On Tuesday 06 May 2008 00:52, Tue Sorensen wrote:
> Urgh. Here we go again...
>
> On 5 Maj, 23:04, Niels <n...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>> On Monday 05 May 2008 22:36, Tue Sorensen wrote:
>> > On 5 Maj, 21:10, Niels <n...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>> >> 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.
>
> And you don't find the argument that no science can exist in a
> cultural vacuum at all pertinent? One person isolated from language
> and culture cannot invent calculation, nor conceive of the notion of
> measurement. If there's only one person, there can be no science. Am I
> shouting at a wall here? I really find it incredible that you can find
> it in yourself to cavalierly ignore so much necessary cultural
> luggage. If there's only one person performing what he thinks is
> science, how can he ever ascertain that everything he's doing doesn't
> take place within the realm of solipsism? You are stubbornly and
> deliberately ignoring obvious and pertinent logic and making me
> explain all the same things over and over again. "Science" only has
> meaning once objective criteria have been established, and they cannot
> be established until a second researcher (and a third, and a fourth)
> has confirmed the findings of the first. This is completely basic
> stuff! If you do not accept this argument, then you are NOT talking
> about what we call science in any way, shape or form.
>
>> >> > 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.
>
> I've known that for some time now...
>
>> > 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?
>
> Poets do, so science one day must, too.
>
>> > 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.
>
> When I say "what science describes", I simply mean that if we have
> determined with immense certainty that our measurements are reliable,
> then we can also depend on them. Until such time as they may
> mysteriously change.
>
>> >> > 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.
>
> But those criteria are the result of millennia of cultural
> development, involving thousands of people debating the subject! I
> truly do not understand how you can in any way possibly deny that
> science is impossible in a setting of a single person. You know about
> the real world's scientific community! Peer review! You only trust
> science because you know it has been checked and rechecked by many
> qualified scientists! Who the hell exists to define something as
> science in a closed system of a single person? How could this person
> possibly determine what science is, or which measurements are more
> successful or botched than others, when there's no one else around to
> agree with him about it? This is really the most preposterous view you
> have subjected me to yet. And it's not just a question of me
> "including everything"; I'm only describing the obvious, superficial
> and agreed-by-all-except-YOU nature of science here. One person does
> not do science! Science is a cultural institution and can only be
> performed within the realm of such. It's an agreed-upon way of
> understanding the world. Any one person deciding for himself how to
> understand the world, without others to confirm his tests and
> inquiries, is being religious. And apparently that's what you are
> drawn to, since you repeatedly insist than one, single allegedly
> rational individual can do science.
>
You can say this about any human endeavor. Nothing we do is isolated from
our cultural history, that's implicit in everything.
Football is a game played by two team, folllowing such and such rules. It
is
also "the result of millennia of cultural development", but that's not
important. 5 year olds in central Africa know what football is without
philosophers telling them and I know what science is. No philosophy
necessary.
>> >> > 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.
>
> You're making it very difficult.
>
>> >> 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?
>
> Vehemently.
>
>> > 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!
>
> It's useful in understanding how everything works! If you do not
> understand that everything is in a state of change, then science
> hasn't done a very good job on you.
>
I'm not questioning that everything is in change, I'm asking you how
acknowledging that fact help us. 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.
>
> No, you are. You don't understand how science progresses, and changes
> in that process.
>
I'm not talking about how science progresses, I'm talking about what it
is,
and about how science doesn't need philosophy to get things done. You have
shown many, many times that you confuse how you would like things to be
with how they are. Reductionism has paved the way for progress, denying
that is silly.
>> 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.
>
> Wrong. You're the one looking at small cases. They were on to the
> right thing, but didn't have enough scientific understanding and
> useful models to take those ideas very far. So they did what they had
> to do, and now we're beginning to need the big picture again, to
> dispose of the many flaws in the current scientific paradigm.
What flaws? Show me!
> Why else
> do you think scientists talk so much about GUTs and TOEs? Anatomical
> interest? I think not!
Actually they don't, compared to the total amount of research.
>> >> 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
>
> Based on philosophical assumptions.
>
Everything is based on "philosophical assumptions", according to the
philosophers. I can't image how things would look if they weren't. So
what?
I can, as I said, easily invent clever philosophical questions about your
particular field, but that won't really change your results.
>>, one that produces useful results. Some that
>> philosophy doesn't even claim to be able to. Science _works_.
>
> Mechanics works. Science is a complex set of ideas and practices
> existing in a cultural context.
>
Which work. Are you claiming otherwise?
>> > 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.
>
> You betcha.
>
> - Tue
//Niels
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