wCHAP.10

(9/7/98, 9/18/03)

CHAPTER X -- A

SCIENCE AND THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH

Traditionally science has been defined as the search for truth. I take the approach that the motivation for science has been misunderstood from the very beginning. Fortunately, this mistake in goal has not prevented it from accumulating the knowledge necessary to show that the true aim of science should be the search for congruency. I take this to be the same as what E.O. Wilson calls consilience in his book by the same name[1].

I came to my new understanding of science as a result of realizing that there is no absolute reference system against which things can be measured. Rather human beings are the ultimate reference system (HBAURS). However, getting to the above point may be difficult for many persons taught an earlier view. As a result Hans Reichenbach [2] is being used as a source to clarify several issues including the requirement to give up the search for objective truth.

As Reichenbach says, "Sometimes explanation is achieved by assuming some fact that is not or cannot be observed....But the unobserved fact is explanatory only because it shows the observed fact to be the manifestation of a general law....General laws thus can be used for inferences uncovering new facts, and explanation becomes an instrument for supplementing the world of direct experience with inferred objects and occurrences."(p. 7) However, the critical fact to keep in mind is that every observation must be interpreted, and it is the individual human being who must make this interpretation based on their past experience and who they are.

Reichenbach indicates that, "it is an unfortunate matter of fact that human beings are inclined to give answers even when they do not have the means to find correct answers. Scientific explanation demands ample observation and critical thought: the higher the generality aspired to, the greater must be the mass of observational material, and the more critical the thought."(p. 8) But as David Hume points out no amount of observation proves a scientific generalization. It is this fact that at some level has eluded scientists throughout their history. Or, another way of looking at the foregoing is that our faith in general principles must be no stronger than the evidence that supports them.

Reichenbach points out that Ontology, "...is supposed to deal with the ultimate grounds of being." And philosophers at least since Aristotle have used misfocused concepts to prevent the advance in understanding. "The form of the future statue, Aristotle argues, must be in the block of wood before it is carved, otherwise it would not be there later....Form, therefore, must be something. It is obvious that this inference can only be made by the help of vague usage of words."(p. 12) "Pernicious errors through false analogies have been the philosopher's disease at all times."(p. 11) "It has been the tragic result of such analogism that philosophic systems, instead of gradually preparing an approach to a scientific philosophy, have actually barred its development. Aristotle's metaphysics has influenced the thought of two thousand years and is still admired by many a philosopher of our time."(p. 14)

"The philosophy of Plato (427 - 347 BC) is based on one of the strangest and yet most influential philosophical doctrines -- his theory of ideas, so much admired and so intrinsically ontological, arose from the attempt to give an account for the possibility of mathematical knowledge as well as of moral conduct." "Mathematical demonstration has always been regarded as a method of knowledge satisfying the highest standards of truth, and Plato certainly emphasized the superiority of mathematics to all other forms of knowledge."(p. 15)

RESPONSE: Although Reichenbach makes it clear why many scientists have resisted the complete acceptance of the empirical method, he makes the opposite mistake. Because he didn't recognize that Human Beings Are the Ultimate Reference System. He says, "statements [involving measuring or otherwise testing the real world] are called synthetic, an expression which may be translated as informative.... Statements [where the implication does not add anything to the condition] are empty, they are called analytic, an expression which may be translated as self-explanatory."(p. 17)

Suppose one has counted the number of people in a town and found it to be 12. Then they counted the number in another town and found it was 15. You ask how many people live in both towns. I say 27. You tell me this result is empty because I have not added anything to the condition. I have merely performed the analytical process of addition. I say, no. My result is not empty. It is as informative as the statement that there are 12 people in town A.

"Geometrical knowledge, [the mathematician of an earlier age] would argue, stems from the mind, not from observation....Geometrical truth is a product of reason; that makes it superior to empirical truth...."

"The result of this analysis is that reason appears capable of discovering general properties of physical objects. This is, in fact, an amazing consequence."

"In this form the question was asked by Kant, more than two thousand years after Plato's time."

"Plato tells us that apart from physical things there exists a second kind of thing, which he calls ideas....The ideas are superior to physical objects; they exhibit the properties of these objects in a perfect way, and we thus learn more about physical objects by looking at their ideas than by looking at these objects themselves....The discrepancy between the meaning of geometrical concepts and their realizations through physical objects leads Plato to the belief that there must exist ideal objects, or ideal representatives of these meanings. Plato thus arrives at a world of a higher reality than our world of physical things...."(p. 18)

RESPONSE: Plato discovered That Human Beings Are the Ultimate System (HBAURS). His only problem was he couldn't understand that the "ideas" existed only in the minds of human beings, and could therefore not be “perfect.” He also showed the power of symbolic language because language allows us to envision “perfect” things that cannot exist in our empirical world. Because he took concepts to be more real than the things in the empirical world they referred to, the go confused about the notion of reality.

[That one's insights can provide infallible truth] "...was advocated in a somewhat improved version, by Kant; and in fact it could not be replaced by a less mysterious conception before developments in the nineteenth century had led to new discoveries on mathematical grounds, discoveries which ruled out both Plato's and Kant's interpretation of geometry."(p. 20)

"The development of science, with its repeated elimination of older theories and their replacement by new ones, supplies good reasons for such doubts [that current formulations are totally accurate]."(p. 28)

"The philosopher has always been troubled by the unreliability of sense perception...."(p. 29) But all understanding relies on sense perception. It is only with sense perception that we can determine the correctness of our thinking. When we divorce ourselves from it no idea becomes too ridiculous to entertain. With it the most ridiculous idea may turn out to be true!

"Empirical science['s]....result's are regarded, not as absolutely certain, but as highly probable and sufficiently realizable for all practical purposes." "Plato wanted certainty, not the inductive reliability which modern physics regards as its only attainable goal."(p. 30)

RESPONSE: It is this desire for certainty which has led all mystics, philosophers and many scientists astray. Until a person is able to realize that the goal is not certainty, but a SBLIHM (Sustainable Belief that one's LIfe Has Meaning), they are inherently limited in their ability to understand the universe.

Reichenbach paraphrases Plato's ideas as follows, "Instead of observing the stars, we should try to find the laws of their revolution through thinking. The astronomer should 'let the heavens alone' and approach their subject matter by the use of 'the natural gift of reason.' (REPUBLIC VII, pp. 529-530). "Empirical science could not be rejected more strongly than in these words, which express the conviction that knowledge of nature does not require observation and is attainable through reason alone."

"It is the search for certainty which makes the philosopher disregard the contribution of observation to knowledge. Since they want absolutely certain knowledge, they cannot accept the results of observations...they turn to mathematics as the only admissible source of truth."(p. 31)

RESPONSE: But behind this search for certainty is the confusion over ultimate values. Those who search for certainty believe that this certainty will somehow make their life meaningful. It is this confusion over where this FLIHM (Feeling that one's LIfe Has Meaning) comes from that has led past thinkers astray. Once one accepts the vision of a Science of Religion based on the organizing principle "meaning of human life" they have taken a step of revolutionary significance.

"Once empirical observation is abandoned as a source of truth, it is then but a short step to mysticism."(p. 32) "[The mystic] claims possession of some sort of supernatural experience, which presents them with infallible truth through a visionary act."(p. 33)

RESPONSE: But, as I have pointed out it is this search for truth that is misfocused. As long as one thinks of truth, rather than a SBLIHM, as the goal, they are on the wrong path. Until they realize that the goal is a SBLIHM the best they can do is make discoveries that others can more properly use. When congruency is seen as the goal, we then have a way to incorporate efforts to understand in ever deeper ways how the universe works into achieving a SBLIHM for more and more people.

Descartes (1596-1650) "...was extremely troubled by the uncertainty of all knowledge.... Hence: 'I think therefore I am.'"(p. 34) "Later analysis has shown the fallacy in Descartes' argument. The concept of an ego is not so simple a nature as Descartes believed.... The statement 'I think' represents not an observational datum, but the end of long chains of thought which uncover the existence of an ego as distinct from the ego of other persons. Descartes should have said 'there is thought,' thus indicating the sort of detached occurrence of the contents of thought, their emergence independent of acts of volition or other attitudes involving the ego. But then Descartes' inference could no longer be made. If the existence of the ego is not warranted by immediate awareness, its existence cannot be asserted with higher certainty than that of other objects derived by means of plausible additions to observational data."

"Even if the inference were tenable it would not prove very much and could not establish certainty of our knowledge about things other than the ego -- that much is clear through the way Descartes continues the argument. He first infers that because there is an ego there must be God; or else the ego could not have the idea of an infinite being. He goes on to infer that then the things around us must also exist, since otherwise God would be an imposter....The interesting question is: how is it possible that a logical issue, the attainability of certainty, was dealt with by a maze of arguments composed of tricks and theology, arguments that cannot be taken seriously by any scientifically trained reader of our day?"

"It was the search for certainty which made this excellent mathematician drift into such muddled logic."(p. 35)

"The search for certainty is one of the most dangerous sources of error because it is associated with the claim of a superior knowledge."(p. 37)

"All the synthetic statements [i.e., statements about the real world]which experience presents to us, however, are subject to doubt and cannot provide us with absolutely certain knowledge."(p. 38)

RESPONSE: Nor can anything else!

Reichenbach points out that Kant [1724-1804]: "Regarded the axioms of geometry as synthetic a priori [3]." "Kant's philosophy represents the great attempt to prove that there are synthetic a priori truths; ...and historically speaking it represents the last great construction of a rationalist [4] philosophy."(p. 40)

As Reichenbach says, "...if we did not believe in causality, there would be no science."

RESPONSE: For me cause and effect are key concepts for understanding and describing how the universe works. It may turn out that the issues these concepts are designed to deal with are actually quite different from the way we currently think of them. However, for now cause and effect seem to be very useful ideas for discussing and studying the things that happen in the universe. Because the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics discarded cause and effect we see randomness accepted as the fundamental tool for exploring the basic components of reality. I take that as a misapplication of Bohr's insight; “Physics does not tell us what the universe is like, it only tells us what we can know about the universe.” Once one recognizes that Human Beings Are the Ultimate Reference System (HBAURS) it seems to me this provides a better focus for looking at the universe. See Chapter X – C (www.arthurmjackson.com/wchap10c.html) for an in-depth consideration of this aspect of truth and science.

According to Kant, "Everything that happens presupposes something which it follows according to a rule." These rules are discovered by study, experiment, analysis, and deep thought.

