Heh. I'm not a physicist, but if my understanding of quantum theory is at all correct it is a statistical rather than deterministic discipline. In principle, then, the model could be refined to arbitrary levels of precision, down to precisely predicting the probability of individual quantum events within a system. In that case it falls squarely into the magisterium of science, since it can make testable, repeatable predictions about events, even if they are probabilistic predictions.

My argument is that there are elements of the human experience which, even in theory, are not reducible to testable predictions. As a corollary, the /fact/ that in practice there are still many such elements which are not well understood scientifically (and if you disagree with this, I would invite you to find any psychological study of the past fifty years that has been verified to even two sigma of confidence in one or more follow up studies) means that ANY statement about the relationship between science and understanding the human experience is ultimately metaphysical speculation, including this one.

And that's my very point - the fact that two people agree that THERE IS SUCH A THING as goodness is far more relevant than quibbles over whether or not some given action is good.

Also, using physical analogies to describe experiential realities is like using a piano arrangement to analyze a symphony written for a full orchestra. Every human knows that the experience of being alive is far richer and more significant than can be simply described. To describe a life fully is to live it out. To reduce human relationships and joy and suffering to nothing more than the interplay of chemicals and electricity inside a fatty lump of meat may be factual, in the sense that it is all that can be externally verified (and indeed might "truly" be all that there is) but nobody actually lives that way. We live as though there is some quality of reality in our own experience. It MATTERS when someone is in pain.

Logical positivism proposes a world where none of that is actually true, so whether or not it's the most truthful account of the universe, I'm going to keep living in the universe where I can believe that it's actually ontologically better to feed someone, rather than merely being a societally approved action.

Really? That makes all morality and most human relationships pure speculation...

All sorts of everyday things refuse to submit to positivist analysis, but we agree to common values anyway. Let's not quibble over what individual things may or may not be good, but the fact that we all (humans) seem to agree that there is such a thing seems somewhat important to me. You may disagree with the idea of "goodness" being used as data, but I think it's probably more dangerous to get embroiled in a philosophy that demands that there can be no such thing.

Aka "the problem with reducing every single question to formal logic". Really, the comment I replied to is a perfect example of the flaws in logical positivism - not every question can be reduced to proposition and counter-proposition, much less anything "verifiable" or falsifiable. "Logical fallacy" =/= "wrong".

Sure, but since logical positivism claims that it does not, in fact, do the thing, it's not a fallacy in this specific case. The title could just as well be "Why logical positivism fails to adequately answer questions of the human experience despite claiming to do just that."

Just because you can tag a dismissive Latin name for a fallacy (and admittedly, this does precisely meet the naive definition of Tu Quoque) on an argument doesn't make it fallacious.

That's news to me... which denomination would that be? I have a protest to organize.