Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Ser10Rec1pr0]

Do you think Science has limits? Or do you think Science can eventually explain everything?

I think the second idea is a much problematic one. How can you defend it, when science is based on many things which have inherent limitations?

Take Logic for example. Gödel proved that it has limits. So how can we say that Science, which is based on Logic, can find EVERYTHING?

Science is also based on senses. And our senses are indeed very very limited. And let us not forget that in general any system which is based on axioms (like science is), has inherent limitations.

Your thoughts?

There is in your post the implication that we all know what "science" is, & the cite of logic implies that you are alluding to what're commonly called the "exact sciences"; those that use mathematical notation & lend themselves to exact measurement.

The part about the senses I don't understand @all.

[Steve3007]

Here's my wrap-up of the OP:

Do you think Science has limits?

Yes. Because games have rules. The only thing with no limits is complete evenly distributed infinitely extended white randomness.

Or do you think Science can eventually explain everything?

No, because, aside from any other reason, you can never know how much you do not know.

I think the second idea is a much [more] problematic one. How can you defend it, when science is based on many things which have inherent limitations?

If it is indefensible on that basis, then everything except randomness and anarchy is indefensible. In that case, the concept of "(in)defensibility" is not a useful distinction. Just as the concept of "solidity" is not useful if we postulate that solid objects are not "really" solid.

Take Logic for example. Gödel proved that it has limits. So how can we say that Science, which is based on Logic, can find EVERYTHING?

We can't and we don't. See above.

Science is also based on senses. And our senses are indeed very very limited.

Answer A:

Science cannot model and predict events that cannot, even in principle, directly or indirectly, be sensed. That's one of the few rules of the game.

Answer B:

Let there be two arbitrarily chosen categories of events:

1. Events that we sense directly. (e.g. I can currently see my hands typing on a keyboard.)

2. Events that cannot be sensed directly, but which we believe to be happening because of events that are sensed directly which we believe to be caused by the indirect events. (e.g. I believe that the atomic structure of a crystal exists because I can directly sense a printout of a scanning electron micrograph. Another e.g: I believe that Australia exists because, among many other things, I can directly sense the words of people who claim to have been there.)

They are not fundamentally different. 2 is simply one or more levels of indirection further away than 1. And, if we choose to do so, we can postulate that events in category 1 are sensed indirectly also. (e.g. I'm not sensing my hands, I'm sensing photons or, if you like, electro-chemical impulses in my optic nerve. Take your choice.)

And let us not forget that in general any system which is based on axioms (like science is), has inherent limitations.

Limitations already discussed. See above.

[Janus D Strange]

But that's the point, Janus: not understandable in terms of the logic employed by everyday people. That's the point I'm trying to make.

I'm not saying that our logic has any 'ultimate' validity. The empirical world has a way of appearing to us as unambiguous. The law of the excluded middle in classical logic simply reflects this lack of ambiguity in the world. You know something cannot be entirely white and entirely black, it's either raining at a given location or it's not, you either visited me yesterday, or you did not and so on.

The wave/particle duality, indeterminacy and superposition are examples of quantum results or principles which seem, on our present understanding, to defy this common logic. This is all I meant to say. But it is worthwhile to keep in mind that these phenomena are not items of our experience, we do not experience light behaving as a particle and a wave, we do not experience superposition or indeterminacy, we infer all these from experimental results and/or mathematical/ quantum theory.

Maybe we are constitutionally incapable of experiencing something of this logic defying nature. To experience something it must make sense to us. Whether we could ever learn to experience something weird like this is another question. It is unimaginable to me, but who knows?

As with everything, context is critical here. Cosmologists generally believe these days that the overall curvature of space-time is flat or very, very near to it, meaning a Euclidian model is an excellent approximation for non-accelerating objects at the local level anywhere in the universe except in the vicinity of a massive gravity source like a black hole. But step outside those parameters and Reimmanian geometry is necessary. We cannot even keep our GPS satellites in proper orbit via Euclid. The GPS locater in my car is a pretty practical matter.