(p. 53) Bart Kkosko discusses this issue by saying, "Scientists have never seen a 'causality' in the world....No causal germ in one event unfolds into another event. But the mind, as eighteenth-century philosopher David Hume observed, makes it seem so and inserts the causal links in the event chain." [5]

(p. 233) Bart Kosko continues, "Philosophers have said a lot about cause and effect. Until David Hume most believed in it. After David Hume in about 1800 they no longer believed in it. Hume had said cause was an illusion, a 'sentiment' the mind imposed on the flow of events, a pattern of correlations, a 'constant conjunction of events.' You could replace 'Fire causes heat' with 'If fire, then heat.' I did not like this use of correlation. It was too static. Causality deals with changes." [5]

This is the basic definition of cause and effect. However, like all concepts there is a lot more that can be said. "According to a rule," opens up a big can of worms that includes all of science including religion and all wisdom and knowledge. Some ideas on multifactorial causes such as those involved in physiological medicine and psychological medicine that seem relevant to this point follow: [6]

"In this type of model, causal factors are classified into four types:

1. predisposing, 2. provoking, 3. contributing, 4. symptom-specifying.

"Predisposing factors influence the structure of an organism, usually during its development, thereby determining in large part the degree to which it is vulnerable in the long term to a provoking factor. To produce disorder, factors of both types are necessary: neither is sufficient on its own. In physiological medicine, for example, the degree of a person's susceptibility to a specific infection is a predisposing factor and their exposure to that infection is the provoking one. Contributing factors are of several sorts. Some influence vulnerability in the short term; for example, cold and wet may make a person more vulnerable to infection than they would otherwise be, though only temporarily. Others may increase an individual's likelihood of meeting with a provoking factor; for instance, living in a certain area may determine exposure to a particular pathogen. Others again may exacerbate a disorder already present. Symptom-specifying factors account for the particular form that an illness takes in any one individual. Such factors are often obscure, and the riddle of diverse symptomatology is more often than not left unanswered."

"Whereas a multifactorial model of this sort is usually taken for granted in the field of physiological medicine, it is only in recent years that it has become exploited in psychological medicine."

RESPONSE: It seems to me that the above ideas could be generalized and used to develop a way to explore the various elements involved in any situation where multifactorial causes are involved; i.e., every situation.

"Kant mobilizes the science of his day for the proof that certainty is attainable; and he claims that the philosopher's dream of certainty is borne out by the results of science."(p. 42) "The belief in science has replaced, in large measure, the belief in God.... All the dangers of theology, its dogmatism and its control of thought through the guaranty of certainty, reappear in a philosophy that regards science as infallible."

"...Kant's philosophical system must be conceived as an ideological superstructure erected on the foundation of a physics modeled for an absolute space, an absolute time, and an absolute determinism in nature."

"It is the preconceived aim that makes the philosopher blind to the tacit assumptions they have introduced."(p. 44)

RESPONSE: And, it is the above condition that makes us all vulnerable to being blind to the tacit assumptions we have accepted and bring to our analysis of the issues we face each day. Developing processes to help us overcome this lack of consciousness of our assumptions is an essential responsibility of Science of Ethics.

"Kant claimed he could explain the occurrence of a synthetic a priori through a theory which shows the a priori principles to be necessary conditions of experience. He argues that mere observation does not supply experience, that observation must be ordered and organized before it can become knowledge. The organization of knowledge, according to him, is dependent on the use of certain principles, such as the axioms of geometry and the principles of causality and the conservation of mass, which are innate in the human mind and which we employ as regulative principles in the construction of science. They are, so he concludes, necessarily valid because without them science would be impossible. He calls this proof the transcendental deduction of the synthetic a priori."(p. 45)

RESPONSE: I would agree with him that observation, by itself does not supply experience. Experience is a product of the human reference system -- memory and the tying things together to achieve congruency. It is the mental processing of observation that makes experience significant. But obviously there is nothing certain about any of the results of this mental activity. These ideas were only found and understood through the thought and study of many generations. As Hans Reichenbach makes clear they are a product of human experience, not a truth perceived directly about the universe.

"It must be recognized that Kant's interpretation of the synthetic a priori is widely superior to Plato's analysis of this point. In order to explain how reason can have knowledge of nature, Plato assumes that there exists a world of ideal things which reason perceives and which somehow controls the real objects. No such mysticism is found in Kant."

"Reason has knowledge of the physical world because it shapes the picture we construct of the physical world; that is Kant's argument. The synthetic a priori is of a subjective origin; it is a condition superimposed on human knowledge by the human mind."(p. 45)

"The postulate that experience in the frame of the a priori principles must always be possible is the unwarranted assumption of Kant's system, is the undemonstrable premise on which his system hinges."

"We know that mathematics is analytic and that all applications of mathematics to physical reality, including physical geometry, are of an empirical validity and subject to correction by further experience, in other words, that there is no synthetic a priori."(p. 48)

RESPONSE: This is a truth of fundamental significance, first because so many individuals still do not realize its truth, and second, because until this point is fully recognized one cannot move toward those concepts necessary to establish a Science of Ethics.

"The search for certainty had to burn itself out in the philosophical systems of the past before we were able to envisage a conception of knowledge which does away with all claims to eternal truth."(p. 49)

Reichenbach points out that according to Plato and Socrates: "If a person commits immoral actions, they are ignorant in the same sense that a person who makes a mistake in geometry is ignorant..."

"The conception of virtue as knowledge is... an essentially Greek mode of thought."(p. 52)

RESPONSE: The above is an interesting statement of the issues. However, in a strict sense it is not true. Geometry is analytical while morality in any meaningful terms is empirical. Therefore, it would not be possible to determine in all cases that a behavior was "immoral" until after it was done. The action results from ignorance but it is a different kind of ignorance than that leading to a mistake in geometry. By the same token the more we know about human beings and the components of a SBLIHM, the more likely we can predict those behaviors which will achieve and maintain this state.

"A philosophical system which presents the ethico-cognitive parallelism [i.e., the thesis that virtue is knowledge] in its extreme form is the ethics of Spinoza (1632-1677). In this system, Spinoza goes so far as to imitate Euclid's axiomatic construction of geometry, hoping thus to establish ethics on as firm a ground as that of geometry. Like Euclid he begins with axioms and postulates and then derives theorem after theorem; his ETHICS reads, in fact, like a textbook of geometry. "(p. 53)

"[Spinoza's] ethics is stoical, good is only the intellectual pleasure of knowledge; the happiness derived from emotional satisfaction and the joys of life, though not regarded by him as immoral, appears to him irrelevant with respect to morality and is only recommended, in a moderate dose, as a sort of food for the body, necessary to keep the body capable of doing everything that is in its nature."(p. 54)

RESPONSE: Of course this is the kind of thing I am talking about in the WAYS OF WISDOM. For me the "should" in behavior is derived from the power of the empirical evidence that supports one choice over the others. Any person who is mentally healthy and mature will themselves impose the "should" because the choice is in their long-term best interest.

It is balance in living that is the goal. Many different activities and experiences are necessary to attain and maintain a SBLIHM. That is why the Hindu model of development seems to miss the point. (See Chapter XXIV, "What Can We Learn from the Study of Buddhism and Hinduism?") To think that pleasure seeking is a lower level behavior than the "spiritual quest" fragments the person in ultimately destructive ways. The healthy person combines all those elements throughout their life, though the role of each aspect may change with experience, learning, understanding, and maturity. But of course the foregoing are assumptions that must be tested by study and experimentation.

"From the time of the Stoics the conception of the philosopher as a person without passion has dominated public opinion....What makes life worth living is passion; this rule applies to philosophers, too, and it looks as though Spinoza's unfortunate passion for logic was not so different from the more sensational forms in which passion manifests itself in other persons."(p. 55)

RESPONSE: The foregoing has stated some good ideas very well.

"[Spinoza] earned his living by grinding lenses for eyeglasses and refused to accept an academic position because it would have restricted the liberty of his thoughts."(p. 54)

RESPONSE: I think Spinoza was right on this point. Anyone operating within the establishment as constituted -- past and present -- is hampered from formulating truly advanced ideas. The mind-set required to win a place in the seats of power obstructs one from tackling ideas that deviate significantly from the current thinking, whether in politics, religion, philosophy, or science.

However, the above is not absolute. I have just finished reading A PEOPLE'S CHARTER by James MacGregor Burns and Stewart Burns (Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1991). This book calls for nurturing rights which are truly radical and both of these individuals have successful academic careers and are widely recognized and honored.

"[Spinoza's] conclusions go far beyond the content of his premises."(p. 55) "Ethics is knowledge not only because it is subject to the principles of logical reasoning and admits of the technique of logical proof for the establishment of relations between moral laws -- this is an argument which expresses the conception of Spinoza as well as that of Socrates and Plato."(p. 56)

"Logical derivation is not a means to find ultimate truth, but merely an instrument of connecting different truths."(p. 57) "...there is no cognitive synthetic a priori... mathematics is analytic, and... all mathematical formulations of physical principles are of an empirical nature."(p. 59)

RESPONSE: And, as indicated before, this point must be stated again and again particularly when talking to someone who thinks mathematics accurately models the real world.

Reichenbach indicates that Kant's categorical imperative fails for the same reason his theory of knowledge fails: "it derives from the erroneous conception that reason can establish [as being true] synthetic statements [statements about the world, that inform us about a fact, empirical statements]."(p. 60)

"It is the tragedy of the philosopher of the synthetic a priori that what he advances as the ultimate structure of reason resembles astoundingly the social milieu in which he was imbedded. His cognitive a priori coincides with the physics of his time, his moral a priori, with the ethics of his social class. Let this coincidence be a warning to all those who claim to have found the ultimate truth."(p. 61)

RESPONSE: But, perhaps, an equally important point that we should ponder is the following one. If you want folks to read your books, tell them what they want to hear, or are able to hear. A truly revolutionary message is dismissed because it conflicts too much with the level of thinking of the contemporary person. For over two hundred years Kant has been seen as one of the greatest philosophers produced by Western society.

"Plato's theory of ideas expresses [the] shift of validation from physical to ideal reality."

"Kant develops a similar conception, although it is introduced by less naive arguments....Behind the objects of appearance, he argues, there must be the things in themselves, that is, the things as they are before their incorporation into the principles of geometry, causality, and so on. Like Plato, he arrives at a transcendental world, different from and superior to the world that observation and science unlocks to us."(p. 64)

RESPONSE: As indicated elsewhere for Plato, Kant also got it backwards. There are indeed things in themselves behind the objects of appearance. These things are different from what we observe. We could think of them as superior in some sense to our perception of them. They might be superior in the sense that they have attributes, aspects, characteristics, etc. beyond those currently observable (knowable) to us and possibly to any human being.

