Does anything exist?

[Belz...]

Why will common table salt no longer be the result of a combination of chlorine and sodium in 500 years?

Because salt is strong, not weak.

 

[LarryS]

I would suggest that replacing a theory of physics with a better one has become exponentially more expensive over time. At some point, possibly relatively soon, we will likely reach the most complete theory we can afford.

You might be thinking something like, "but someday the United Federation of Planets will show up with warp drives and artificial gravity and transporter beams, and we'll need whole new understandings of physics to explain how they work." But it's quite likely that instead, our present and future understanding of physics will continue to correctly suggest that those technologies are impossible.

I read those pointy-eared bastards (Vulcans) - have quite the jolt waiting for us re common table salt. If we don't run out of money and imagination we should be able to keep this science thing going.

 

[ynot]

Am I seeing a correlation between art and philosophy?

Is art philosophy for the senses, and philosophy art for the mind?

If art is “in the eye of the beholder”, is philosophy “in the mind of the beholder”?

Any thing can be art, any thought can be philosophy.

 

[JoeMorgue]

*Diogenes runs through the thread, holding a plucked chicken*

"BEHOLD.... A PHILOSOPHER!"

 

[ynot]

*Diogenes runs through the thread, holding a plucked chicken*

"BEHOLD.... A PHILOSOPHER!"

Well . . . a plucked chicken could be art . . .

And philosophers could be "thought artists" ^TM .

 

[ServiceSoon]

One of my favorite quotes to offer to proponents of scientism:

...science is much closer to myth than a scientific philosophy is prepared to admit. It is one of the many forms of thought that have been developed by man, and not necessarily the best. It is conspicuous, noisy, and impudent, but it is inherently superior only for those who have already decided in favour of a certain ideology, or who have accepted it without ever having examined its advantages and its limits

Scientist often start developing their hypothesis from a position of belief based on intuition(lacking rational thought or understanding) gained from previous knowledge or observations. This is evident by the fact that most scientific experiments based on theories prove to be false. Eventually, the scientific process as implemented by biased humans will result in a marginal increase in wisdom/truth. It is an amazing system that has brought immense benefit, but it is not the gateway to omniscience(all knowing). It is but a part of the systems we have developed. It is best when combined with other systems of epistemology.

Consilience, get you some.

The fact that science sees Einstein as a respected expert within his field, not as an authority on everything to be named dropped, is lost on Philosophers....

Why should anyone care what Einstein said about philosophy? The man was a physics guy. As for your link to Britanica, it only discusses epistemology, not the branches of philosophy. That was a claim you posted but didn't support. In any case, as I've argued before logic is not part of philosophy, except under extremely broad and useless definitions. In fact it's been argued that philosophy _uses_ logic, which shows that it's not a branch of it. Logic is way more fundamental than any attempt at philosophy.

Why should we care what Einstein had to say about philosophy and science? The man was a famously successful physicist. Physics is a subset or branch of Science. Einstein's worldview of the intimate link of philosophy and science contributed to his success. That is why we should take into consideration what he had to say about philosophy.

I understand philosophy as being the mental process of thought. Every scientific experiment begins with mental process of thought. Saying science doesn't need philosophy is like saying it doesn't need language, processes (scientific method), math, or humans. All of these are integral for the successful practice of science.

The Britanica link I provided started by describing philosophy as being composed in 4 distinct categories, one of which is epistemology. The claim made by the Stanford resource I provided said that it is impossible to distinguish science from pseudoscience without epistemology. Since epistemology belongs to philosophy, the component that makes science useful would not exist without philosophy.

I think that perhaps you may not have read all the posts in this thread? And perhaps you are unaware of the previous dozen or more very similar threads where it became obvious that 2 of the posters, whilst actually saying that they are big fans of science and that they have studied it very extensively (what? really? ... I do not believe them), were actually making claims of mysticism &/or anti-scientific claims of saying that either things do not exist or that science cannot tell what exists and so forth.

Some of us have lost patience with that sort of thing after a thousand or more posts in the various threads ... and especially lost patience with philosopy supporting participants who present themselves as very knowledge about science, when it's obvious they have almost no proper education or understanding in/of core science (which is the part of science that we are always talking about in these threads). In the end it's hard t maintain respect for people when they post repeatedly like that in thread after thread.

I understand the frustration. If I claimed that I had studied science extensively and mentioned mysticism then you might have a point.

...

Science isn't philosophy. You can't just go "Well this famous smart person so and so said..."