I understand what you're saying about context. But in the context of our experience, for example designing, building, surveying and so on, it's only Euclidean. People intuitively get Euclidean geometry. There's the famous example in Plato, where Socrates uses the uneducated slave boy and his ability to understand basic geometry intuitively to 'prove' his assertion of the principle of anamnesis. Maybe it's just what we are accustomed to. But the idea of building based on Reimannian geometry does not seem very practical.

Yes it does, but just remember: critical idealism can't stipulate an ontology behind what is known; a point that allows for materialism too.

True, but that's the very point of critical idealism, that an ontology beyond what is known, cannot, in principle be stipulated, and materialism makes the mistake of stipulating one.

I wanted to write a response to you too, Steve, but I'm too tired now, so it'll have to wait until tomorrow.

[Quotidian]

Generally in agreement with a lot of your last post, but

The only thing with no limits is complete evenly distributed infinitely extended white randomness.

Obviously thinking has its limits, but that doesn't mean there can't be something which is 'without limits' or 'beyond limitation'. I think Wittgenstein said 'in order to set a limit to thinking, we would have to think on both sides of the limit'.

Also your Answer B opens up all kinds of questions about the nature of representation, but as it is late in Australia, (which I believe you believe exists), I will let it go. It will doubtlessly come up again.

[Steve3007]

Yes, I do believe it exists:

I believe that Australia exists because...

before anyone accuses me of nihilism again! I'm almost certain that all the cartographers and photographs and geographers and visitors and residents (including you!) are not telling a sophisticated and perfectly coordinated lie.

Also, I think your first point about thinking on both sides of limits is analogous to what I said when I stated that we cannot know how much we do not know. But I take the point that this means there is no limit on thinking. There' still a limit on scientific thinking. As I know you agree.

But, you might ask, doesn't this mean that there is also no limit on knowledge? Yes maybe I have to change my wording on that. Maybe there is no limit to the extent to which knowledge can grow but, at the same time, since it is growing into an unknowably large space, we will never know whether we yet know everything. And that is something that we do not know. So we will never know everything. And isn't that a limit? (Boom. My head just exploded.)

I guess that's the kind of paradox you come up against whenever infinities are involved.

[Ser10Rec1pr0]

Most broadly, science can only apply itself to what can be measured. ...

This is not most broadly; in fact, it's very restrictive.

There is a wonderful but lengthy (72 p.) essay on these problems of science, called On the Epistemology of the Inexact Sciences, written by Helmer & Rescher & published in 1958 under the auspeices of the RAND Corp.

Some of their points: that any science concerns itself with attributes that lend themselves to exact measurement the authors regard as incidental; for an enterprise to be scientific, its purpose must be explanation & prediction of phenomena within its subject matter (whatever may be the subject matter: biology, astrophysics, economics, history) domain; a discipline that provides such explanation & prediction less precise than that from exact measurement but correctly & in a reasoned & systematic way is a science.

It appears to me that posters so far would vehemently disagree with these; especially with the suggestion that history proper (not simple chronology) is a science. This paper used to be available in toto online, but I'm not so sure it still is.

[Janus D Strange]

Steve wrote,

Anyway, the specific narrow point I was trying to make in my last answer was simply that the idea that a phenomenon like an electron can be seen to have some properties that remind us of particles and some others that remind us of waves may mean that electrons are unlike anything that we directly perceive but I don't think those properties in themselves constitute an actual logical contradiction. But maybe we're just disagreeing slightly about what constitutes logic.

Consider these statements, and see if you agree with me that they are not completely unreasonable:

Scientists make lots of observations.

Some sets of observations can be approximately fitted to the mathematical description called a wave. (set 1)

Some sets of observations can be approximately fitted to the mathematical description called a particle. (set 2)

Some sets of observations are attributed to the phenomenon that we call an electron.

These sets of observations seem to have some things in common with set 1 and some other things in common with set 2.

I agree with you Steve, that there is nothing inherently illogical in the idea that an electron might manifest the qualities of either a particle or wave. It is certainly counter-intuitive, and we don't seem to be able to imagine how it is possible in the light of our experience of a relatively unambiguous empirical world.

The question is, to what degree is our logic 'inherent' in the nature of things (as considered independent of our experience of them) at all.How much of our 'logic' is determined or mediated, at least by that experience and also our language itself is an open question.