However, since superiority is a value that is a product of HBAURS, we could just as easily deem these real objects as inferior and then make up a reason to deem them so. For example we could say that a real thing is inferior to our perception because it just is. However, in our act of perception we grace a thing with all kinds of attributes. We give it standing as a "chair," make it part of a class rather than just a thing standing alone. We observe the designs carved into it; we connect tiny dots of color together to perceive a water fall or floral display. We note that it is comfortable, sturdy, beautifully grained, etc. So we bestow upon it all kinds of attributes that make it superior to a poor, unknown thing.

"I had to set limits to knowledge in order to make a place for faith."(p. 65)

RESPONSE: Ah! There's the rub. Whenever we think faith must be protected from knowledge we are cut off from achieving a SBLIHM. Sustainable is only possible when our faith is held no more firmly than our knowledge justifies and we can test that faith with knowledge from every direction. With additional knowledge our beliefs must be able to change.

Faith is not our goal. It's just an essential aspect of the human condition. But a SBLIHM does not depend on our faith being justified, just the opposite. It depends upon our ability to discard erroneous ideas without changing or discarding the key ideas or concepts that provide the FLIHM. This is what differentiates a FLIHM from a SBLIHM and differentiates erroneous values, behaviors, beliefs from correct, true, proper ones.

"Kant pretends to show in this chapter ["Transcendental Dialectic," from CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON] that when reason is extended beyond the world of appearances, it leads unavoidably to contradictions...and that the only escape from this breakdown of reason consists in a belief in God, freedom, and immortality, as principles holding for a reality behind the visible world."(p. 65)

"When reason is extended beyond the world of appearances, it leads unavoidably to contradiction."

RESPONSE: An interesting idea! I would say that any thinking must lead to contradictions. Anything else would mean we have perfect knowledge of the true nature of the universe. Since it is my thesis that we will never have such knowledge, reason will always lead us to find contradictions which show us our areas of ignorance. Contradiction is not a bad thing, but a good thing. This is really what science and understanding are about. If we say science is the search for congruency, than we must recognize that finding a contradiction has been one of the ways science has advanced.

However, belief in God will not protect one from contradiction. There are more contradictions in that concept than probably any other. Such is also the case with immortality and freedom as they are currently understood in society.

"[Kant's] interpretation of causality and geometry as principles superimposed upon things by a human mind has turned out untenable, too. The causal law, if it holds at all, must hold for things in themselves, since otherwise it could not be used for predictions of future observations: the human mind does not create its observations, but is essentially passive in the act of perception. And geometry, as we know today, describes a property of the physical world."(p. 66)

RESPONSE: It seems to me that Kant was correct in his interpretation of causality and geometry, and that this interpretation when properly understood totally agrees with Hans Reichenbach's position.

But how does the statement --"And geometry, as we know today, describes a property of the physical world." -- square with Reichenbach's statement on p. 222 below. I don't understand! Geometry is a mental construct that must be imposed on the world by that mind. Geometry does not exist independent of mind. All geometries do not describe the universe. We must select the one that does based on empirical evidence.

Cause and effect: In the absence of a reference system any event is just something happening. Cause and effect are concepts dependent on a mind, thinking in a certain way. What is cause and what is effect depends on the interpretation of that mind (in our case HBAURS). Of course we have to always empirically refer back to the "something happening" for the data to analyze, interpret and name. To the degree that our observations, interpretations, etc. are incomplete (and they always are incomplete) our explanations/ theories/ laws/ principles will be in error. This is why knowledge/ understanding is an incremental process and can never be complete or completed.

"...rationalism leads to the conception of idealism... which maintains that ultimate reality is reserved to ideas, whereas physical objects are but poor copies of the ideal ones."(p. 66)

RESPONSE: Of course, the truth is just the opposite. Our ideas of real objects are poor copies of the actual things.

In a certain way Plato was right when he talked about human inability to see the things of the world. He got off the track when he thought of earthly objects as projections of ideal objects in a plane beyond human awareness. But he was right on target when he postulated that the real objects could only imperfectly be perceived by human beings. What a thing "really is" is beyond human knowing. HBAURS makes clear that each thing can only be understood as it relates to humanity (our sense organs, our size, etc.). This relation changes over time as we expand our ability to observe and interpret as the tools of science -- technical and mental/ intellectual -- improve. But no matter how much they improve they can never cross the gap between what a real object is and what we think it is.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831): "...Hegel's system...can be regarded as the extreme of the idealist position....He repeats all the errors of [Plato and Kant] and displays them in such a naive way that his system can be studied as a model of what philosophy should not be."(p. 67)

"[Hegel] called [his] schema the dialectical law. The first stage is called the thesis; the second, the antithesis; and the third, the synthesis."(p. 68)

"The substance of reality is reason."

"Hegel's system depends for its appeal on its odd language."(p. 70)

"I doubt whether Hegel would have acquired his present fame had he not found support outside philosophy, in the economic materialism of Karl Marx (1818-1883)."(p. 71)

"Hegel has been called the successor of Kant; that is a serious misunderstanding of Kant and an unjustified elevation of Hegel."

"...Hegel's system has contributed to the division between scientists and philosophers."(p. 72)

"[Empirical, non-rationalist] philosophers...regard empirical science, and not mathematics, as the ideal form of knowledge; they insist that sense observation is the primary source and the ultimate judge of knowledge, and it is self-deception to believe the human mind to have direct access to any kind of truth other than that of empty logical relations. This type of philosophy is called empiricism."

"The empiricist method differs radically from that of rationalism. Empiricist philosophers do not claim to discover a new kind of knowledge inaccessible to the scientist; they merely study and analyze observational knowledge, be it scientific or commonplace, and try to understand its meaning and its implications. They do not mind if the theory of knowledge thus constructed is called philosophical knowledge: but they regard it as constructed by the same methods as employed by the scientist and refuse to interpret it as the product of a specific philosophical capacity."(p. 74)

RESPONSE: The empiricist philosopher described above is as far from understanding what is going on as the rationalist philosopher. When one says that "sense observation is the primary source and ultimate judge of knowledge" there is a basic sense in which this is true. However, to go from this statement to the idea that, "it is self-deception to believe the human mind to have direct access to any kind of truth other than that of empty logical relations" puts an unwarranted spin on thinking.

It's true that the human mind doesn't have direct access to any kind of truth. More important, truth in this context is probably not even a meaningful word. It's true that any prediction about the universe has to be validated by observation in some way to move beyond speculation. But, logic can provide data to compare with observation just as sense data can. To refer to it as "empty" in my mind is an over reaction against those individuals who thought logic could produce truth.

"Carneades (second century BC) recognized that deduction cannot supply absolutely certain knowledge because it merely derives conclusions from given premises and cannot establish the truth of the axioms. He saw, moreover, that for the purpose of an orientation in everyday life absolute knowledge is unnecessary and that well-established opinion suffices as a basis for actions....Carneades laid the foundations of the empiricist position in an intellectual environment where mathematical certainty was regarded as the only permissible form of knowledge."(p. 76)

RESPONSE: Carneades was very close to the answer. HBAURS means that it is human motives, and human aspirations that are the critical issue, not absolutely certain knowledge. The only place he was deficient was in thinking that "well-established opinion" suffices as a basis for action. The thrust of my Science of Ethics is that choices are improved as empirical study of individuals and cultures proceeds. I believe that the goal of such study should be to clarify which behaviors lead toward a SBLIHM and which do not. This data goes beyond "well-established opinion" for choosing behavior. The foregoing is true just as such is true for understanding any other part of the universe. The WAYS OF WISDOM represent my first tentative steps to organize research and thinking about behavior that leads toward a SBLIHM.

It is only today with an understanding of the necessity of grounding behavior on empirical study, that we are ready to take the next step forward.

"...whereas the rationalist regards the empiricist as morally inferior, the empiricist regards the rationalist as devoid of common sense."

"It was with the rise of modern science, about the year 1600, that empiricism began to assume the form of a positive and well-founded philosophical theory which could enter into successful competition with rationalism."(p. 78)

"We date modern science from the time of Copernicus (1472-1543) and Galileo (1564-1641)." Other key individuals were: Francis Bacon (1561-1626), John Locke (1632-1704), David Hume (1711-1776).(p. 98)

"The conception that perception is the source and the ultimate test of knowledge is the eventual result of [the work of the empiricists of the 1600-1700s]...."

Locke: "Nothing is in the mind that was not previously in the senses.... Hume divides the contents of the mind into impressions and ideas; the impressions are supplied by the senses... and the ideas are recollections of previous impressions."(p. 78)

RESPONSE: Of course these individuals lacked our current understanding of the human body and the way it works. They were able to ignore the fact that we manipulate all sense data so that a perception is a great deal more than raw sense data or memories of past sense data. We cannot ignore the structure of the brain when formulating ideas about knowledge, etc.

"Empiricism reduces the mind to the subordinate role of establishing an order between impressions and ideas; the ordered system is what we call knowledge."

"The function of mind in the construction of knowledge cannot be called subordinate...reason is an indispensable instrument for the organization of knowledge, without which facts of a more abstract kind could not be known. The senses do not show me that the planets move in ellipses around the sun, or that matter consists of atoms; it is sense observation in combination with reasoning that leads to such abstract truths." The foregoing ideas are critically important.

"Bacon saw very clearly the indispensability of reason for an empiricist conception of knowledge."

"What is the addition that reason makes to observational knowledge? We said it is the introduction of abstract relations of order.... Observation informs us about the past and the present; reason foretells the future."(p. 79)

"Bacon saw that reason alone does not have any predictive capacity; it gains it only in combination with observation. The predictive methods of reason are contained in the logical operations by means of which we construct an order into the observational material and derive conclusions. We arrive at prediction through the instrument of the logical derivation. Bacon recognized, furthermore, that if logical derivation is to serve predictive purposes, it cannot be restricted to deductive logic; it must include methods of an inductive logic.

"This distinction, on which the development of modern empiricism hinges, may be made clearer by... [an example] 'all crows so far observed were black, therefore, all crows in the world are black.' The conclusion is not contained in the premise; ....the truth of the conclusion cannot be guaranteed.... An inference of this kind is called inductive inference, or more specifically, an inference of induction by enumeration."(p. 81)

"...it is sense observations in combination with reasoning that leads to...abstract truths." "Observation informs us about the past and the present; reason foretells the future."(p. 80)

RESPONSE: The above seems too pat to me. Observation is not a passive act. It also includes interpretation and brings with it all our experience (which includes all learning and ideas which have been passed on to us). So reason is deeply imbedded in observation. Observation without interpretation is noise.