I'm not sure who claimed that science is philosophy. Did you offer a rebuttal about a claim that nobody made? My claim is that they are irrevocably connected.

Sure, That is his escape hatch. I am unwilling to allow it.

And the answer is NO.

No more that his claims are more credible that Einsteins simply because Einstein is a century ago. Claims are never assessed for credibility on the basis of how recent they might be. That would be daft. If I claimed tomorrow that I have a real Unicorn up my fundament, would you rate such a claim more likely to be true because I will make it tomorrow? Course not.

My intent was to communicate exactly how Belz interpreted it. While your belief for the truth of wisdom has nothing to do with its age, Joe took a different approach. Joe pre-emptively dismissed a resource if it was made by old deceased white men before plumbing was invented. I offered an old deceased savant who existed after plumbing was common so that I could better understanding his point.

I have also provided a resource from Stanford University, which as of yet, nobody has addressed the essence of this information. Apparently, if information is presented that is contrary to somebody's belief, it is dismissed without further inquiry or discussion by utilization of the first thought that comes to them.

Your street credentials don't compare to Einstein's, therefore your claims are justly scrutinized. I'd ask you to provide a picture. Invite me to your house to view this beast. My request for more information has nothing to do with the temporality of your claim. Nothing person, I guess. Nobody automatically took what Einstein said as gospel. It was scrutinized and critiqued, as it should have been.

 

[Belz...]

Why should we care what Einstein had to say about philosophy and science? The man was a famously successful physicist.

Did you not read what we told you? In science it's not the person who does the talking, it's the evidence. Add to that the fact that philosophy isn't his field, and you've got a pretty solid reason to dismiss his opinion on the matter.

Einstein's worldview of the intimate link of philosophy and science contributed to his success.

Where the hell did you get that ridiculous idea?

 

[ServiceSoon]

Did you not read what we told you? In science it's not the person who does the talking, it's the evidence. Add to that the fact that philosophy isn't his field, and you've got a pretty solid reason to dismiss his opinion on the matter.

Where the hell did you get that ridiculous idea?

Im not sure if you purposely or mistakenly excluded all factors that contribute to the evidence. Factors that occur before any evidence is available. A person has thoughts that inspire an hypothesis that results in the evidence. Those thoughts are impacted by that persons worldview, biases, training, network, childhood, philosophy, etc.

 

[LarryS]

Why will common table salt no longer be the result of a combination of chlorine and sodium in 500 years?

'why' questions suck, if you'd have asked 'how' then we'd have something.

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

'why' questions suck, if you'd have asked 'how' then we'd have something.

So pretend he asked that.

 

[Darat]

'why' questions suck, if you'd have asked 'how' then we'd have something.

Any answer to my question about how you know common table salt will no longer be a compound of chlorine and sodium in 500 years time?

 

[IanS]

One of my favorite quotes to offer to proponents of scientism:
Scientist often start developing their hypothesis from a position of belief based on intuition(lacking rational thought or understanding) gained from previous knowledge or observations. This is evident by the fact that most scientific experiments based on theories prove to be false. Eventually, the scientific process as implemented by biased humans will result in a marginal increase in wisdom/truth. It is an amazing system that has brought immense benefit, but it is not the gateway to omniscience(all knowing). It is but a part of the systems we have developed. It is best when combined with other systems of epistemology. .

What on earth is "Scientism"? We have all heard that term before of course. Almost always from religious nut-cases or anti-science crackpots who think they know better because they have taken a course in a 3000 year old outdated subject called "philosophy".

You just said that "most scientific experiments based on theories have proved false". Well, first of all an "experiment" cannot be "false" ... the interpretation of the results might be wrong, but the experiment itself cannot be "false". So what do you actually mean when you claim things like that?

The whole of your paragraph is begrudging of what science has achieved. You are trying to minimise it by saying that scientists are biased and that they only achieve anything by eventually over a long time finding something which you say is only a "minimal increase in Wisdom/truth".

That is really a complete give-away of your anti-science beliefs/agenda. There's just no point in any scientifically educated people talking to anyone so off the wall as that (which is probably why scientists rarely waste their time or waste public money bothering to speak to idiot philosophers like that). But, why on earth do you think scientific discoveries and their explanations should appear instantly, as if it did not take a lot of time and lot of effort to devise many of the experiments, then time to analyse the results, then more time to try way's of confirming and repeating the results, before refining possible explanations, and then writing a research paper and waiting months to see if that is accepted, then more months waiting for publication … why do you think that should happen in the blink of an eye?? …

… and then you claimed the end results would only be a “marginal increase in wisdom/truth”. I mean what complete nonsense is that supposed to be. How many important discoveries and explanations do you think have been found by modern science, things that directly improve the lives of everyone on the planet? … If I guess it as millions of things, then that would probably be a huge underestimate, and you are claiming that amount of progress is minimal! … I mean, at least try to get real.

