Philosophy Discussion Forums

The main point of religion and science debate is the fact that NOT all people think like you and me.

True. And I guess this debate about "Scientism" rests on the extent to which it's a position that is truly adopted by a large number of scientists. I'm not sure it really is. Maybe they're just bad at communicating complex ideas in simple ways. I used to be a physics teacher, so I know I am!

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A Poster He or I:

I pretty much agree with the first paragraph (with the deliberate capital 'T' in Truth) or, at least, I think that's a valid way to see it. But, as I asked you recently in another thread, I'm not sure how you think science is going to genuinely move beyond empirical validation. I don't know much about M theory but I do gather that the maths is very very complicated! But, for the reasons I gave in the other thread, I'm not sure how this goes fundamentally beyond the complexity of other theories.

Hi Steve3007,

I must have missed your question in the other thread; which thread was it?

I answered something like your current question in response to Quotidian in the "Soul and Science" thread a couple of days ago. What I see happening is physics moving toward a paradigm of computation rather than observation both in M Theory and in complexity theory. I am not claiming outright that computation = validation. I am merely suggesting that a move in that direction is afoot. High-powered computation (beyond human ability to follow) has become critical to science. Given the underlying pragmatism and positivism of scientists, it seems to me only a matter of time before any individual commitments to realism are abandoned under the pressure to produce results.

If maths alone is going to give knowledge, will all those enormously expensive underground laboratories become redundant?

Belinda wrote:If maths alone is going to give knowledge, will all those enormously expensive underground laboratories become redundant?

Math is just the pen. We should not confuse it with the writer or the novel. However regarding to your question, remember this: Einstein thought of all his great theories with no billion-euros CERN to back him up...

A Poster He or I:

It was that same thread, "the soul and science", here:

onlinephilosophyclub.com/forums/viewtop ... 79#p108379

As I say, I don't know much about M theory though.

Steve3007 wrote:A Poster He or I:

It was that same thread, "the soul and science", here:

onlinephilosophyclub.com/forums/viewtop ... 79#p108379

As I say, I don't know much about M theory though.

I wouldn't worry about not knowing M Theory. On the contrary, I would be very suspicious of anyone who claims he knows it. Not even the scientists who TRY TO formulate the theory know it...

Skakos: Would you consider it a waste of time trying to know about, or work on, string theory and M theory for the reason that they have not yet been experimentally verified and possibly never will be?

Remember, it took quite a long time to properly fully experimentally verify General Relativity, for example. And also, you may be right (earlier in the thread) that Einstein wasn't initially working out the mathematical details of his theory when he was wandering through Tuscany speculating about riding on a beam of light. But he certainly made up for that later! The mathematics of General Relativity, as worked out by Einstein and others, is not easy.

Einstein thought of all his great theories with no billion-euros CERN to back him up...

True. But that was then. As the lower hanging fruit get picked you need longer and more expensive ladders to get further up the tree. (As Confucius might have said.)

Skakos wrote:But before we go there I would really like your opinion on the Godel part.

I was merely saying that Quantum physics, imo, poses an even greater threat to our logic and its limits.

Logicus wrote:You, sir, are now the chief proponent, here, of the the view known as Scientism. You might want to read other opinions on it before you embrace it to the degree of alienating many.

Are you warning me that I might lose favor with the flock? in a philosophy forum of all places? *sigh*

@skakos -I am interested in running an idea by you which might have some bearing on the OP.

I think that science qua natural philosophy, 'assumes nature'. That is, science starts with the fact of nature and then works to understand the general principles and laws which underlie it.

With the advent of Darwinian theory, this view is now widely presumed to understand the basic principle behind human existence itself through the lens of evolutionary theory.

However here naturalism runs into a vicious circularity. This is simply that, though evolutionary theory, science presumes to explain the mind that is doing the explaining. In other words, science believes that it understands the basis of reason itself in terms of the outcome or result of the evolutionary process. However as the evolutionary process is understood in strictly non-teleological terms, then the human capacity to reason, like the process of which it is a part of, is understood to be the product of an undirected, hence fundamentally non-rational, process.

