Does anything exist?

[Belz...]

Scientism is the belief that the scientific method is the best or only method that exist to expand human knowledge

If you're talking about knowledge, which other method provides results?

Those who profess scientism are dogmatic. It is a new religion.

An oft-leveled accusation, but with no actual examples. No one worships anything in science.

 

[llwyd]

Regarding each of the
B Certain branches of science do of course make decisions about whether to experiment with animals; in medicine it sometimes happens that doctors want to overrule what a patients relatives insist upon (e.g. whether or not to maintain life support), though in such cases it's usually the legal courts that make the final decision. But neither the doctors, nor the lawyers, nor the national government (when they are also involved) are consulting philosophers or philosophy books in order to make any of those decisions … indeed the courts never call philosophers as expert witnesses, though they amost always do call scientists and medics ... they decide on the basis of the science and on the basis of what they truly think is fair to the patient.

Well, the whole ethical framework on which legislation is based is basically created by (secularized) Christianity and philosophy. Out Western Christian-humanist values based on individual rights and freedoms and which are being extended to a degree even to animals have been established by Locke, Kant, Rawls etc - alongside with Protestant secularized Christianity.

Science has not much to say about values and morals, though it can be quite helpful in establishing facts based on which ethical judgments and decisions can be made. Science can create neutron bombs and superviruses but falls quite silent about the questions of if and when such things should be used etc.

For me scientism is the view that only (natural) science is needed that all other fields of human endeavour are irrelevant and trivial. That is simply not so.

 

[IanS]

Exactly. I asked the question because of a few who've said certain theories explanations of science are off the table . . . like salt, and Theory of Evolution. Asking what standards they used to take these off the table.
You're right no such standards exist - they were just being dramatic.

You seem to be fond of doing this - you reply saying that you agree, but then you write something in complete disagreement. You are not agreeing with me at all ... and I am certainly not agreeing with you!

I just told you the standards that exist to check what scientists publish as research papers (and those papers are the whole of what science is aimed at), and you replied saying "you are right! .... no such standards exist!" ... you are writing self-contradictory rubbish in virtually every post.

 

[IanS]

Well, the whole ethical framework on which legislation is based is basically created by (secularized) Christianity and philosophy. Out Western Christian-humanist values based on individual rights and freedoms and which are being extended to a degree even to animals have been established by Locke, Kant, Rawls etc - alongside with Protestant secularized Christianity.

Science has not much to say about values and morals, though it can be quite helpful in establishing facts based on which ethical judgments and decisions can be made. Science can create neutron bombs and superviruses but falls quite silent about the questions of if and when such things should be used etc.

For me scientism is the view that only (natural) science is needed that all other fields of human endeavour are irrelevant and trivial. That is simply not so.

First highlight - legal procedures, the laws & courts, may have a past history of arising from pre-scientific times when people believed that religion and philosophy were the only two ways of knowing truths in the world ... and when, in ancient history, the courts almost certainly did call priests and philosophers as expert witnesses (eg in witchcraft trials) ... but that was an awfully long time ago! ...

... today, if the courts are needed to make a ruling about someones medical treatment in hospital. whether to maintain life support or whether to agree to some unathorised controversial form of treatment (there have actually been a number of cases like that in the UK in recent years), then they always take advice from senior medics and senior medical scientists as expert witnesses ... they NEVER call any priests of philosophers to advise them.


Second quote - “scientism” is just a deliberately pejorative term being used by people like certain recent philosophers and religious leaders (such as the Pope or Archbishop of Canterbury and their minions), used in order to minimise and dispute science, and doing that as a way of trying to protect and persist with the weaknesses and failures of their own fields of interest (philosophy & religion) which have since been exposed by modern science.

“All other fields of human endeavour” are not “irrelevant and trivial”, but when it comes to understanding what we detect as the material existing world around us, then science has “proved” beyond all credible dispute or argument, that it is by far our most reliable and accurate way of correctly assessing and understanding that.

