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dxu comments on [LINK] The Wrong Objections to the Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics - Less Wrong Discussion
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While I disagree with shminux's views on the issue, I should like to note that these are astonishingly poor grounds on which to attack those views. First of all, your argument falls prey to the tu quoque fallacy. Second, it is almost certainly true that certain philosophies are better than others when it comes to understanding the world around us, and empiricism is one of the best IMO, practicalities notwithstanding. Saying "your view is also a philosophy" doesn't prove anything. See the fallacy of grey.
I dont see how.
Empiricism has to be the one and only philosophy for shmimuxs claim to go through. Even a second best philosophy could be used to "denigrate" one theory as compared to another, empirically equivalent one.
Note that philosophies emphasizing empiricism famously have problems with self justification, eg L.P..
Saying yay, empiricism! doesn't resolve those issues.
Shminux is (seemingly) criticizing non-empirical discussion and, by extension, most of philosophy. You responded that he/she is still espousing a philosophy: empiricism. This statement, whether true or not, has no bearing on the validity of his/her argument; instead, it is simply saying, "Well, if philosophizing is a crime, you're doing it too, you hypocrite!", ignoring the fact that if philosophizing is bad, it doesn't matter if shminux is doing it or not. (Likewise if philosophizing is good.)
This is true, which is part of the reason I said I disagreed with shminux. That being said, your original objection was that his "anti-realism was still a philosophy", which didn't really bring up that particular point.
That's because the justifications have typically been of the armchair variety. Of course you won't be able to come up with a justification for, of all things, empiricism just by sitting there and thinking. Empiricism, however, is easily justified if you look at it empirically: empirical studies work, as shown empirically by the tremendous success of science in predicting observations. I'd say that's pretty good as justifications go, no?
The point is not whether philosophy is morally bad or good, but whether it is epistemically bad or good. Shmimux has not provided an empirical justification for empiricism, and cannot consistently provide any other.
Please publish that result. Lots of things are claimed to work, and formalising handwaving claims of "working", so they are not a free-for-all has proven extremely difficult.
Note that pragmatism, the fullest exploration of the "it works" philosophy to date, was intentionally inclusive.
There's no "claim". If you take the advice of doctors, use modern technology, or pretty much anything that relies on a scientific understanding of the world around us, you are implicitly endorsing empiricism as the philosophy that made it all possible.
You have missed the point. For any kind of "woo" , there are people who claims it works..
I... really don't see how this has anything to do with the discussion, unless you're calling science woo.
...Are you calling science woo?
I am saying that to demarcate woo from non-woo using the criterion of "working" you need a criterion of working that isn'ta subjective gut feeling. You need to solve the problem of formalising the empirical justification of empiricism.
All right. How about this: something "works" if it is independently replicable and reliably results in statistically significant deviations from the null result.
Reliable results of what? Is there anything that reliably indicates realism? If someone says that your reliable resultsare just accurate predictions of subjective experience, how do you counter them? And does your method tell you what you should be doing , or just what experiences to passively expect?
Isn't it circular reasoning to justify empricism on the grounds that it works empirically?