Reichenbach points out that it was Frances Bacon who gave us: "Knowledge is power."(p. 81)

"It was the Greek ideal of an absolutely certain knowledge, modeled after the pattern of mathematics, which British empiricism had to overcome. That is its historical function, which makes it the pioneer of modern scientific philosophy."(p. 83)

"Locke's empiricism is restricted to the principle that all concepts, even those of mathematics and logic, enter into our mind through experience; and he is not ready to extend it to the thesis that all synthetic knowledge [knowledge about the real world] is validated only by experience."(p. 85)

"[Hume] arrives at the result that all knowledge is either analytic or derived from experience: mathematics and logic are analytic, all synthetic knowledge is derived from experience.... The addition to knowledge supplied by the mind, therefore, is of an empty nature."

RESPONSE: And the foregoing indicates how empty is our thinking when we do not utilize HBAURS and SBLIHM.

"...modern analysis has shown all forms of inductive inference to be reducible to induction by enumeration [all crows seen have been black, therefore, all crows are black], a result which makes it permissible to restrict the discussion of inductive method to this simplest form, as Hume did."(p. 86)

"The possibility of a false conclusion in combination with a true premise proves that the inductive inference does not carry a logical necessity with it. The nonanalytic character of induction is Hume's first thesis."(p. 87)

"...induction cannot be justified by reference to experience, [that] is Hume's second thesis."

Hume: "The inductive inference is unjustifiable. The seriousness of this result must be fully realized. If Hume's thesis is true, our instrument of prediction breaks down; we have no way of anticipating the future."(p. 88)

RESPONSE: "Cannot be justified" depends on what one means by justified. Certainly it can't be justified if one thinks it means certainty. However, if one thinks it means there is never any ability to predict anything then obviously it is a totally erroneous statement. It is clear that we can, in fact, predict the future with varying degrees of success.

We know his criticism has validity. But once we give up the search for certainty, and recognize SBLIHM, we see Hume's insight neither invalidates the empirical process, nor detracts from human well being. The Enlightened Community made up of Enlightened People can still be a viable vision or goal.

"The classical period of empiricism, the period of Bacon, Locke, and Hume, ends with the breakdown of empiricism; for that is what Hume's analysis of induction amounts to."

RESPONSE: "A radical empiricism, therefore, denies the possibility of knowledge." And of course "knowledge" is the key here. What does "knowledge" mean in this context? Philosophers commonly define knowledge as ability to predict. For me knowledge means data, information useful in movement toward achieving a SBLIHM.

"...and we thus are shown the strange aspect of a philosopher who dismisses with a friendly smile the decisive charge he has advanced against the philosophy of empiricism."(p. 89)

RESPONSE: And once again we see obviously erroneous analysis being taken seriously in spite of objective evidence to the contrary. Why Hume lacked the good sense to show where his analysis went wrong has to be a mystery of cosmic proportions. Why anyone else took it seriously has to be an even bigger mystery.

"The philosopher of empiricism wants to know whether or in what sense experience can supply knowledge of the future...."(p. 90)

RESPONSE: The answer is that to the degree that the future is like the past and non-chaotic, to that degree we can have knowledge of the future. To the degree that novel things intrude on the future or old things combine in novel ways we cannot predict. But, since everything is chaotic when judged on a big enough time frame, it becomes clear that prediction is only a short term possibility. But to think that the foregoing somehow invalidates empiricism, does not strike me as clear thinking.

"The empiricist cannot solve the problem [of empirical knowledge]... their attempt to establish empirical knowledge in its own right as derived from sense perception alone breaks down because empirical knowledge presupposes a nonanalytic method, the method of induction, which cannot be regarded as a product of experience.... they cannot account for the method by which empirical knowledge proceeds from the past to the future, that is, they cannot explain the predictive nature of knowledge."(p. 90)

RESPONSE: Hume starts with a mis-perception of the empirical method and uses that error to show that the method is invalid. By looking to theory rather than experience, these thinkers have totally missed the point. By not realizing HBAURS they left out the critical dimension of the human talent of interpretation of whatever observation, evidence they have. Since this material is always partial (and must be), conclusions are always inadequate. But paraphrasing Carneades we can say they are sufficient to achieve a SBLIHM, which is the best that can be hoped for under any circumstances.

"...the empiricist [insists]... that empirical knowledge is derived from sense perception, that reason supplies only analytic relations, and that all synthetic knowledge is of the observational type. Observational knowledge, however, is restricted to the past and present; knowledge of the future is not of the observational type."(p. 91)

RESPONSE: The above is well and good as far as it goes. But empiricists often want to take another step and disregard the importance of the analytical role in developing knowledge. There is no knowledge without analysis. As indicated elsewhere, empiricist philosophers are off on their own fantasy trip and can't be taken too seriously. They have a big piece of the puzzle, but they got stuck in their own assumptions. They got over-excited about the place of sense perception in knowledge, and as a result became tied in knots. Their primary deficiency has been to think that theory must come directly out of sense perception rather than realize that observation is the ultimate test, but is always deeply enmeshed in congruency. It is this deficiency that led to the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum mechanics, Bell's Inequality and the related bull shit around QM theory.

"The modern conception of empiricism has recognized that mistake [when one talks about knowledge of the future, we are talking about something inherently different from knowledge of the past]. Since statements about the future are unjustifiable if they are regarded as being of the same type as statements about the present or the past, we infer that statements about the future must be given a different interpretation; knowledge of the future must be construed as essentially different from knowledge of the past.... we ask what must be the nature of knowledge of the future if statements about the future are to be justifiable."(p. 91)

"...the scientist has never cared very much for the philosopher's interpretation....Indifference to philosophy has turned out to be a wholesome attitude for the scientist.... Success is often with those who act rather than reflect about what they should do."(p. 93)

RESPONSE: The foregoing is worthy of deep pondering. However, quantum theory leads us to recognize that there is no wall between philosophy and science.

"The problem of predictive knowledge... requires a reinterpretation of the nature of knowledge. It was not possible to develop this new conception of knowledge within Newtonian physics. The solution of the problem of induction had to wait for the new interpretation of knowledge which grew from the physics of the twentieth century."(p. 94)

"Greek success in the empirical sciences was limited to those sciences that admitted of the use of mathematical methods. Greek astronomy found its great synopsis in the system of Ptolemy, an Alexandrian of the second century...."

"The conception that the sun was at rest and the earth and planets revolved around it was not unknown to the Greeks. Aristarchus of Samos proposed this heliocentric system about 200 BC, but could not convince his contemporaries of its truth."(p. 96)

"...the idea of the scientific experiment, as distinguished from mere measurement and observation, was not familiar to the Greeks."(p. 97)

"...Descartes, Leibniz, and Kant, though versed in science and themselves contributors to scientific fields, constructed new rationalistic systems superior in method and cogency to those of the ancients."

"What made modern science powerful was the invention of the hypothico-deductive method, the method that constructs an explanation in the form of a mathematical hypothesis from which the observed facts are deducible."(p. 100)

"The mathematical method has given modern physics its predictive power. Whoever speaks of empirical science should not forget that observation and experiment have been capable of building up modern science only because they were combined with mathematical deduction."(p. 103)

"The laws of nature have the structure of mathematical laws, their necessity and universality...."

"How could this power be explained? The answer seemed obvious: there must exist a strict order among all physical happenings which is portrayed by means of mathematical relations, an order expressed through the name of causality."(p. 104)

RESPONSE: Of course with the advent of chaos theory we now better understand the limits of prediction even with a theory of high congruency such as gravitational effects on moving bodies.

Reichenbach tells us about German philosopher and mathematician Baron Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (1646-1716): "Although [Leibniz] saw the analytic nature of deductive logic, he believed that logic cannot only supply but even replace empirical knowledge."(p. 108)

"The answer of rationalism to Hume was given by Kant..."

"[Kant] contends we know for certain that every occurrence has a cause; only the finding of the individual cause is left to observation."(p. 110)

"...Kant's philosophy of the synthetic a priori is untenable."

"The rationalist interpretation of classical physics did not solve the problems raised by the empiricist interpretation...."(p. 113)

"The history of speculative philosophy is the story of the errors of individuals who asked questions they were unable to answer; the answers which they nonetheless gave can be explained only from psychological motives."

"Philosophical systems, at best, have reflected the stage of scientific knowledge of their day; but they have not contributed to the development of science."(p. 117)

RESPONSE: The above does not square with my own understanding of philosophy. My reading of history tells me that science in fact came out of philosophy. When philosophers found a way to form a question in a way it could be tested empirically that led to such testing which laid the basis for a new science. So, the history of speculative philosophy is also the story of science since speculative philosophy gave birth to all of science at least in that science’s initial form. Therefore, I think there is more behind speculative philosophy than Reichenbach suggests.

However, in addition to the above much of philosophy as well as most of religion has led to more confusion than understanding, at least relative to the key issues of human living. The goal of a Science of Ethics is to cut through the confusion.

"There are great mathematicians, physicists, and biologists; but even the greatest among them would have been unable to do their work without the preparation by preceding generations or the help of their contemporaries ....The social character of scientific work is the source of its strength... which is able to discover answers that a single individual could never find."(p. 118)

RESPONSE: One key element of the scientific process is that it provides a feed-back loop. Increased knowledge and understanding help scientists ask better questions, and provides better tools to search for answers. These better answers provide increased knowledge, understanding and tools, etc. Each time new things are observed they influence our understanding of previous explanations. The microscope and telescope are prime examples of new tools that dramatically effected observations and understanding. They effected every aspect of how we currently understand the universe.

It is only because of the past discoveries of science that we have come to the place where a Science of Ethics is possible. Because no folk religion formalized a feed-back loop, they had no way to correct errors except through the general advancement of society. Even Buddhism which was founded on the idea of avoiding speculation was unable to be more than a palliative because it had no mechanism to find a firmer foundation.

Science was able to play the role of the mid-wife to give birth to a Science of Ethics not because its fundamental assumptions required this -- in fact they like religion point in other directions. But because their processes are based on self-corrective procedures the right answers were laid out by those who were looking for other things, and didn't even recognize what they they had found.