There are all sorts of human activities where it's not practical to conduct a rigorous scientific investigation before we proceed with things. Example – learning to play a musical instrument is probably easier and more efficiently done by traditional methods of music teaching, as opposed to conducting a scientific analysis of exactly what is happening with the sounds or exactly the best way for any individual to manipulate/play the instrument … but that does not mean such analysis is somehow inherently beyond the reach of science … if you really wanted to make a scientific study of the best way to play a musical instrument, then you could quite easily do that … or if you wanted to find out why anyone favoured a particular type of music or even why they favoured a particular style of painted artwork, then you could quite easily study that & explain it by scientific enquiry. The reason why don't do that, is not because it would be impossible … we don't do it because (a) it would be unnecessary overkill, and (b) it's simpler and more efficient to rely on traditional methods.

 

[Darat]

So what's the issue? There can be more than one way to disprove something and this isn't mutually exclusive with it being a bad question to begin with. ...snip...

That seems to be saying that there is more than one answer to "Does anything exist?" according to philosophy?

How do we know which is the correct one?

How many times do you want the question answered, or are you just going to keep asking until you get a specific answer you are looking for?

I just want the answer!

You were told that todays theories are unlikely to remain in the their current form 500 years from now. "table salt" "Chlorine" and "Sodium" are definitions, not theories. The fact that Chlorine and Sodium combine is also not a theory it's an observation.

Nope the nature of common table salt is what we know from several theories of chemistry that were formulated after considering the evidence. LarryS has clearly stated that in 500 years time those theories will have changed therefore the nature of common table salt will no longer be chlorine and sodium. There is no other way to parse what they are claiming.

The theories that explain how why Chlorine and Sodium exist and how they get built up from ever smaller subatomic particles are can and probabaly will change. These new theories will have to explain current observations like Sodium and Chlorine forming Sodium Chloride.

This makes no sense at all, the only way the current theories could be wrong would if the nature of common table salt is no longer sodium and chlorine.

What I think you are LarryS are doing is trying to say that is there are gaps in our understanding of the world - a claim no one would dispute - and then use that to say "oh but everything we think science has helped us know could be wrong".

What you don't seem to understand is that those gaps are in very particular places and often already well-known areas. Science is "provisional" but only in the sense IanS explains but in matters such as the nature of common table salt there are no gaps, our understanding of that is 100% complete and will not change in 500 years or 10,000 years it will remain chlorine and sodium.

We now know a lot of stuff and that is thanks to science.

I've always put it that science is the best tool we have invented to date to help us understand the world we live in. We may in future invent a better tool, but we already know philosophy isn't that tool as it failed centuries ago regarding claims that it can explain the world around us.

 

[Darat]

I suppose someone could take a stand and define 'to exist' in such a way it could generate a conversation, either scientifically or philosophically. Otherwise the question comes off as a tad circular and goofy.

...snip...

Not asking for a definition asking for an answer.

Re 'salt', I suppose if there was someone in this conversation really into salt, they could go on and on about sodium & chrorine, various bonds and ions, and how even table salt contains other minerals, and how we're always learning more about salt. ....snip...

Nope - you made a very clear claim that to quote "It does not answer questions re the nature of things "

That claim is wrong. And for an example to show you why your claim was wrong I choose common table salt. The nature of common table salt has been shown by science to be chlorine and sodium.

 

[abaddon]

Repeating it won't make it more true. Do you really believe that boolean algebra, and the idea that something can't be true and not true at the same time, are philosophy?

I said before that they are much more fundamental than that, but I don't remember you addressing that.

Gosh no. Thermal already told us that logic is a product of philosophy for which we should be grateful.

If true, then philosophy must also be independent of logic. That would be a circular argument, were one to attempt it. Possibly a spectator sport.

 

[IanS]

Those who profess scientism are dogmatic. It is a new religion.


You are sensitive to criticisms of science. I'm curious where that reactivity originates.

Just to add to Belz reply - religions preach the supernatural ... science is not doing that, and people here who are promoting science are not preaching either the supernatural or preaching anything else.

What some of us doing (certainly what I'm doing) is giving credit where it's due.

If you think that too much credit is being given to the achievements of science, then frankly your opinions & beliefs about that are seriously unreliable and irrational. Because the success of science has become so enormous that it's almost impossible now to comprehend just how much has been achieved to advance the quality of life for literally everyone on the planet ...

