Are scientific knowledge objective knowledge, and can they ever be?

From Oxford English Dictionary:

From a less credible source, dictionary.com:

If we use dictionaries, then apparently, it is impossible to have any kind of objective knowledge, because our knowledge cannot exist without our mind.

That is a problem I am trying to bring up in this thread.

 

so i have known what you mean from the start

what i'm trying to convey is that from our one perspective whether right or wrong is still tested objectivly.
so our knowledge is objective from our perspective.

shall we all curl up and die because all we know may not be as we know it. ;D

 

Maybe what we know is true, maybe what we know is not true, that is not important. The question is can we ever get to the objective knowledge.

I think the difference between our views is that there are two definitions of the word objective. One is that it describes something that is not biased. Another definition is that it describes something that is independent of the mind (knower of knowledge).

 

709zzy, in both your examples you show the problems with subjective experimentation. Science relies on objective experimentation. It does not rely on just one person's single view. Basically, what you are saying is that if there are two people, one on a train looking at a platform and one on the platform looking at the train. The one looking out at the platform as the train moves off might deduce that the platform is moving backwards, whereas the one on the platform would deduce that the train is moving off. This is a once off assumption. Both parties would now have to test their idea and the person who thought the platform was moving backwards would be proven wrong.
The reason science remains objective is that it doesn't rely on one person's mind to gather knowledge, but brings a collection of people's minds and experiments together under a set of rules which removes any subjectivity.

 

how can we ever have knowledge independent from our minds

it just seems a crazy idea but we can't tell the future and we have had massive discoveries that have completely changed our understanding already so why can't we have ones that change what we know further.

the wonderful thing about knowledge is it only gets bigger and better.

who knows we cold be visited by aliens that have another perspective

i'm under the understanding that he ment we as the human race is one of the men thus not having a different perspective of what we can see, test and know.

 

tl;dr again, so I'm just gonna go ahead and call you all wrong.

An experiment is a procedure performed to obtain data to verify a hypothesis. We don't learn about the world solely through this method, otherwise chaos would reign in society as people attempt to "learn" about what happens if they do something.

Here is the problem. The results of BOTH observers are valid. One is not more "correct" than the other.

And who said we "can't see what's really there"? I think you're really overestimating relativity.

Oh, I dunno about that...

It's perfectly understandable for someone who hasn't studied relativity to think that. And by the way, condescension negates objectivity

That's a good way of putting things.

As is this.

It was considered "knowledge" that the Earth was flat a few centuries ago. Just because we know that's not true now, doesn't mean it wasn't true for people back then. In other words, knowledge is right until proven wrong and not before.

Equipment has no perspective or bias, but the reference frame used for measurements can still affect results.

Knowledge, as a human-defined concept, cannot exist without humans. That is true. However, that doesn't mean objective knowledge is impossible. As I said earlier, the fact that a carton of milk costs x amount of money is not determined by one's perspective or frame of reference. Subjectivity may determine whether or not one sees the milk as cheap or expensive, but that's all. Other human-defined facts (other than units of measurement of time, space and mass) are also unaffected by relativity.

 

Back in that post, I was referring to scientific knowledge. I didn't mean to let it be a statement about knowledge in general.

I never disagreed that one is not more "correct" than the other. Just like I said, "there is no way for us to tell which of those two PERCEIVED velocities is more 'correct' ", because they are both correct to their corresponding observer.

We may be able to see what's really there without realizing it ourselves. It is possible for us to have the "correct version" of the knowledge about something at some point in time. But do you think we can ever know that we know the "correct version"?

Yes, I stepped a bit too far on that one.

Please see post #38, #40 and #42 for different meanings of the word "objective". When I used the word "objective" in objective knowledge, I was using it to describe something that is " not dependent on the mind for existence"

 

As I said, since objectivity and knowledge are human-defined concepts, they cannot exist without humans. If this is the definition you intended from the beginning, then there was never much to discuss here, and everything else is utterly irrelevant.

See also: Equivocation

 

In post #9, I clearly referred to objective knowledge as "absolute truth" (so excluding the other definitions altogether). I never used any reference to define the word at that time (such as using a dictionary). The reason that I didn't do that is because I myself was not sure of the meaning of the word. If you reread some of the posts you can easily tell that people denied the definition which I uses. You may say that I mislead myself into thinking that there is some kind of debate to be had, but I didn't intend to mislead anyone. However, If you look at the definition that I am using right now, it pretty much only applies when its discussed with respect to knower and knowledge, so it was meant to be used together with the word knowledge in that specific sense. You can't blame other people for using a definition that is meant to be used with the issue, especially since I already specified what I meant by it in the beginning. It's not like I am playing with words to make the meaning unclear. You can say that I was just stating the obvious without realizing that myself, but it is not my problem that others want to argue against that which is obvious. Plus, since people do want to argue against that which is obvious, maybe it is not so obvious like you described.

 

Now you're just getting into semantics.

So, is there anything else to discuss or are we done here?

 

In this thread, I see two people failing Physics...

And I also declare tehuber1337 as the winner of this thread.

Good fucking night!

PS: Equitypetey, just so you know, speed of light doesn't work exactly like you think it does. I'm referring to your blunder right here:

 

yeah i know :-[ i was getting confused with moving objects but that's why i said it's all bollocks because we were starting to debate physics when the subject matter is objectivity within scientific knowledge.
.

 

No, like I said in post #48, other people got me into semantics. And you are just making false accusations.

In this thread, I see two people who come into a debate saying things without backing up their words.

In exactly what did tehuber win? He showed that I have started a debate on something obvious, I don't disagree with that. But like I said before, it is not my problem that people want to argue against that which is obvious.

 

I'll take that as a "yes, we're done". Good day to you, sir.

 

Feel free to interpret what other people say.

 

well seeing as there was no intention of debate or discussion and it is not looking as it's every going to go that way as 709zzy is apparently the master of all un known knowledge and arguing him is futile this might as well be locked.

LOCKED