Reichenbach tells us that in recent times, "The mathematician, the physicist, or the biologist, who wanted to solve the technical problems of their science, saw themselves unable to find a solution unless they first could answer certain more general, philosophical questions."(p. 119)

"...the philosophy of the systems ends with Kant, and it is a misunderstanding of the history of philosophy to discuss the later systems on a level with those of Kant or Plato."(p. 122)

"...philosophical systems have lost their significance and their function has been taken over by the philosophy of science."(p. 123)

"Ever since the death of Kant in 1804 science has gone through a development, gradual at first and rapidly increasing in tempo, in which it abandoned all absolute truths and preconceived ideas."(p. 125)

RESPONSE: Today, science is divided into scores if not hundreds of little disciplines. In a fundamental way they are all unrelated to each other at the practical level, even though they all fall within the realm of "science" (the search for truth). But of course humanity's greatest need is a system that ties everything together. The feeling of fragmentation in the modern world comes out of our lack of a unifying, congruent system of ideas that joins everything together. This is what a Science of Ethics is supposed to do. If it holds up under close scrutiny and becomes accepted, than we have the opportunity to provide people what they most deeply need -- a SBLIHM. Achieving the foregoing means that each advance of science becomes an advance in providing additional people a feeling that their life has meaning.

Obviously, the search for congruency will continue. Each area of science must expand the way it contributes to and draws from the rest of science. Thus it will share its findings and be influenced in return by the resulting feed-back.

"How do we know that...light rays move along straight lines?"(p. 130)

"It must be realized that there is no means of testing congruence." "There is no way of knowing whether two rods are equal [in length] when they are in different places."(p. 131)

"...congruence [is] not a matter of observation, but definition."(p. 132)

RESPONSE: This is why we are forced to recognize HBAURS. Human beings observe. Human beings measure. Human beings define. Human beings develop assumptions. The true value of all these things is the way they contribute to a SBLIHM. Anything else is conjectural.

Reichenbach mentions that Conventionalism is a philosophical conception introduced by the French mathematician Henri Poincare ["...geometry is a matter of convention and there is no meaning in a statement which purports to describe the geometry of the physical world."]

"...the question of the geometry of physical space is an empirical question."(p. 134)

"From the general theory of relativity [Einstein] derived the conclusion that in astronomical dimensions the natural geometry of space is non-Euclidean."(p. 138)

"It took more than two thousand years to uncover [the fact that philosophers had committed the mistake of regarding as a vision of ideas, or as laws of reason, what is actually the product of habit]; without the work of the mathematician and all its technicalities we would never have been able to break away from established habits and free our minds from alleged laws of reason."

"The historical development of the problem of geometry is a striking illustration of the philosophical potentialities contained in the development of science. The philosopher who claimed to have uncovered the laws of reason rendered a bad service to the theory of knowledge: what they regarded as laws of reason was actually a conditioning of human imagination by the physical structure of the environment in which human beings live. The power of reason must be sought not in rules that reason dictates to our imagination, but in the ability to free ourselves from any kind of rules to which we have been conditioned through experience and tradition. It would never have been possible to overcome the compulsion of established habits by philosophical reflection alone. The versatility of the human mind could not become manifest before the scientist had shown ways of handling structures different from those for which an age-old tradition had trained our minds. On the path to philosophical insight the scientist is the trail blazer."

"The philosophical aspect of geometry has at all times reflected itself in the basic trend of philosophy, and thus philosophy has been strongly influenced in its historical development by that of geometry. Philosophic rationalism, from Plato to Kant, had insisted that all knowledge should be constructed after the pattern of geometry. Rationalist philosophers had build up their argument on an interpretation of geometry which, for more than two thousand years, had remained unquestioned: on the conception that geometry is both a product of reason and descriptive of the physical world. Empiricist philosophers had fought in vain against this argument; rationalists had the mathematician on their side, and the battle against their logic appeared hopeless. With the discovery of non-Euclidean geometries the situation was reversed. Mathematicians discovered that what they could prove was merely the system of mathematical implication, of if-then relations leading from the axioms of geometry to its theorems. They no longer felt entitled to assert the axioms as true, and they left this assertion to the physicist. Mathematical geometry was thus reduced to analytic truth, and the synthetic part of geometry was surrendered to empirical science. Rationalist philosophers had lost their most powerful ally, and the path was free for empiricism."(p. 141)

"Truth is not a sufficient weapon to outlaw error -- or rather, the intellectual recognition of truth does not always endow the human mind with the strength to resist the deep-rooted emotional appeal of the search for certainty."

"But truth is a powerful weapon, and it has at all times collected followers among the best. There is good evidence that the circle of its followers is growing larger and larger. And perhaps that is all that can be hoped for."(p. 143)

RESPONSE: Truth is something everyone claims as their own: the rationalist, the supernatural mystic, the fundamentalist of every stripe. A Science of Ethics must draw from a broader knowledge and understanding to develop a more powerful vision that will attract the resources to make it achievable. Without the foregoing the human species is doomed to be just another failed experiment. This is why we need better tools for producing better people. The Enlightened Community, the Enlightened Person, a SBLIHM are all tools of potential great power to help people avoid the more obvious pitfalls of the past. Perhaps, these concepts can even help us avoid some of the pitfalls the future will bring, and, perhaps, even find the "light at the end of the tunnel." In other words to build cultures that have a kind of stability comparable to that achieved by proto-humans during the millions of years of their hunter-gatherer phase. This stability will exist as a result of joining each individual to their community in a way that allows and encourages them to achieve their full positive potential, become their best self.

"[Philosophy] is the clarification of meanings through logical analysis...."(p. 145)

TIME: "Uniform time...is some time-flow which the astronomer projects into the observable data by reference to mathematical equations."

"There is only one way to escape a circularity [regarding the uniformity of time]...namely, to regard the question of uniform time not as a matter of cognition, but of definition. We must not ask whether it is true that the time of the astronomer is uniform; we must say that astronomic time defines uniform time."(p. 146)

RESPONSE: The foregoing is a prime example of HBAURS.

Reichenbach indicates that time order can be determined because some events are irreversible such as: burning, breaking, mixing. And because time flows only in one direction in this portion of the universe.

"The relation of time order...is reducible to the relation of cause and effect."(p. 148)

"The fact that the relation of causality established a serial order of physical events constitutes one of the fundamental features of the world in which we live."(p. 149)

"Time order reflects the causal order of the universe."

"We call two events simultaneous if neither of them is earlier or later than the other."(p. 150)

RESPONSE: Simultaneity is a prime example of HBAURS. It requires an observer. Therefore it depends on HBAURS.

"According to Einstein there can be no faster signal than light....and we have as little reason to question it as we have to question the principle of the conservation of energy."(p. 153)

RESPONSE: If all knowledge is empirical shouldn't we question both? More than that shouldn't we assume with some confidence in our assumption, that both of these ideas are in fact deficient; i.e., limited in their application?

"...because in our world the speed of causal transmission is limited, there is no absolute simultaneity."

"Time, like space, is not an ideal entity of Platonic existence perceived by an act of vision, or a subjective form of order imposed upon the world by the human observer, as Kant believed."(p. 154)

"...time is real in the sense space is real, and our knowledge of time is not a priori, but the result of observation."(p. 155)

RESPONSE: Actually all of the above are due to interpretation and we don't know what the hell we're really observing!

"The idea of causality has stood in the foreground of every theory of knowledge of modern times."

"...by a causal law the scientist understands a relation of the form if-then, with the addition that the same relation holds at all times."(p. 157)

"Since repetition is all that distinguishes the causal law from a mere coincidence, the meaning of causal relation consists in the statement of an exceptionless repetition -- it is unnecessary to assume that it means more. The idea that a cause is connected with its effect by a sort of hidden string, that the effect is forced to follow the cause, is anthropomorphism in its origin and is dispensable; if-then-always is all that is meant by a causal relation."(p. 158)

RESPONSE: Everything we know is anthropomorphic. That's what HBAURS means. Those who think they can avoid anthropomorphism delude themselves and introduce a more subtle anthropomorphism, because it cannot, ever be removed. To deny the "string" that joins a cause to its effect, strikes me as self-limiting.

"The interpretation of causality in terms of generality, clearly formulated in the writings of David Hume, is now generally accepted by the scientist. Laws of nature are for the scientist statements of an exceptionless repetition -- not more. This analysis not only clarifies the meaning of causality; it also opens the path for an extension of causality which has turned out to be indispensable for the understanding of modern science."

"Everybody knows that heat flows from the hotter body to the colder one, and not vice, versa....The fact that...heat energy moves in only one direction, must be formulated as an independent law; it is this law which we call the law of irreversibility. The physicist often calls it the second principle of thermodynamics, reserving the name of the first principle to the law of the conservation of energy."(p. 159)

"It was the discovery of the Vienna physicist Boltzmann that the principle of irreversibility is explainable through statistical considerations."(p. 160)

"What was before a strict law of nature has been revealed as being merely a statistical law; the certainty of the law of nature has been replaced by a high probability. With this result the theory of causality entered into a new stage."(p. 162)

RESPONSE: Since I don't accept the idea that probability is a "cause" in the world of the quantum (or, is in fact, a solidly based mathematical concept), I am not impressed with Boltzmann's contribution to the understanding of causality. In addition, it seems to me that Hume's ideas about cause and effect totally missed the point. Cause and effect depend upon HBAURS. They depend upon interpretation. When physicists adopted these ideas to deal with quantum phenomena they opened a can of worms that hinders rather than helps us understand the nature of the quantum world.

"The physics of the twentieth century, with its analysis of atomic occurrence in terms of Planck's concept of the quantum... gave the answer. From the investigations of modern quantum mechanics we know that the individual atomic occurrences do not lend themselves to causal interpretations and are merely controlled by probability laws.... the laws of probability take over the place once occupied by the law of causality."(p. 163)

RESPONSE: Probability is analytical. Its empirical value must be proven by observation. Even under the best of circumstances, it only describes. It does not explain. I believe a formulation based on chaos theory is the tool that needs to be used here.

"The probability law is an if-then-in-a-certain percentage relation."(p. 164)

"After these discoveries [of quantum mechanics] it is even more obvious that no philosopher can evade the concept of probability, if they want to understand the structure of knowledge."

"The empiricist of modern times derives their most conclusive arguments from mathematical physics."(p. 165)

"[Reasoning] can offer possible explanations; whether the explanation is true, however, cannot be found out by reasoning, but must be left to observation."

"...imagination uninhibited by some test through experiment opens the door to empty speculation."(p. 167)

"The industrial achievements of chemistry would have been impossible without the theory of the atom."(p. 168)

"Physical theories give an account of the observational knowledge of their time; they cannot claim to be eternal truths."(p. 170)

RESPONSE: Exactly!