... that has to be contrasted to what we had before the advent of modern science. And that was philosophy and religious belief as the two claimed ways of correctly understating everything in the world around us. But compared to what has happened with science, philosophy has achieved almost nothing of actual practical value, and religion has been even worse (worse than useless, because it has seriously mislead everyone, and often in a very dangerous and harmful way ... it's held the world back, and still continues to do that).

There is simply no comparison to be had between the value of science to all of mankind (in everything we do) vs the almost complete lack of any practical value from the subject of "philosophy" (and I put it like that, or describe it as "academic" philosophy, to emphasis that when we talk about "philosophy" we do mean all the stuff written and taught by ancient and modern day philosophy teachers/professors ... we do not mean mere "philosophising" in the sense of animal constructive thought).

The above is also the answer to your questions of (quote) "You are sensitive to criticisms of science. I'm curious where that reactivity originates" ... my support of science arises from simply being honest in recognising what a monumental contribution has been made by science ... it's become beyond all conceivable scales of what anyone could possibly have even imagined let alone hoped for ... and as I say, in contrast the other two historically claimed "ways of knowing", have in the process been shown to have been almost completely useless, if not actually worse than useless and in fact a whopping great negative drain on society.

Is that clear enough? Detailed enough?

 

[Belz...]

Just to add to Belz reply - religions preach the supernatural ... science is not doing that, and people here who are promoting science are not preaching either the supernatural or preaching anything else.

To be entirely fair something could be cult-like enough to be called a religion, even without the supernatural beliefs. But science can't possibly be called that. Despite the claims of "scientism" thrown around here and elsewhere, I have never, ever seen anyone, anywhere, who fits that description.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Okay ServiceSoon what's your Woo?

Out with it, don't dance around the bush. What thing has science told you are wrong about?

What is it? God, souls, psychics, bigfoot?

Out with it, don't waste our time.

Don't make us do the same dance with have to do with all you "LOL science is just another religion" types were you jabber nonsense for 20 pages and casually drop it later that you just have a chip on your shoulder because science dared tell you that the grey aliens don't control horse racing industry or whatever.

 

[IanS]

You were told that todays theories are unlikely to remain in the their current form 500 years from now. "table salt" "Chlorine" and "Sodium" are definitions, not theories. The fact that Chlorine and Sodium combine is also not a theory it's an observation.

You are talking as if the major theories of science today are in fact entirely wrong, and will have to be replaced in the future by completely new and different explanations. Larry has been talking like that as well.

If that happens it will be the first time it's happened in the era of modern science. It's never happened before. What happens is that the theories get improved and refined as we are able do more research with newer & more precise instruments ... but so far the basic theories have remained the same. And we have been through all this before in this very thread.

If you wanted to say that all of our theories are approximations to some degree, that might be closer to being correct, and actually upon the basis that absolute certain appears to be impossible in a universe that is based at it's heart upon probabilistic quantum events (which what we currently think is probably true, because all known evidence agrees with that) ... so in that sense any explanation or theory will never be a 100% certainty ... they will always be approximations of some sort, albeit approximations to an accuracy of 1 part in a million for many of the processes that they describe.

So if you were being honest about it, then it would probably be more truthful to say that our current theories are extremely accurate and will probably get even more accurate in the future.

The theories that explain how why Chlorine and Sodium exist and how they get built up from ever smaller subatomic particles are can and probably will change. These new theories will have to explain current observations like Sodium and Chlorine forming Sodium Chloride.

That would not change it from being NaCl though.

The macroscopic solid that we call Sodium Chloride, would, even according to what you just said, still be composed of one part of Sodium bonded to one part of Chlorine. Or more accurately it would consist of one part of Sodium 1+ ions ionically bonded to one part of Chloride 1- ions.

What you seem to be talking about is subatomic particle theory, where you are saying that our description of subatomic particles may change in the future. Well, it probably will change, though it's hard imagine how it will change other than becoming more refined and more accurate … but you would still be left with a description where the subatomic particles composed individual atoms, eg sodium atoms which could then exchange electrons with other atoms such as chlorine atoms (so that you get Na+ and Cl- ions sticking together).

