Does theory ladeness mean I have to throw out science...and my senses...?

Darkneos

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https://brucelambert.soc.northwestern.edu/con_proceed/The-theory-ladenness.pdf

So I read about this and how our perception, attention, memory, and interpretation are all affected by assumptions that we make, and also how it poses a problem for science itself. The most troubling was at the end of the link where they say it can override strong sensation in the cases of interpretation and memory.

And...does that mean I can't trust anything science says? I know on some level in spite of that shortcoming we have so much we owe to science and how well it works and what we've done with it. But on the other hand...the evidence is there. How can one trust science when it's shown theories affect how we perceive and interpret reality?

Does this mean solipsism? That other people aren't real? That I can't trust anything I think or remember or see? Would that mean my life is a lie? I was driving today and found myself doubting if everything I saw was real, and even now I find myself doubting if other people are real...

I'm reminded of another answer where I learned about the theory: https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/106476/what-are-the-ontological-implications-of-that-the-universe-is-not-locally-real/106478#106478

I'm not sure what anti-realism is but I find it hard to fight against it.

From the wiki page it means:

In analytic philosophy, anti-realism is the position that the truth of a statement rests on its demonstrability through internal logic mechanisms, such as the context principle or intuitionistic logic, in direct opposition to the realist notion that the truth of a statement rests on its correspondence to an external, independent reality.[1] In anti-realism, this external reality is hypothetical and is not assumed

Anti-realism in its most general sense can be understood as being in contrast to a generic realism, which holds that distinctive objects of a subject-matter exist and have properties independent of one's beliefs and conceptual schemes.

Which to me sounds like solipsism, it sounds like science can't be trusted and my senses either. Is that true? Does that make all learning and experimentation just pointless? Am I living a lie, or even reality for that matter? Nothing makes sense anymore and I feel pretty isolated right now like when I first learned about solipsism and how I can't prove others are real. Now it seems like there is evidence for that with theory ladeness. Does that mean we can't trust doctors or therapists either since they are just operating on their theories and assumptions? How would one get help then? It seems like the more I ponder it the worse the implications get.

Some more evidence about this:

https://web.cortland.edu/russellk/courses/300sci/hdouts/laden.htm#:~:text=In%20philosophy%20of%20science%20the,do%20these%20expectations%20come%20from?

https://web.cortland.edu/russellk/courses/300sci/hdouts/theolad.htm#:~:text='Theory%2Dladenness'%20means%20loaded,brings%20to%20the%20observation%20setting.

jgill

And...does that mean I can't trust anything science says? — Darkneos

Of course not. Science works pretty damn well. If you were an astronaut would you distrust the science that got you to the moon and back? The proof is in the pudding.

L'éléphant

So I read about this and how our perception, attention, memory, and interpretation are all affected by assumptions that we make, and also how it poses a problem for science itself. The most troubling was at the end of the link where they say it can override strong sensation in the cases of interpretation and memory.

And...does that mean I can't trust anything science says? — Darkneos

No. The paper doesn't suggest that we can't trust science. Or the scientific method.
If you pay attention to the bottom-up and top-down (theory) influences that the paper explained, you will understand that when the evidence (facts) are strong, our theory or schema does not override this objective information. Only in cases where the supposedly objective information or facts are ambiguous, then we have the problem of theory-ladenness.

For example, is planet A a planet or a star? Earlier researchers might have missed some crucial information to declare it as a planet, so they said it was a star. But then later researchers have found this crucial information, and so they corrected the findings of the former researchers.

Darkneos

Of course not. Science works pretty damn well. If you were an astronaut would you distrust the science that got you to the moon and back? The proof is in the pudding. — jgill

But the evidence showing how theories can alter our perception...

Darkneos

No. The paper doesn't suggest that we can't trust science. Or the scientific method.
If you pay attention to the bottom-up and top-down (theory) influences that the paper explained, you will understand that when the evidence (facts) are strong, our theory or schema does not override this objective information. Only in cases where the supposedly objective information or facts are ambiguous, then we have the problem of theory-ladenness. — L'éléphant

There's a bit at the end of the paper that shows that theories can override our memory and interpretations even if the data is strong.

noAxioms

I'm reminded of another answer where I learned about the theory: https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/106476/what-are-the-ontological-implications-of-that-the-universe-is-not-locally-real/106478#106478

I'm not sure what anti-realism is but I find it hard to fight against it.

From the wiki page it means:

In analytic philosophy, anti-realism is the position that the truth of a statement rests on its demonstrability through internal logic mechanisms, such as the context principle or intuitionistic logic, in direct opposition to the realist notion that the truth of a statement rests on its correspondence to an external, independent reality.[1] In anti-realism, this external reality is hypothetical and is not assumed — Darkneos

First of all, the finding isn't a theory. It is a more precise set of techniques used to veryify Bell's theorem of some 55 years prior where he proved that the universe was not locally real, and thus not classical. That means it might be local, it might be real, but it cannot be both.

The wiki page concerns philosophical realism. Bell's theorem and the stackexchange link you reference are talking about scientific realism (counterfactual definiteness, or CFD). The principle of CFD says that one can meaningfully speak about the unmeasured state of a system. Things are only real when measured, so for instance, there's no such thing as a photon in flight since it hasn't been measured by anything yet. This principle stands opposed to the principle of locality, which says that the cause of a effect must lie in the past light cone of the effect. No spooky action, so to speak.
Only one of these principles can be true, and no quantum interpretation holds to both of them, and this has been the case since at least 1964.