"At about the end of the nineteenth century physics had reached an apparently final stage: light and matter, the two great manifestations of physical reality, seemed to be known in their ultimate structure. Light consisted of waves and matter of atoms. Anyone who dared to question these foundations of the science of physics would have been regarded as a dilettante, or an eccentric, and no serious scientist would have taken the trouble to argue with them."(p. 170)

RESPONSE: And, this is an example of the observation that science moves from paradigm to paradigm and during the time a paradigm is accepted by and large it is immune from examination. Hopefully, a Science of Ethics would make space for the existence of a “loyal opposition” to make these transitions easier, faster, and the times of transition more productive.

Louis de Broglie "ventured the idea that [light and matter] consists both of particles and of waves."

Dual nature of matter/energy: "...contradictory theories can be helpful only because there exists, though unknown at the time, a better theory which comprehends all observational data and is free from contradiction."(p. 173)

RESPONSE: I would agree.

"...Born suggested the idea that the waves do not constitute anything material at all but represent probabilities. His interpretation gave the problem of the atom an unexpected turn: the elementary entities were assumed to be particles, whose behavior was controlled not by causal laws, but by probability laws of a form resembling waves as far as their mathematical structure was concerned. In this interpretation the waves do not have the reality of material objects, but only that of mathematical quantities."(p. 174)

"With Born's and Heisenberg's discoveries the step was made that led from a causal interpretation of the microcosm to a statistical interpretation."

"...the if-then of classical physics was replaced by an if-then in a certain percentage."

"...Born's interpretation [probability waves] supplies only one aspect of the problem; it is also possible to regard the waves as physically real, a conception for which no particles exist. There is no way of discriminating between the two interpretations, because Heisenberg's indeterminacy makes any crucial experiment impossible; that is, it excludes experiments precise enough to tell whether one interpretation is true and the other is false."

"...de Broglie's discovery... has the indirect meaning that the same physical reality admits of two possible interpretations, each of which is as true as the other, although the two cannot be combined into one picture."(p. 175)

RESPONSE: What de Broglie's ideas mean today does not tell us what they will mean tomorrow. The superstructure that has been built up to support the Copenhagen Interpretation might be swept away any day. No matter how long it endures, that does not prove that it is true, only that it has a satisfactory fit for the experiments, observations, and analysis of the day.

De Broglie's discovery, "...is, in fact, the final [i.e., current] outcome of the controversy between the adherents of waves and of corpuscles, which began with Huyghens and Newton and, after a development of centuries, climaxed in the quantum mechanics of de Broglie, Schrodinger, Born, Heisenberg, and Bohr: the question what is matter cannot be answered by physical experiments alone, but requires a philosophical analysis of physics. Its answer is seen to be dependent on the question what is knowledge. The philosophic thought which stood at the cradle of atomism was replaced in the course of the nineteenth century by experimental analysis; but research finally reached a stage of complication which called for a return to philosophical investigation. The philosophy of this investigation, however, could not be supplied by mere speculation; only a scientific philosophy was able to come to the assistance of the physicist. In order to understand this latest development we shall have to inquire into the meaning of statements about the physical world."

"Knowledge begins with observation: our senses tell us what exists outside our bodies. But we are not satisfied with what we observe; we want to know more, to inquire into things that we do not observe directly. We reach this objective by means of thought operations, which connect the observational data and accounts for them in terms of unobserved things."(p. 176)

RESPONSE: To say that knowledge begins with observation seems to me a mistake. First there must be an observer. The physical attributes of the observer play an essential role in observation. Therefore, the knowledge obtained by the observation will depend on the observer. To overlook this essential fact, puts a bad spin on thinking about this issue.

"Science requires a reinterpretation of the knowledge of everyday life, because knowledge is ultimately of the same nature whether it concerns concrete objects or the constructs of scientific thought."(p. 177)

RESPONSE: It seems to me the foregoing is an alternative way to state the HBAURS concept.

"The Greek philosopher Protagoras, the chief of the Sophists, was known for this principle of subjectivity, which he formulated as follows 'The human being is the measure of all things, of things that are that they are, and of things that are not that they are not.' We do not know exactly what he meant by this truly sophisticated statement, but let us assume he would have said...'the house exists only when I look at it, but when I don't look at it, it always vanishes.'"(p. 178)

"There remains only one way out of this difficulty. We must regard our statements about unobserved objects not as verifiable statements, but as conventions, which we introduce because of the great simplification of language. What we know is that if this convention is introduced it can be carried through without contradiction; that if we assume the unobserved objects to be identical with the observed ones, we arrive at a system of physical laws which hold for both observed and unobserved objects."(p. 179)

RESPONSE: I doubt that Protagoras was a solipsist. I think he was actually expressing HBAURS.

"Physical reality admits of a class of equivalent descriptions; we choose one for the sake of convenience, and this choice rests upon a convention only, that is, on an arbitrary decision."(p. 180)

RESPONSE: However, at a deeper level that description is superior which is congruent with and/or explains the most facts. At a given point in time it may not seem that the evidence, effects, congruency, favors one choice over the other. However, as the data accumulates, at some point it becomes clear that one description is superior to the other, or more likely that a new description is actually needed.

"...a scientific understanding of the problem of unobserved objects begins with the statement that a description of unobserved objects through a normal system is possible."

"...the experiences of generations of people have proved it."(p. 181)

"...for particles we do not have a normal system."(p. 183)

"The question arises whether there do not exist other ways [than direct measurement with light rays] of determining the unmeasured quantity, methods through which the unmeasured quantity is related indirectly to the observed quantities. This would be possible if we could assume that the unobserved quantities follow the same laws as the observed ones. The analysis of quantum mechanics, however, has given a negative answer; the unobserved objects do not follow the same laws as the observed ones in so far as a specific difference arises with respect to causality. The relations controlling unobserved objects violate the postulates of causality; they lead to causal anomalies."(p. 183)

RESPONSE: Put me down as a skeptic. I continue to doubt that quantum mechanics as it is currently formulated has captured the true essence of quantum particles/ waves. I think it flunks the congruency test.

"[The] breakdown of causality makes it impossible to speak of unobserved objects of the microcosm in the same sense as of the macrocosm."(p. 185)

RESPONSE: As I've said over and over in many places, I personally doubt the current interpretations of quantum mechanics relative to the above issue. I think that the physicists who have attempted to understand quantum phenomena have lacked critical data. Also, they were attempting to find consistency within the realm of their current thinking and were not able to jump to a whole different plane necessary to reach a higher level consistency.

"In the world of small things....a reasonable supplementation of the observables cannot be constructed. The unobservables, whether introduced as particles or as waves, behave unreasonably, violating the established laws of causality. There exists no normal system for the interpretation of the unobservables, and we cannot speak of unobservables in the same sense as is implied for the world of everyday life."

"...the unobservables of atomic dimensions, unlike those of the world at large, cannot be uniquely determined by the postulate of a normal system -- because there exists no such system."(p. 186)

"It is a fundamental fact that there is no normal system for the interpretation of quantum-mechanical unobservables and that we have to resort to different languages when we wish to avoid anomalies for different occurances -- this is the empirical content of the principle of complementarity."

"A different approach has been made by the help of a revision of logic. Instead of a duality or complementarity of language, a language of a more comprehensive form has been constructed, wide enough in its logical structure to be adoptable to the peculiarities of the quantum-mechanical microcosm. Our usual language is based on a two-valued logic, that is, on the logic of the two truth values "truth" and "falsehood." It is possible to construct a three-valued logic, which possesses an intermediate truth value of indeterminacy; in this logic, statements are either true or false or indeterminate. By the help of such a logic, quantum mechanics can be written in a sort of neutral language, which does not speak of waves or corpuscles, but speaks of...collisions, and leaves it indeterminate what happens on the path between two collisions. This logic appears to be the ultimate form of the physics of the quanta -- humanly speaking."(p. 188)

RESPONSE: When fuzzy logic and chaos theory are applied to the realm of the quantum, I expect to see a much better understanding achieved.

To say, "...'we shall never know' means arrogating to oneself, in the guise of humbleness, the ability of anticipating future scientific developments."

"To ask how matter was generated from nothing, or to ask for a first cause, in the sense of a cause of the first event, or of the universe as a whole, is not a meaningful question. Explanation in terms of causes means pointing out a previous event that is connected with the later event in terms of general laws. If there were a first event, it could not have a cause, and it would not be meaningful to ask for an explanation. But there need not have been a first event; we can imagine that every event was preceded by an earlier event, and that time has no beginning."(p. 207)

RESPONSE: Dealing with "first causes" has always been a tricky proposition. When scientists seek for causes there is no way of knowing when they have reached the point beyond which answers can no longer be obtained. Therefore, they must always assume that they are dealing with caused events that were themselves caused. If we should ever get to an uncaused event that will truly be a new day!

"One who searches for truth must not appease this urge by giving up to the narcotic of belief. Science is its own master and recognizes no authority beyond its confines."(p. 214)

RESPONSE: Within some limits the foregoing is certainly true. But the whole goal of the FOURTH WAY OF WISDOM -- Recognize and understand the importance and necessity of faith/belief -- is to make clear that all positions rest on faith and belief when pursued deeply enough. The only question is, is it a justified belief or not? Presumably Dr. Reichenbach is talking above about unjustified beliefs (blind faith).

Science like everything else is based on faith and belief. The revolutionary aspect of science is that all belief must be open to empirical verification. Only as much faith is justified as the quality/quantity of empirical validation support. Because scientists have not recognized that their truths are based on faith they have frequently behaved like true believers rather than scientists.

Obviously, “useless” and “useful” as Peirce uses them here depends on interpretation. In the realm of human progress there are no useless things since the benefit of knowledge cannot be known in advance. If any fact or information truly turns out to be useless that in itself is a very useful fact. In fact it seems clear to me that most of what is perceived as “useful” at any give time would not have been known prior to the efforts of individuals willing to examine the “useless.”

Part of the problem with science is that scientists have been led to believe that "science is its own master and should recognize no authority beyond its confines." They have not been shown the dual responsibility of their mission. Scientists must be as aware of their social needs and responsibility as any other citizen. Science is not the ultimate authority, though each scientist must be true to the search in which they are engaged. Ultimately, they must function within the "authority" (i.e., the demonstrated knowledge of what is in their long-term best interest) of a Science of Ethics like everyone else.

In reality science must look to the findings of the Science of Religion for guidance as must all other human institutions. The truths of the Science of Religion are the ultimate authority and must provide the guidance to help science be true to its mission rather than bask in self adulation as it has done from time-to-time.

