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Comment by undershirt | Hacker News Reader

We cant even verify if these fields are real though. It is an ordered mythology for making predictions that work. If I have a machine that can reproduce the footprints of an animal no one has ever seen, I have not discovered that animal. (This is personally a more powerful analogy than saying "the map is not the territory" which gets at the same point.)

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>We cant even verify if these fields are real though

We can perform casual experiments that are falsifiable against them. This is the scientific definition of real within a probabilistic framework.

Sure. Just making sure people understand that the "scientific definition of real" is based on a metaphysical assumption that real = works. It is very hard to remember this since philosophy of science is not taught in school.

Did you verify that we can't verify?

I think so. Are you familiar with epistemology and how assumptions can be formally justified?

Are you familiar with fallibilism? Aristotle justified geocentrism too. Who's to say your justification is correct for real this time?

Fallibilism seems to smuggle a claim of certainty about how we can't be certain about anything, which leads to a performative contradiction when brought up in an argument where people are trying to arrive at certainty.

If you don't like such skepticism, then it should be okay to believe in fields. Where do you draw a line, how much skepticism is enough? Does radio exist? You can't see it, just like other fields.

I was only addressing your argument. If fallibilism leads to a contradiction then it doesn't work to undermine all agnostic arguments against the actual reality of fields.

My warning is that science becomes something like a 'scientism' religion when "real" is used as shorthand for "effective abstraction". Science has philosophical boundaries that isn't part of the science curriculum.

It was your argument that you verified that we can't verify. But if we can't verify, then how could you verify? Fallibilism doesn't lead to a contradiction, it only rejects infallibility. If you think agnosticism helps you prove your infallibility, prove it. Also radio demonstrates that your approach is unworkable.

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