 5 is not a number. They’ve recalculated, so to speak.
Do you agree the above are possible? So far we’re just talking people doing things of varying degrees of normalcy and weirdness.
Then enters philosophy: how should I as a person who strives to be cognitively responsible, respond? I assume I can’t just waive it out of hand. A lot of weird stuff has been discovered. Allegedly, a spatially located object could be neither in location A, nor B, nor… That’s a thing right? I mean if that weren’t already a thing and physicists announced it tomorrow, I’d say: what the what. Pass the joint, physicists.
Again: what mathematicians say don’t make it so it not so.
Gentlerwiserfree t1_itblnle wrote
Those aren’t possible.
You have no understanding of math or science.
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