I was never taught that. I'm not sure why math is inherently more or less reliable than any other model.
Models, all models, are underpinned by reaffirming or recalcitrant experiences.
A quote from Quine:
Quote:
...total science is like a field of force whose boundary conditions are experience. A conflict with experience at the periphery occasions readjustments in the interior of the field. Truth values have to be redistributed over some of our statements. Re-evaluation of some statements entails re-evaluation of others, because of their logical interconnections -- the logical laws being in turn simply certain further statements of the system, certain further elements of the field. Having re-evaluated one statement we must re-evaluate some others, whether they be statements logically connected with the first or whether they be the statements of logical connections themselves. But the total field is so undetermined by its boundary conditions, experience, that there is much latitude of choice as to what statements to re-evaluate in the light of any single contrary experience. No particular experiences are linked with any particular statements in the interior of the field, except indirectly through considerations of equilibrium affecting the field as a whole.
...the conceptual scheme of science [is] a tool, ultimately, for predicting future experience in the light of past experience. Physical objects are conceptually imported into the situation as convenient intermediaries -- not by definition in terms of experience, but simply as irreducible posits comparable, epistemologically, to the gods of Homer. Let me interject that for my part I do, qua lay physicist, believe in physical objects and not in Homer's gods; and I consider it a scientific error to believe otherwise. But in point of epistemological footing the physical objects and the gods differ only in degree and not in kind. Both sorts of entities enter our conception only as cultural posits. The myth of physical objects is epistemologically superior to most in that it has proved more efficacious than other myths as a device for working a manageable structure into the flux of experience.
...Science is a continuation of common sense, and it continues the common-sense expedient of swelling ontology to simplify theory.
...the abstract entities which are the substance of mathematics -- ultimately classes and classes of classes and so on up -- are another posit in the same spirit. Epistemologically these are myths on the same footing with physical objects and gods, neither better nor worse except for differences in the degree to which they expedite our dealings with sense experiences.
So it isn't that science is particularly special, or personal experience. Or that some models (math) are more generally useful than others (behavior psychology).
All models are evaluated only on their usefulness for predicting future events in light of past experiences. Whether that is history (on the grounds of, if my historical model says x, y, z, will it align or be contradicted by future historical discoveries?) or physics (if my model says p, d, q, will it align or be contradicted by future experimental data?).
In this regard we are faced with two axioms:
- There's no such thing as bad data, only improper assumptions resulting in recalcitrant experiences.
- All models are wrong, some are useful.
This can be expanded to the present discussion rather easily, because we all choose our own models and realities to some extent or another. It is up to us then to determine whether the posits we choose to import into our reality as the basis to test our models are useful or not. It is quite useful for me to "believe" in this keyboard as a solid object, even though I "know" it isn't. Personally, I find it quite useful for me to have faith in God; my model has not presented me with recalcitrant experiences. I'm not so lucky as booboo to have what I would call an epistemologically reaffirming experience with regard to the Love of God, but my model in this regard doesn't require such an experience to be useful at the boundary limits of my experience.