"The decisive step in the proof [that mathematics and logic are ultimately identical] was made by [Bertrand] Russell's definition of number. Russell showed that the integers... can be defined in terms of the fundamental concepts of logic alone."(p. 221)

"With his reduction of mathematics to logic, Russell completed an evolution which began with the development of geometry and which [is] described above as a disintegration of the synthetic a priori. Kant believed not only geometry but also arithmetic to be of a synthetic a priori nature. With his proof that the fundamentals of arithmetic are derivable from pure logic, Russell has shown that mathematical necessity is of an analytic nature. There is no synthetic a priori in mathematics."

"But if logic is analytic, it is empty; that is, it does not express properties of physical objects. Rationalist philosophers have repeatedly tried to regard logic as a science descriptive of some general properties of the world, as a science of being, or ontology.... Logic formulates rules of language -- that is why logic is analytic and empty."(p. 222)

RESPONSE: To say, "logic...does not express properties of physical objects," seems an over-statement. More correctly one should say, logic does not necessarily express properties of physical objects. One must look at the world to observe whether or not there is an identity between logic and practice. In some circumstances the two may be the same. To the degree that logic or mathematics captures reality, logic will express a property of physical objects. So, too, does our conclusion that "all crows are black," depend for its truth on observation.

"Empirical science, though making wide use of deductive operations, in addition calls for a second form of logic, which because of its use of inductive operations is named inductive logic."

"What distinguishes the inductive inference from a deductive one is the fact that it is not empty, that it leads to conclusions not contained in the premises. [All crows this far observed have been black; therefore, all crows are black.]"

"But this method cannot supply logical necessity...its conclusions may be false, and the reliability of deductive logic is unattainable for predictive knowledge."(p. 229)

"...observational facts can make a theory only probable but will never make it absolutely certain."(p. 231)

RESPONSE: But of course certainty is not necessary in my Science of Ethics. The purpose of knowledge is to improve the quality of human life not provide certainty.

"The act of discovery escapes logical analysis; there are no logical rules in terms of which a 'discovery machine' could be constructed that would take over the creative function of the genius."(p. 231)

RESPONSE: Certainly at some point artificial intelligence will produce machines capable of invention and discovery. Whether or not they will ever "take over the creative function of the genius" remains to be seen.

"Between an empiricist philosophy and a solution of the problem of induction stands Hume's criticism of the inductive inference, which shows that induction is neither a priori nor a posteriori [i.e., neither from generalization to particular instances, nor from particular instances to a generalization]."(p. 237)

"The concept of posit [7] is the key to the understanding of predictive knowledge.... A predictive statement is a posit; instead of knowing its truth we know only its rating, which is measured in terms of its probability."

"The interpretation of predictive statements as posits solves the last problem that remains for an empiricist conception of knowledge: the problem of induction."(p. 241)

"Empiricism broke down under Hume's criticism of induction, because it had not freed itself from a fundamental rationalist postulate, the postulate that all knowledge must be demonstrable as true. For this conception the inductive method is unjustifiable, since there exists no proof that it will lead to true conclusions. It is different when the predictive conclusion is regarded as a posit. In this interpretation it does not require a proof that it is true; all that can be asked for is a proof that it is a good posit, or even the best posit available. Such a proof can be given, and the inductive problem can thus be solved."(p. 242)

"...the justification of induction is that it is the best instrument of action known to us."(p. 246)

"The empiricist is allowed to use a synthetic principle [i.e., involving measuring or otherwise testing the real world], because they do not assert that the principle is true or must lead to true conclusions or to correct probabilities or to any kind of success; all they assert is that employing the principle is the best they can do."(p. 247)

"The quandaries of empiricism, formulated in David Hume's skepticism, were the product of misinterpretation of knowledge and vanish for a correct interpretation -- such is the outcome of a philosophy grown from the soil of modern science. The rationalist had not only presented the world with a series of untenable systems of speculative philosophy; they had also poisoned the empiricist interpretation of knowledge by inducing the empiricist to strive for unattainable aims. The conception of knowledge as a system of statements that are demonstrable as true had to be overcome by the evolution of science, before a solution of the problem of predictive knowledge could be found. The search for certainty had to die down within the most precise of all sciences of nature, within mathematical physics, before the philosopher could account for scientific method."(p. 248)

"Speculative philosophy is characterized by a transcendental conception of knowledge, according to which knowledge transcends the observable things and depends upon the use of other sources than sense perception. Scientific philosophy has constructed a functional conception of knowledge, which regards knowledge as an instrument of prediction and for which sense observation is the only admissible criterion of nonempty truth."(p. 252)

RESPONSE: I would say that a useful definition of knowledge would deal with a great deal more than its role in prediction. Part of the sense observations Reichenbach mentions above would include electron micrographs of neurons and other features of the body plus theories of how data can be stored, filed, and retrieved.

Knowledge not only allows prediction, it permits understanding. What caused the individual's death? Why did the object break? Who is the actual father? What is the goal of life for the individual and for the species?

Plato: "Thought alone can reveal to us the existence of a higher reality, of which visible objects are but poor images."(p. 253)

"To go beyond the observable by means of scientific inference is the legitimate method of the empiricist."(p. 254) And this is legitimate because those steps are taken as hypotheses to be tested, and given no more credence than the evidence supporting them justifies.

Logical empiricism -- use of the methods of symbolic logic for the analysis of knowledge.(p. 255)

"The reference to verifiability is a necessary constituent of the theory of meaning. A sentence the truth of which cannot be determined from possible observations is meaningless. Although rationalists have believed that there are meanings in themselves, empiricists at all times have insisted that meaning hinges on verifiability. Modern science is a documentation of this view. In the foregoing analysis of space, time, causality, and quantum mechanics, the dependence of meaning on verifiability was obvious; without an adherence to this view modern physics would remain incomprehensible. The verifiability theory of meaning is an indispensable part of a scientific philosophy."(p. 256)

RESPONSE: Philosophers talk about a "theory of meaning," and "truth" and focus on verifiability and observation. No wonder the "common person" has difficulty getting excited about philosophy. The key issue for human life isn't even addressed, "the meaning of human life." Verifiability and observation cannot be ignored as key issues, but to talk about observation and never look at the observer leaves something to be desired. To think that verifiability exists independent of the reference system that is doing the verifying is a prescription for confusion.

"A sentence the truth of which cannot be determined from possible observation is meaningless."(p. 256)

RESPONSE: If one takes the foregoing statement in the proper context it may be useful. However, it can easily be misused and lead to nonsense rather than sense. When Ernst Mach argued for discarding the atomic theory because atoms could not be observed, this was a foolish use of the statement. When Bohr and Heisenberg said that quantum particles do not exist in any state until observed this took a good idea and turn it into mystical statement.

Any theorem/law/principle worth stating cannot be rigidly tied to observation. However, such a theorem/law/principle leads to many observable consequences. For example the statement, "The occurrence of marine fossils in mountains is explained by assuming that the ground was at some time at a lower level and was covered by the ocean." There is no observation which will prove the truth of the foregoing statement, yet no reasonable person can doubt it. Its value comes not from our ability to observe its truth, but its congruency with everything else we observe in the universe.

Because we have not had a Science of Ethics utilizing the organizing principle of meaning of human life scientists as well as everyone else have focused their efforts toward goals often leading them in the wrong direction.

"The empiricist theory of meaning does not supply a description of a person's subjective meanings. It is a rule proposed for the form of language and advisable for good reason: it defines the kind of meaning which, if assumed for a person's words, makes their words compatible with their actions. This latter property is all that can be reasonably required of a theory of meaning. Those who accept the verifiability criterion of meaning speak a language consistent with their behavior...."(p. 258)

RESPONSE: It seems to me a theory of meaning needs to do more. At a minimum it should provide some guidance in making better rather than worse choices.

--- SOLIPSISM ---

SOLIPSISM: "The problem of reality, the question whether the world is real....(p. 259)

"According to the philosophical theory of solipsism, all we can assert is that we have experiences; but we can never go beyond this assertion and prove that there is an objective reality."(p. 267)

"...we have no absolutely conclusive evidence that there is a physical world and we have no absolutely conclusive evidence that we exist either. But we have good inductive evidence for both assumptions."

"If we can prove the existence of the ego, we can also prove the existence of the physical world, including the existence of other persons. The solipsist overlooks this parallelism of inferences. They introduce the ego and its experiences as absolute knowledge and then have trouble in deriving the external world -- but their troubles stem from poor logic."(p. 268)

"We have good inductive evidence for the existence of a physical world -- but that is all we can maintain. And it is meaningful to speak about an objective physical world because statements about such a world are inductively derivable from observations."(p. 266)

"It is... the functional conception of knowledge, the reduction of meaning to verifiability which eliminates the traditional controversy of idealism versus realism, or materialism."(p. 269)

"The program of empiricism, the principle that all synthetic truth derives from observation and that all contributions of reason to knowledge are analytic, could not be carried through before the science of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries had prepared the necessary means. Our time is the first to see a consistent empiricism."(p. 268)

RESPONSE: And, it seems to me this consistent empiricism lays the foundation for beginning to replace folk religions with Science of Ethics. From the perspective of our “wisdom” potential that is the goal we have been laboring toward since achieving symbolic language.

--- end of solipsism ---

"The incorporation of the human observer into the physical world is one of the fundamental characteristics of an empirical philosophy."(p. 269)

RESPONSE: It seems to me that empiricism's incorporation of the human observer has been inadequate. That is a key part of its problem. It acknowledges the observer, but it focuses on that which is being observed. The order must be reversed if we are to achieve the true power of empiricism.

"It follows that mind and bodily organization of a certain kind are the same things."

"The belief in the independent existence of a mind is a fallacy evolving from the mis-understanding of abstract terms."

"The conception of an independent existence of the mind is the backbone of transcendentalism; it regards mental phenomena as instances of a nonphysical existence...."(p. 272)

RESPONSE: The belief in "souls" has many roots. But I would say all of them depend on lack of knowledge about how the human body actually works. My analysis of the "I" (See VOLUME I.) seems to me to put the issue in the proper context.