Most scientists would not rule out anything. And I'm not ruling out anything. But that's very different from you trying to imply that our current understanding of chemical compounds such as NaCl is entirely wrong or entirely just a useful but false representation.

 

[lomiller]

That seems to be saying that there is more than one answer to "Does anything exist?" according to philosophy?

How so? I said there is more than one way to prove the answer.

I just want the answer!

I gave you the answer. Philosophy categorically says that something does exist. You just seem to be looking for a different answer so you keep repeating the question.

This makes no sense at all, the only way the current theories could be wrong would if the nature of common table salt is no longer sodium and chlorine.

Again, the existence of table salt isn't theoretical. It's existence and it's properties are observable fact. How do you expect to be able to perform science or even understand its if you can't distinguish between theory and observation? This is the type of error that makes people *think* they are doing science when they are really doing something else altogether.

 

[JoeMorgue]

How so? I said there is more than one way to prove the answer.

Exactly. When asked a question, you talked about the question and didn't give an answer yet acted like you gave an answer.

When someone asks you how tall you are going on about "Well you know some people would answer that in feet and some would answer it in meters" for twenty minutes and never getting around to telling us your height isn't an answer.

 

[Belz...]

How so? I said there is more than one way to prove the answer.

Can you show three?

I gave you the answer. Philosophy categorically says that something does exist.

Why? How does it get to that answer?

And you still haven't answered my previous question.

 

[Belz...]

Exactly. When asked a question, you talked about the question and didn't give an answer yet acted like you gave an answer.

When someone asks you how tall you are going "Well you know some people would answer that in feet and some would answer it in meters" isn't an answer.

I told you before, Joe: philosophy isn't about answers; it's about questions.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Well yeah but the whole "Philosophy can answer question science can't" has been the cornerstone of the entire "I only think on vinyl" side.

Philosophy apparently has its own private definition of what "an answer" is.

 

[Darat]

How so? I said there is more than one way to prove the answer.

I gave you the answer. Philosophy categorically says that something does exist. You just seem to be looking for a different answer so you keep repeating the question.

You are saying the philosophical answer is "Yes" so it isn't a philosophically bad question as claimed by LarryS?

Again, the existence of table salt isn't theoretical. It's existence and it's properties are observable fact. How do you expect to be able to perform science or even understand its if you can't distinguish between theory and observation? This is the type of error that makes people *think* they are doing science when they are really doing something else altogether.

Nope we are not talking about the existence of table salt. We are talking about the nature of common table salt. LarryS's claim is that science cannot tell us the nature of common table salt i.e. "the basic or inherent features, character, or qualities of something". But it can - we now know the nature of common table salt is chlorine and sodium and we know that because that is what the theories we developed based on evidence i.e. science tells us.

According to LarryS and you those theories will change within 500 years which would mean that the nature of common table salt would no longer be chlorine and sodium.

 

[Belz...]

You are saying the philosophical answer is "Yes" so it isn't a philosophically bad question as claimed by LarryS?

That's the beauty of philosophy. It can be a bad question AND a good one with either yes or (and) no as an answer.

That sure puts the nail into the "logic is part of philosophy" coffin.

 

[abaddon]

How so? I said there is more than one way to prove the answer.

Exactly. When asked a question, you talked about the question and didn't give an answer yet acted like you gave an answer.

5 billion ways to answer the question, still couldn't provide a single one. Why is that?

Oh and proof is the purview of mathematics, not science.

For all their philosophising, one could be forgiven for wondering why it might be
that they haven't noticed that yet.

 

[lomiller]

You are talking as if the major theories of science today are in fact entirely wrong, and will have to be replaced in the future by completely new and different explanations. Larry has been talking like that as well.

They are likely wrong. Don't confuse observation with the explanation for that observation. The observation won't change just because the explanation does. Theories are the explanation for the observations we have made, and when they no longer explain all the observations we look for new explanations that do. By it's nature science can't give us a final, "real" explanation.