You are confusing epistemology and ontology. The distinction between what exists and how we can know what exists. The object denoted by the word "orange" exists independently of human cognition but the word we use to refer to the object is a part of a social creation viz. language. "Oranges" will fall from trees regardless of what humans think or create, objects obey the laws of science no matter what words we use to refer to the objects or the laws they obey.
The words that are chosen to refer to particular objects are chosen somewhat arbitrarily or as Jim on *Taxi* says "if we call an orange an orange, why not call a potato a brown?" All that matters is that a community of language users agrees on the meanings of the words and what the words refer to. This is a necessary (and sufficient?) condition for communication to take place. Some languages have words that refer to things or complex intentional states that other languages don't.
In this way,
> we perceive or discover X, then we create a category for it. So
> we don't "discover" fundamental scientific laws, we create
> them (for us). Gravity didn't exist until someone called it
> gravity.
Idealism again.The force we call "gravity" existed or there would probably be no life on earth, its just that the word didn't exist. Apples fell from trees and asteroids smashed into each other long before the first homo sapiens sapiens was around. I now say that there is a pink elephant in the corner of the room, does it now exist?
Once you name something, it becomes part of the
> social. This might represent something that is, but there is
> always a prejudgement... you name something before you
> know what it is.
The way words come to mean and refer to what they do is a long(and for most people tedious) debate in the philosophy of language. I would suggest that something like the causal theory of reference is most convincing where an object is given a name, a baptism into the language and then that name is used from then on. People know what the word refers to through a causal chain linking the way the word is used currently to its original baptism into the language. Think of words like "modem" and "internet" that have recently come into our language.
> Imprecise altogether I'd say. The numbers are only crunched
> in terms of what is practical. The 8 billionth digit of Pi is
> irrelevant, it doesn't need to be calculated. So science stops
> calculating things the moment such calculations aren't all that
> useful anymore. So truth and objectivity aren't the aims of
> science, utility is. Otherwise scientists would be busy making
> infintesimal distinctions between clouds or genes or
> microbes. They don't, because it isn't valuable.
>
> > A species that does not reproduce goes extinct. In what
> sense can you call such a species successful?
>
> ?? Only if you measure success in regards to some arbitrary
> aim. Reproduction is an arbitrary goal.
Only if you think that the distinction between life and death, between survival and extinction is arbitrary. Saying a species is "successful" just means that it has been able to survive over time.
One could just as
> easily say that the failure to move from one location to the
> next is a failure.
Only if that failure to move is a cause of the failure of a species to reproduce itself.
There might be great biological pressure to
> reproduce, but Dawkins is reductionist when he says that this
> is the only "aim" of a species.
Its not the aim of the species, Dawkins doesn't believe in group selection. People or species do not go around selfishly trying to spread their genes. Genes go around selfishly trying to spread themselves. A person is a gene's way way of making more genes. BTW, I disagree with Dawkins, but that is another topic.
Sam Pawlett