On Monday 05 May 2008 22:36, Tue Sorensen wrote:
> On 5 Maj, 21:10, Niels <n...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>> On Monday 05 May 2008 19:48, Tue Sorensen wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> > On 5 Maj, 18:36, Niels <n...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>> >> On Monday 05 May 2008 17:30, Tue Sorensen wrote:
>> >> >> > Niels wrote:
>> >> >> Let's say you're studying some subject X, and that you're good at
>> >> >> it and producing good, usefull practical results. I can then
easily
>> >> >> invent any number of bogus "philosophical" questions, and then
>> >> >> claim that you're ignorant and don't have a clear idea of the
>> >> >> fundamental nature of X. But you were doing great before I came
>> >> >> along, and my questions don't change the usefullness of your
work.
>> >> >> My silly questions are superfluous and should be dismissed.
Science
>> >> >> is doing just fine without philosophy of science.
>>
>> >> > I'm sorry but I don't think that's a scientific attitude. Sure, if
>> >> > the questions are *bogus*, but they may not be. Philosophy of
>> >> > science concerns itself, among other things, with the nature of
the
>> >> > scientific method, and that's rather important.
>>
>> >> If my science (X) has build a spaceship that works, how are your
>> >> inquires into the nature of the scientific method going to affect
that
>> >> fact? They aren't. Could you give an example of this "important" of
>> >> which you speak?
>>
>> > Okay, I see there's yet another crucial aspect of science that
>> > completely eludes you. And it's *still* the subjectivity/objectivity
>> > problem. If you, as an individual, build a spaceship that works, you
>> > can claim that you have done the same as a man who builds a row-boat
>> > that works. You have used your own personal ingenuity. THAT'S NOT
>> > SCIENCE.
>>
>> Oh, I thought you had convinced me that the concept of science includes
>> all technology.
>
> Only when there IS science. From the subjective viewpoint of some
> stone age guy carving a hollow tree canoe, there is only religious
> superstition.
>
>> My mistake, I'll go back to thinking that science is the method
>> by which we examine the world.
>
> Emphasis on "we" - now write that a hundred times in letters five feet
> high and don't forget it. Science requires the concept of objectivity,
> which requires agreement between a plurality of people as to how we
> perceive the world.
>
No, science requires that calculations fit measurements. One person can do
that.
>> > Science is a world view that a community of interacting
>> > scientists have agreed on. Something can only be called science when
>> > it has been accepted as such by the scientific community. Science is
a
>> > *cultural phenomenon* that represents rational agreement about
natural
>> > inquiry and the method and results of such inquiry. A scientist
>> > removed from his scientific community is strictly speaking no longer
a
>> > scientist. Science is an institution that goes definitively beyond
the
>> > subjective person. It's a collective activity. If no one is around to
>> > acknowledge that what you do is science, then it's not. You can
choose
>> > to call it that, just as you can choose to call it Fred. But the
>> > cultural phenomenon of science is a team-effort and can never be
>> > anything but.
>>
>> If I'm all alone I can't use critical thinking to examine my world,
>> achieve technological progress and change my environment?
>
> Effectively, no. And even to the tiny extent that you can, it won't be
> science, but only personal ingenuity. Where will you learn critical
> thinking when language (and hence thinking) is a phenomenon that can
> only proceed from a collective social environment? And even if you can
> think, where will you have learnt to think critically? Everything you
> can do is contingent on someone else having done something first, to
> provide you with the intellectual and technological tools. Modern
> human beings evolved more than 100,000 years ago, and did not manage
> to invent agriculture until maybe 15,000 years ago. For 85,000 years
> they progressed infinitely slowly, just developing slightly better
> stone tools once every few thousand years. Technological progress?
> Literally at the rate of continental drift! Virtually no progress in
> one person's lifetime. Anything more than that requires a vital
> culture around you.
>
We're not talking about the same thing. To use another example, I'm saying
that paper is refined wood pulp, and you're saying that paper is the
result
of infinite human labor and is necessary for poets to save humanity. We're
not communicating at all. I'm trying to make a simple, straight forward
distinction as to science, you're trying to explain the universe.
>> > What you call science (anything technological or mechanical that
>> > works) can vary from a row-boat to a spaceship, but you forget that
in
>> > order to make that technological leap, an entire civilization that
>> > manufactures mass-produced electronics and many other thing is
>> > required. Hence, there comes a level when individual ingenuity must
be
>> > replaced by the technological fruits of a larger culture, and it is
>> > *only* under those circumstances that advanced technology becomes
>> > possible. Only by having many people involved in researching checks
>> > and balances can anything be said to approach objective truth;
>>
>> Objective truth? Aren't we talking about science? You know, best
guesses
>> and such? Are you sure you're not a philosopher?
>
> Scientific fact = truth. And I did say "approach". Yes, they're best
> guesses and may some day be revised. But it's the closest thing we
> have to truth, and the ONLY thing we can reasonably call truth.
Let's just not use that word, huh?
> Just
> as we must define the scientific description of nature as (the closest
> thing we can determine to be) reality.
>
But we mustn't! There's the landscape and there's the map, they aren't the
same.