As for trusting science, I haven't read the first paper.

Wayfarer

does that mean I can't trust anything science says? — Darkneos

You're asking a very big question in this OP, but not a question that science itself can answer, because it’s about judgement. Scientific methods delivered us the systems we interact with to read and write on this Forum, and it works fine. So in that sense you can trust it. But questions of meaning, philosophical questions about the nature of reality and so on, are not necessarily the kinds of issues that science itself can answer. Science assumes a mind-independent reality, but often overlooks the role of the mind in arriving at judgement of it.

But the evidence showing how theories can alter our perception... — Darkneos

Not our perception, our judgement - again a question of meaning. This shows up in physics, subject of the other thread you started: nobody disagrees that quantum theory works, but there's huge disagreement about what it means. The predictions are reliable, but what it's telling us about the nature of reality is another thing altogether.

I'm not sure what anti-realism is but I find it hard to fight against it.

From the wiki page it means:

In analytic philosophy, anti-realism is the position that the truth of a statement rests on its demonstrability through internal logic mechanisms, such as the context principle or intuitionistic logic, in direct opposition to the realist notion that the truth of a statement rests on its correspondence to an external, independent reality. In anti-realism, this external reality is hypothetical and is not assumed — Darkneos

I agree. But you can be a philosophical 'anti-realist' and still be completely realistic when it comes to the practical affairs of life - making a living, paying bills, and so on. What the anti-realist is really point out is that how the world appears to us is in some important way the product of the mind-brain. We perceive but also interpret the sensory data, and those judgements are internal to the mind, such that we don't notice the role our mind plays in constructing what we take to be independently real.

I've found this video very insightful regarding this question. It's exploring basically the same question as you're asking.

Tom Storm

↪Wayfarer

:up:

Joshs

↪Wayfarer

What the anti-realist is really point out is that how the world appears to us is in some important way the product of the mind-brain. We perceive but also interpret the sensory data, and those judgements are internal to the mind, such that we don't notice the role our mind plays in constructing what we take to be independently real — Wayfarer

Would you consider expanding your concept of idealism to include not just the mind but also the body, the organism and perhaps even the inanimate world? There is plenty of work by Merleau-Ponty (corporeal intersubjectivity) and enactivism (sensorimotor coupling) showing how the interpretive and constructive contributions you attribute to the mind are in fact the product of a holistic web of agency that ties together mind and body as an inseparable mesh. It is not strictly speaking the mind that constructs the world, but the embodied organism.

Any organism capable of sensation and movement, even an amoeba, constructs and interprets its world relative to norms of sensorimotor engagement with it. With Barad, Deleuze, Haraway and Rouse we are able to include the inanimate world as itself organized agentially (configurative assemblages) relative to itself, such that one part of the world interprets another by intra-affectiing with it. Expanding your conception of agency would allow you to avoid the charge of anthropocentrism.

Metaphysician Undercover

And...does that mean I can't trust anything science says? — Darkneos

First, science does not say anything, scientists speak.

And of course, anything claimed as "science" ought to be approached with a healthy skepticism just like when the guy on the other end of the phone calling you says "I'm from the Windows department of your computer, you have a problem in here". This is what Socrates demonstrated the need for critical thinking. Unless we have good reason to trust and respect the person making the statements, then we ought not trust what the statement says.

There's a bit at the end of the paper that shows that theories can override our memory and interpretations even if the data is strong. — Darkneos

The way that one's attitude affects what the person remembers, is very interesting. Even a healthy person has a sort of selective memory. And that's the best scenario. A person with mental illness tends to have a creative memory. The person with the creative memory will remember things in a way which would be judged as unreal. Then, there are all sorts of variations between these two extremes.

A lot of it has to do with how a person "attends" to things, how one's attention is focused. And this focusing of one's mind is greatly influenced by one's intentions. For example, if you are speaking to a very selfish person, the person will be "intent on" (meaning having one's attention focused on) strategizing ways to get what they want from you. This will influence the way that they hear what you say. If the selfishness is to the degree of mental illness, the memory will fabricate, according to the strategy one is intend on. When you approach that person later there will be much "you said this", and "you promised me that", which is inconsistent with what you remember.

Wayfarer

Any organism capable of sensation and movement, even an amoeba, constructs and interprets its world relative to norms of sensorimotor engagement with it. With Barad, Deleuze, Haraway and Rouse we are able to include the inanimate world as itself organized agentially (configurative assemblages) relative to itself, such that one part of the world interprets another by intra-affectiing with it. Expanding your conception of agency would allow you to avoid the charge of anthropocentrism. — Joshs

I contemplate the idea that the appearance of organic life is also the appearance of intentionality in rudimentary form, beginning with the physical division of organism and world, even if rudimentary organisms have no conscious sense of self. (I’m reading Mind and World at the moment.) But I see ontological distinctions or gradations between the organic and the inorganic, the sentient and insentient, and between rational and other sentient beings. I don’t believe in extending the idea of agency to the inorganic domain, as I’m not a materialist of any stripe, nouveau or traditional. (That’s why I can deal with biosemiosis, but not pansemiosis.)

The Buddhist view of the significance of human life is relevant to this discussion. In Buddhism, only in human form is release from saṃsāra possible. I suppose that might be considered anthropocentric but in other respects Buddhists have not sought ‘dominion over the whole Earth’ as the Semitic religions have encouraged. (See David Loy, Are Humans Special?)

Does theory ladeness mean I have to throw out science...and my senses...?

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