Perhaps superposition is an even better example. In the Schrodinger's Cat thought experiment, the idea that the cat is both alive and dead, until we make the observation seems intractably illogical.

But, perhaps this is because since things can only be either alive or dead, for us, we assume that they therefore must be either alive or dead, independent of our experience. These kind of 'logical' assumptions are what drove the metaphysics of philosophers until Kant, and it was these very kinds of inferences that Kant set out to critique.

[A Poster He or I]

Janus said,

But it is worthwhile to keep in mind that these phenomena [wave/particle duality and superposition] are not items of our experience, we do not experience light behaving as a particle and a wave, we do not experience superposition or indeterminacy, we infer all these from experimental results and/or mathematical/ quantum theory.

But this statement is belied by the practical applications of wave/particle duality and superposition in actual technology. A quantum tunnelling microscope requires superposition in order for the device to work. An electron microscope or PET scanner requires wave/particle duality in order to actually produce images. These devices and their results are in no way outside of our experience.

Maybe we are constitutionally incapable of experiencing something of this logic defying nature. To experience something it must make sense to us.

I'll have to disagree. To experience something we merely have to apprehend it. Subsequently making sense of it is necessary if the experience is to be "leveraged" in the composing of knowledge.

I understand what you're saying about context. But in the context of our experience, for example designing, building, surveying and so on, it's only Euclidean. People intuitively get Euclidean geometry. There's the famous example in Plato, where Socrates uses the uneducated slave boy and his ability to understand basic geometry intuitively to 'prove' his assertion of the principle of anamnesis. Maybe it's just what we are accustomed to. But the idea of building based on Reimannian geometry does not seem very practical.

If you want to exclude my car's GPS locator from "what we are accustomed to" then your view wins by fiat, but is that responsible? That locator works because the geosynchronous orbits of GPS satellites must be maintained by adjustments based on the principles of General Relativity whose formalism assumes Reimannian principles. Again this is not outside of our experience.

...the very point of critical idealism, [is] that an ontology beyond what is known, cannot, in principle be stipulated, and materialism makes the mistake of stipulating one.

Classical materialism yes. Positivist-motivated materialism...mmm, yes by default. Anti-realists like me, no. I find materialism is simply the epistemological platform of best utility (in general) for modeling experience.

[Xris]

This new device uses EM ropes to see exceptionally small objects. By focusing these ropes using electromagnetic coils we are capable of magnifying objects previously unseen. This ability to vary the spin and length of the waves in these EM ropes gives us this incredible advantage. So much smaller than we see with conventional microscopes, using traditional lenses.

[Janus D Strange]

To "A Poster He or I":

You have misunderstood my points in the sense that I wasn't saying we can't experience phenomena which are understood to be working on the basis of these 'conundrums', otherwise we wouldn't have been able to experience the outcomes of the 'two slit experiment' in the first place, and this would be just plain silly.

I was merely saying that the 'phenomena' themselves e.g. superposition, wave/ particle duality are not, in themselves directly experienceable by us. In fact,in principle they must be prior to experience because according to the theory a measurement (experience) collapses the wave function and leads to one outcome or the other.

If your 'materialism' is just a working model to understand the world, and not a belief about the fundamental nature of the world, then nothing I have said argues against this. You have every right to use whatever models you like to make sense of the world. This is in no way incompatible with idealism.

In relation to your example citing relativity theory there is another very good example;the theory states that massive objects warp space/time. Examples given, by analogy, for our edification depict (in two dimensions) what should be understood to be a three-dimensional ball warping a two-dimensional plane.

Now a two-dimensional plane may be warped into a third dimension, we can easily grasp and visualise this. But a three dimensional space must be warped...into a fourth dimension. This we have no hope of visualising. It is in this sense that I am saying these counter-intuitive 'realities' cannot be experienced.

[A Poster He or I]

Janus said,

You have misunderstood my points...I was merely saying that the 'phenomena' themselves e.g. superposition, wave/ particle duality are not, in themselves directly experienceable by us. In fact,in principle they must be prior to experience because according to the theory a measurement (experience) collapses the wave function and leads to one outcome or the other.