>> > one
>> > true reality that all scientists can agree about and which can become
>> > the common world view that further scientific activity is based on.
>>
>> We allready have a true reality, science is about describing it.
>
> That's what I'm saying. But one isolated person does not a scientist
> make, and cannot make science, because he has no way of knowing what
> is objective and what is just his personal experience.
>
That doesn't matter, reproducible and foreseeable results and falsifiable
hypothesis do.
>> > This can never be the case for some isolated ship-builder's
subjective
>> > ideas about how things work. He can never know if he *really* knows
>> > how things work, of if he just lives in a solipsistic world of his
own
>> > mental invention.
>>
>> Science isn't looking for "how things *really* work". That's religion.
>
> Whoops, already misplaced the "true reality" you mentioned above? And
> can we please keep religion out of this?
Please do.
>
>> > What this comes down to is that I have just exposed a horribly
>> > embarrassing fact about you, which in retrospect makes all kinds of
>> > sense: When you use the word "science", what you actually mean is
>> > "mechanics".
>>
>> Just the opposite in fact.
>
> I am compelled to ask the question that a TV host asked a famous film
> director when he claimed his latest film was starring the late Marilyn
> Monroe: How??!?!
>
>> But in what we currently call science fiction,
>> technology is often all we have, and so that's what we're talking
about.
>
> We're talking about what science is and what you mean by it, and,
> according to what you have said in this thread, you mean "mechanics".
> Otherwise we'd have to determine what you actually do mean by
> "science", and that would probably get... philosophical!
>
>> You know that I've often said that such and such wasn't really SF
because
>> it's all tech and no science, to which you've replied that the tech is
>> supposed to symbolize science.
>
> Well, there *is* that, and I stand by that... but you usually complain
> that there's no proper tech, either. And if we mean very different
> things by "science", it's hard to see just how much we agree or not.
>
The latter, mostly. Agreed?
>> >> > Personally, I believe that it's part and parcel of a
>> >> > scientific attitude to accept that everything changes all the time
>> >> > (except possibly certain physical laws and constants), even if
some
>> >> > things only do so very or even imperceptibly slowly. Anybody who
>> >> > does not accept and even embrace such a principle of constant
change
>> >> > cannot be said to have understood the scientific world view in
full.
>>
>> >> Why not? "Everything changes" is philosophy, not science. Find me a
>> >> 12th century monk who chants "Everything changes" and I'll show you
a
>> >> guy who can't build a spaceship!
>>
>> > If you understand the universe as science describes it, you must
>> > accept that everything is in a state of continuous change! Any
>> > contrary notion is obviously absurd! Understanding change will help
>> > you to a better understanding of a great many experimental situations
>> > and scientific principles. Science describes a universe in motion.
>> > Reject constant motion, and you reject science itself. Sure, some
>> > experiments can work without taking constant change into account, but
>> > those are tiny, limited and frozen pictures of some limited
situation.
>> > If you desire greater understanding, and you should, then change must
>> > become part of the equation. It is aggressive ignorance to deny this.
>>
>> Or you could say that the universe consists of things that are blue and
>> things that aren't blue. That's obviously true, but that alone doesn't
>> make it a usefull notion. If you think that viewing the universe as
being
>> in a state of continuous change helps scientific progress, please show
us
>> explicitly how -- or withdraw your claim.
>
> Progress itself is change!!! Change is a fundamental property of the
> universe and is useful to keep in mind in any and all eventualities.
Show me _how_ it's usefull!
> Any situation that does not change is exceptional for not doing so.
> And even when you describe an unchanging situation, you need to engage
> in motion to do it.
>
>> Your problems with limited situations shows that you don't get how
>> science works. Limited situations are what we strive for! We love being
>> able to isolate some part of a complex system!
>
> You, my friend, are helplessly and blissfully ignorantly caught in the
> early, primitive stages of science,
No, you are. The reason scientific progress exploded after Newton and
those
guys was exactly because they gave up looking for the one big truth and
started looking at small cases.
> where researchers work with
> isolated systems. In the real world there are no isolated systems, and
> the progress of science is increasingly reflecting that. In order to
> get going at all, science has to start by describing limited parts of
> complex systems, but doing so is the cradle of science and one doesn't
> stay in the cradle! You are just not mature enough to leave it yet.
>
Your choice of words leaves little doubt as to who's mature.
>> At the end of the day, science is empirical and quantitative. At its
most
>> extreme it isn't about understanding the universe, it's about
calculating
>> it. Whether you like that fact or not doesn't matter.
>
> Does too. Science is about every aspect of nature, including human
> emotions and experiences. The idea that science is only about
> extracting raw data is nothing but a philosophical standpoint which
> has not yet understood the dynamic nature of the universe and
> everything in it.
It is a _practical_ standpoint, one that produces useful results. Some
that
philosophy doesn't even claim to be able to. Science _works_.
> Philosophy, according to Daniel Robinson, is about
> three problems: The problem of knowledge (what we can know), the
> problem of conduct (how we should behave) and the problem of
> governance (how we should structure society). All of these problems
> will be taken over and resolved by science in due time.
Until then, then.
//Niels
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