I think this gives rise to a fundamental confusion about what can and cannot be explained through science. Although we can explain an extraordinarily wide range of natural phenomena through the scientific method, the question of the nature of explanation itself, is a different kind of question to the kind of questions that can be explored through science. This is apparent when you consider the state of a subject like philosophy of number. If you look into philosophy of number, you will find there are fundamental disagreements amongst various schools of thought, as to what number is - whether it is real in its own right, as Platonists say, or whether it is generalized experience, as the empiricists say, and so on. I don't want to go into the details here, but merely to observe that the results we have been able to obtain through mathematical physics are obviously amazing, even if we don't actually know what 'number' is.

What I am driving at is that science qua natural philosophy, already works at a high level of abstraction - a much higher level than philosophy proper. Accordingly it is not actually dealing with reality itself but with models of aspects of reality. And why? Because reality includes the observer. The observer brings to the scene, considerable unstated and implicit powers, not least mathematical and rational ability (per Kant).

I think that modern empiricism falsley assumes that it understands what the basis of these abilities are. And I don't think it is understood, precisely because questions as to 'what is number' and 'what is reason', are a different kind or level of question, to the kinds of questions that we can investigate using number and reason.

Science is conditioned and qualified wholly to the scientific framework which comprised of it own assumptions, principles, the scientific method, peer review, defaults and whatever that should be considered 'scientific'.
It is obvious that Science is limited to the above conditions.

The defaults of science is that it deal only with what is 'physical' and observable. Science does not deal directly with fantasies, stories, myths, arts, poetry and other intangibles which may be useful in practical life.

Science is at best, a tool for the generation of knowledge, and it is a very useful and critical, but albeit a limited tool. The extension of the limits of science is taken over by philosophy-proper (not academic or any specialized).

Quotidian:

I think this is a very interesting idea. Yes indeed, science is all manners (and for a long time) has also pressumed the existence of what we call "reality". Modern theories tend to show that there is no such thing as "one reality"... Let me read more analytically through what you have written and come back to you...

Quotidian's idea that a conscious being is inherently incapable of examining the cause of its own consciousness is interesting and it may or may not be of interest to both of you that a related idea has been discussed previously on this forum by a person who called him/herself "Meleagar": E.g:

onlinephilosophyclub.com/forums/viewtop ... 821#p48821

(The comment about "barking like a dog" was, I think, an interesting way of putting it.)

This person was a strong believer in Aristotle's concept of "The Good" as an argument in favour of theism. I just thought I'd throw that into the mix.

Quotidian wrote: However here naturalism runs into a vicious circularity. This is simply that, though evolutionary theory, science presumes to explain the mind that is doing the explaining. In other words, science believes that it understands the basis of reason itself in terms of the outcome or result of the evolutionary process. However as the evolutionary process is understood in strictly non-teleological terms, then the human capacity to reason, like the process of which it is a part of, is understood to be the product of an undirected, hence fundamentally non-rational, process.

I think this gives rise to a fundamental confusion about what can and cannot be explained through science. Although we can explain an extraordinarily wide range of natural phenomena through the scientific method, the question of the nature of explanation itself, is a different kind of question to the kind of questions that can be explored through science. This is apparent when you consider the state of a subject like philosophy of number. If you look into philosophy of number, you will find there are fundamental disagreements amongst various schools of thought, as to what number is - whether it is real in its own right, as Platonists say, or whether it is generalized experience, as the empiricists say, and so on. I don't want to go into the details here, but merely to observe that the results we have been able to obtain through mathematical physics are obviously amazing, even if we don't actually know what 'number' is.

I read through your post again and have some additional comments to make.

First of all, it is quite true that if evolutionary naturalism is correct, then the brain which we use to explain reality via Logic is product of an irrational process. I think this is a very good thought and hits the problem at its foundations. Self-reference is indeed one of the biggest problems we face when we deal with important problems. Not only in science and in mathematics but also in the great problem of human consciousness.

Secondly and now that I think of it, it is really weird that we keep on using the word "explain" for science. Science does not "explain" anything if you ask my humble opinion. We observe a phenomenon and then we build a model which behaves as close to the observed phenomenon as possible. The KEY here is this: we create the model after we have observed the phenomenon. We do not explain the phenomenon! We just replicate it!

I.e. we find patterns in nature. Symmetries.

Steve3007 wrote:I.e. we find patterns in nature. Symmetries.

True.

Do they "exist"? Or do we just "find" them? If we "find" something which does not "exist", then we are surely in a great non-ending discussion here...