Oh, I see your distinction now. My disagreement now is reduced to the level of a quibble (at least by my assessment) revolving around what qualifies as direct in "directly experienceable." Certainly we apply a quantum-scale-appropriate conceptual schema of wavicles and superpositon to one, and a more familiar macroscopic schema to the other. But the raw experiences of both still filter (are conceived) via these schemata. Rather than be mystified that one does not follow everyday logic; isn't it more productive to see the mystery as caused by misapplication of the wrong schema to the quantum-scale experience? Rather than say the first experience is not direct (or less direct) than the second, I just recognize our cognition evolved in response to a macroscopic interpretation of reality (essentially pattern-makers) so we have to re-adjust our interpretations to wield the experience of the quantum-scale.

If your 'materialism' is just a working model to understand the world, and not a belief about the fundamental nature of the world, then nothing I have said argues against this. You have every right to use whatever models you like to make sense of the world. This is in no way incompatible with idealism.

So long as we dispense with any ontological component to idealism (e.g., Berkeley's God; the Dasein of phenomenology), then I can accept an implicit compatibility with my position.

In relation to your example citing relativity theory there is another very good example;the theory states that massive objects warp space/time. Examples given, by analogy, for our edification depict (in two dimensions) what should be understood to be a three-dimensional ball warping a two-dimensional plane.

Now a two-dimensional plane may be warped into a third dimension, we can easily grasp and visualise this. But a three dimensional space must be warped...into a fourth dimension. This we have no hope of visualising. It is in this sense that I am saying these counter-intuitive 'realities' cannot be experienced.

My point about the quantum-scale applies also to the cosmic scale where 4-dimensional space-time geometry potentially becomes the primary architect of experience. That is, we need another conceptual schema, and we have it (General Relativity), thanks to Einstein. We come to accept what astronomers tell us they observed via "gravitational lensing," for example, because such an effect is possible in the new schema.

[Teh]

I was merely saying that the 'phenomena' themselves e.g. superposition, wave/ particle duality are not, in themselves directly experienceable by us. In fact,in principle they must be prior to experience because according to the theory a measurement (experience) collapses the wave function and leads to one outcome or the other.

Wavefunctions don't "collapse" any more - in fact they never "really" did.

[Logicus]

Now a two-dimensional plane may be warped into a third dimension, we can easily grasp and visualise this. But a three dimensional space must be warped...into a fourth dimension. This we have no hope of visualising. It is in this sense that I am saying these counter-intuitive 'realities' cannot be experienced.

Why does a three dimensional space need to be warped into a fourth dimension? If it is because you think gravitational geometry requires it in a three dimensional space, then I think it can be accomplished by thinking of gravity as an acceleration, which is a force per time (fourth dimension).

Wavefunctions don't "collapse" any more - in fact they never "really" did.

It is also my understanding that the probability wave collapses upon observation. Are you aware of another interpretation? Is this going to be another semantic problem?

[Janus D Strange]

Why does a three dimensional space need to be warped into a fourth dimension? If it is because you think gravitational geometry requires it in a three dimensional space, then I think it can be accomplished by thinking of gravity as an acceleration, which is a force per time (fourth dimension).

To be analogous to the model we are given to help us 'visualise what is going on, is all I'm saying. I am making no claims about what might 'really' be going on.

Some cosmologists seem to have grasped onto this idea, in asserting their notion of a finite, yet unbounded, universe; drawing an analogy between the two-dimensional unbounded surface of a globe and speculating that the three dimensional space of the universe may be likewise 'curved' , so that if you head in one direction, eventually you will come back to where you started.

[Logicus]

Some cosmologists seem to have grasped onto this idea, in asserting their notion of a finite, yet unbounded, universe; drawing an analogy between the two-dimensional unbounded surface of a globe and speculating that the three dimensional space of the universe may be likewise 'curved' , so that if you head in one direction, eventually you will come back to where you started.

Einstein said gravity and space are two words for the same thing, by which he meant that space must be curved in accordance with the distribution of matter within it. If the Big Bang is true, then the shape of the Universe should be something like a sphere. Since there is nothing outside the Universe, travel is limited to the existing spherically shaped (and curved by matter) space. This will necessarily bring a traveller around to where he started. The traveller will believe he is navigating a straight line away from his starting point, but will mysteriously see his starting point appear in front of him on his outward journey.