"...how and where are the impulses transformed into the sensation blue?...Nowhere are the impulses transformed into a sensation. The impulses generate a physiological state of the brain; the person whose brain is in this state sees blue, but the blue is neither in the brain nor elsewhere in the body.... there is no causal product blue."(p. 273)

"One conclusion can be immediately drawn from the analysis of modern science. If ethics were a form of knowledge it would not be what moral philosophers want it to be; that is, it would not supply moral directives. Knowledge divides into synthetic and analytic statements; the synthetic statements inform us about matters of fact, the analytic statements are empty. What kind of knowledge should ethics be? If it were synthetic, it would inform us about matters of fact. Of this kind is a descriptive ethics which informs us about the ethical habits of various peoples and social classes; such an ethics is a part of sociology, but it is not of a normative nature. If ethics were analytic knowledge, however, it would be empty and could not tell us what to do, either. For instance, if we define a virtuous person as someone who always chooses the maxim of their actions in such a way that it could be made the principle of a general legislation, we would know what we mean by the term 'virtuous person,' but we could not prove that we should aspire to be virtuous people. The phrase a 'virtuous person,' when so defined, is merely an abbreviation for the long-winded Kantian formulation about the maxim of actions, and could be replaced by any other name, for instance, by the term 'Kantian'; but why should we try to be Kantians? If ethical statements are analytic, they are not moral directives."(p. 276)

RESPONSE: But there is another way. The aim of my Science of Ethics is to provide a way through this thicket -- to connect empiricism to behavior based on if-then. I still feel hopeful that it can be done. If we can, indeed, find the core motivation of human life, and develop empirical data on how to achieve that goal, then I would say we have succeeded in relating empirical study to behavior.

I maintain that a SBLIHM is the core motivation of human life. The WAYS OF WISDOM are hypotheses about the ingredients for a SBLIHM. They provide ideas that can be tested. Empirical evidence needs to be gathered, assembled, analyzed, and evaluated to determine if the ideas hold up and to determine the true components of a SBLIHM. All this data should be made available to help people in their choices so they can move toward or maintain a SBLIHM.

It has been said that if you educate a person beyond the Third Grade you ruin a good pea picker. Until a society is working to become an Enlightened Community and thereby is committed to helping each citizen become an Enlightened Person, any rules for behavior are at best a mixed bag of useful/useless ideas.

"The two-thousand-year-old plan to establish ethics on a cognitive basis results from a misunderstanding of knowledge, from the erroneous conception that knowledge contains a normative part."(p. 277)

"...there is no longer any space left for a cognitive ethics. Knowledge cannot provide the form of ethics because it cannot provide directives."(p. 278)

RESPONSE: What is the relationship between knowledge and norms for behavior? We know it isn't of the sort traditional philosophers thought it was. However, we can't totally discard a relationship, and this relationship must have both an empirical and analytical dimension. We know that if there are norms they must come out of understanding the results of behavior. Let's apply these ideas to eating.

The above applies to all choices. It's true we usually don't know the consequences of our choices and frequently are grossly limited in what we can do. However, the goal of an Enlightened Community is to improve both of the foregoing.

"...mathematics... does not supply laws of the physical world but merely formulates empty [analytical] relations that hold for all possible worlds...."(p. 277)

"...if the axioms of ethics are not necessary or self-evident truths -- what then are they?"

"The ethical axioms are not necessary truths because they are not truths of any kind. Truth is a predicate of statements; but the linguistic expressions of ethics are not statements. They are directives. A directive cannot be classified as true or false; these predicates do not apply because directive sentences are of a logical nature different from that of indicative sentences, or statements."(p. 280)

RESPONSE: Discussion of ethics up to this point have been grossely misfocused. To be of value ethical discussion must recognize that ethical behavior is that behavior that leads one toward becoming/remaining an Enlightened Person. The goal is to produce an Enlightened Community made up of Wise Persons. When we ask what are the attributes of a Wise Person, I say a Enlightened Person is someone who has achieved a SBLIHM and that this state can only be achieved in an Enlightened Community.

When society promotes the positive, nurturing side of human beings a much better result is achieved than by producing a lousy environment and telling people: Don't kill. Don't steal. Don't lie. Don't rape. Etc.

The struggle for the good life is a collective struggle. It is not achieved by exploiting others and denigrating our own healthy needs. Everyone needs help in making choices. But this help must be based on our best knowledge and our best understandings. Ethics and morality only have value as they help to advance our knowledge and understanding to help every person achieve the good life.

"If a feeling of duty is regarded as characteristic for moral aims, such a conception mirrors the fact that moral aims were instilled into us forcibly, whether through the authority of the father or of the teacher or by the pressure of the group in which we lived."(p. 285)

RESPONSE: It seems to me that in his above comments Reichenbach overlooks the fact that human beings are social animals and we have innate propensities that encourage social behavior; i.e., behavior that works for the well being of the group. This behavior need not be imposed on us by authority. It is what we naturally do when the environment permits it. This behavior is encouraged by our human nature and works to the individual’s long term best interest.

"Where is the ethics that answers all our questions? Can philosophy provide such a system?"

"It cannot."

"Who looks for ethical rules must not imitate the methods of science. Science tells us what is, but not what should be."(p. 287)

RESPONSE: The above strikes me as a very unimaginative understanding of the possibilities of empirical data. I believe my interpretation of ethical rules -- behavior that leads toward becoming/remaining an Enlightened Person -- are empirical and definitely within the spirit of what ethics has traditionally been for, to utilize and pass on the wisdom of the tribe. I do believe that empirical observation can lead us to act on the basis of "what should be."

The Ways of Wisdom are designed to provide such rules. Of course in their current state they are too primitive since they are not yet tied closely enough to observation, experiment, and analysis.

"We arrive at the result that moral directives are of a volitional nature, that they express volitional decisions on the part of the speaker."(p. 291)

"Everybody is entitled to set up their own moral imperatives and to demand that everyone follow these imperatives."(p. 295)

RESPONSE: There is a level at which the foregoing is an essential part of our effort to find rules for our behavior. However, alone it is focused in exactly the wrong direction. What every person needs is all the help available for them to make the best choices in terms of their long term best interests. The foregoing totally ignores that need.

The reason science has been so dramatically successful is its ability to gather, organize, analyze, and disseminate empirical data to understand ever more deeply how the universe works, and to make predictions about the future. This function is vitally needed in the area of choice. We may never be able to gather enough data to make the results of every choice totally clear and guaranteed to be the best one. But when properly assembled our data based on the lives of myriads of persons in diverse cultures should be able to provide the help necessary to permit every choice to be consistent with a SBLIHM. And under normal circumstances behavior can be altered as we see its results are not achieving what was expected.

"Everyone is entitled to set up their own moral imperatives and to demand that everyone follow these imperatives."

"It is... the difference between the right to act and the right to demand a certain action that saves my principle from being a contradiction."

"...if I have the power to enforce my demand through the authority of the government, say by making my regulation a law... I shall even do that. However, I leave you the right to demand that such a law be repealed.... That is good democracy...."(p. 295)

RESPONSE: To break the connection between knowledge and moral imperatives seems to me to be a big step down the wrong road. If this is the final outcome of Hans Reichenbach's best thinking then we have to view his efforts as not totally successful. For me the goal is just the opposite -- to find a fool-proof way to tie observation and behavior together.

We could never say persons are not entitled to set up their own moral imperatives. However, the aim must be to educate all persons and rear them in a nurturing way such that their thoughts and energy will be directed toward a SBLIHM. As such they will be achieving in life what is the best for them and for everyone else. I think the best protection for anyone is the assurance that the bulk of society consists of individuals who have achieved a SBLIHM or who at least accept this as a goal and are well on the way toward achieving this state.

"Volitional differences cannot be settled by the appeal to a system of ethics constructed by some learned individual; they can only be overcome through the clash of opinions, through the friction between the individual and their environment, through controversy and the compulsion of the situation. Moral valuations are formed in the pursuit of activities; we act, we reflect about what we have done, we talk to others about it, and act again, this time in what we regard as a better way. Our actions are trials to find out what we want; we learn through error, and often we know only after our action is done whether we wanted to do it. Volitional aims usually do not come to us with the clarity of a vision, but more often constitute the subconscious or semiconscious background of our attitudes...."(p. 296)

RESPONSE: Reichenbach may be right, but I hope not. Scientists have organized empirical study in the fields of physics, biology, chemistry, geology, astronomy, etc. so that we can benefit from all that has been learned. Why can't we do this in the area of human behavior, individual choice? Must each person really meet each situation as if no one had ever been in such a situation before and bring to bear only the limited knowledge and understanding currently in one's consciousness? I think there are better ways to make choices and that a Science of Ethics would be concerned about this issue.

"If ethics is the pursuit of volitions, it is also the conditioning of volitions through a group environment. The exponent of individualism is shortsighted when they overlook the volitional satisfaction which accrues from belonging to a group."(p. 297)

"Are all moral questions answerable through a reduction to common fundamental aims? The fact that we are all humans speaks for such an assumption, since it appears plausible that the physiological similarities between people includes a similarity of volitional aims. Other facts speak against the assumption...."(p. 299)

RESPONSE: As I've indicated in many places I view the human desire for connection with other people as the defining characteristic of a healthy person. Therefore, I answer the question, about all people sharing common fundamental aims with a resounding, Yes! Finding this fundamental aim is the goal of a Science of Ethics. When this issue is properly formulated it must appeal to every human being and provide them a shared vision for their life. However, I interpret moral questions to include essentially all questions each person must answer in their life. Also, these questions and their answers need to be tied in critical and fundamental ways to the individual’s knowledge base as well as the information available to their society.

"If a person has been indoctrinated in the theory that moral rules constitute absolute truths, they will be greatly inhibited from abandoning such rules and may remain unamenable to the conditioning of the group."

"...the person educated in an empiricist approach to ethics is better prepared than the absolutist to become an adjusted member of society."

"Adaptation of goals to those of other persons is the essence of social education."(p. 300) "The friction between volitions is the propelling force of all ethical development."(p. 301)

RESPONSE: But of course unless adaptation to other's goals is done within an Enlightened Community it can as well lead in the wrong direction as the right one. Friction with other individual's goals can propel one to self destructive behavior as well as constructive behavior. Because human beings are social beings they strive mightily to be an accepted part of their society. And because current and past societies have/had such a limited understanding of the potential of the individual and the species they have almost always suppressed, retarded, and limited the individual's ability to mature and move toward becoming an Enlightened Person. The challenge of Science of Ethics is to overcome these barriers. And this must be done through the use of empirical knowledge.

"It may...be admitted that power plays a leading part in the change of moral valuations...."(p. 301)

RESPONSE: And this is a primary weakness of Reichenbach's approach to behavior. Obviously, at the most fundamental level Dr. Reichenbach's approach is on the right track. However, unless we can in fact construct an empi