Why should we care what Einstein had to say about philosophy and science? The man was a famously successful physicist. Physics is a subset or branch of Science. Einstein's worldview of the intimate link of philosophy and science contributed to his success. That is why we should take into consideration what he had to say about philosophy.
.

OK, first of all - a lot of quotes have been attributed to Einstein. And a lot of them have later turned out to be false ... ie, misquoted, misunderstood, or just never said it.

But Einstein was born in an era where scientists still did believe that philosophy was important. And they often thought it was fashionable in the sense of making them look clever or sophisticated. A number of the mathematicians who developed quantum theory in the 1920's seemed to have held philosophy in some sort of awe like that ... though iirc Dirac denounced it as an obvious load of nonsense & not worthy of his time.

Famous scientists like Einstein, Dirac, Bohr, Heisenberg became celebrities, and they were often asked for quotes and comments. And they often tried to say surprising or provoking things. In more modern times, Feynman was also fond of doing that.

But the scientists we are talking about here (Einstein, Dirac, Heisenberg Feynman, etc. ... there have been hundreds of them) were really mathematicians who were deeply into new exotic lines of mathematical complexities about the nature of the universe. And that line of deep intellectual mathematical thought (going on 24/7), often does lead people into expressing all sorts of weird & amazing ideas about what they think their discoveries are showing us about nature and reality.

As it happens I've actually worked with quite a few mathematicians in that line of research (when I was doing my PhD and later Post-doc research), and I remember thinking then that almost all of them were very peculiar people with some very odd ideas and often distinctly odd behaviour. In passing, as a more off-topic comment/explanation - I never really got anything useful from any of them (I was asking for their help & advice on some papers that had earlier been published on complex areas of Stochastic Processes in QM, which I was struggling with) ... but it quickly became clear to me that they did not really understand it either, even though they had themselves written papers in similar area of maths/physics research.

But going back to Einstein's quote - when he mentions "epistemology" he may just have been saying that in the light of what he had been discovering about relativity (a lot of which seemed extremely perculiar at the time, almost unimaginably weird) we need to think hard about how we "know" things & about what "knowledge & reality" actually is. Also keep in mind that Einstein was famously quoted for several remarks about God ... but it later turned out that he was speaking in metaphors that were not to be taken literally.

I understand the frustration. If I claimed that I had studied science extensively and mentioned mysticism then you might have a point.

I did not say that you had ever claimed to have studied science extensively. In fact I specifically told you that it was two other people in this thread who had said that (where they were praising philosophy in opposition to science).

But actually, if you or anyone is going to criticise science and minimise it (eg in the way you did in your first paragraph quoted above), then I think you do need to get yourself on at least a first degree course in core science (though that will only give you 10% of what you need to really understand about science research).

 

[Belz...]

Im not sure if you purposely or mistakenly excluded all factors that contribute to the evidence. Factors that occur before any evidence is available. A person has thoughts that inspire an hypothesis that results in the evidence. Those thoughts are impacted by that persons worldview, biases, training, network, childhood, philosophy, etc.

And all that is completely irrelevant. The above really illustrates your complete misunderstanding of science and how it works, and how the evidence speaks for itself, regardless of whatever thoughts the scientists have. In fact that's why science is so successful.

 

[Belz...]

I do love the attempt at an argument, here: "Science is done by people with thoughts. Thoughts include philosophy. Ergo science requires philosophy."

Of course it's complete hogwash. Changing your tires is done by people with thoughts. Thoughts include philosophy. Ergo changing tires requires philosophy. Cooking eggs is done by people with thoughts. Thoughts include philosophy. Ergo cooking eggs requires philosophy.

Once again philosophiles catch themselves trying to be too broad, and end up being absurd. It's the same process by which theists end up looking absurd.

 

[JoeMorgue]

What on earth is "Scientism"?

Your bog standard "Science is a religion!" nonsense from Woo Slingers and Navel Gazers.

I do love the attempt at an argument, here: "Science is done by people with thoughts. Thoughts include philosophy. Ergo science requires philosophy."

What I don't get is why the Philosophy Supporters keep getting pissy when we say their argument hasn't advanced beyond "Everything is philosophy because philosophy says so" and swear up and down that's not their argument.

 

[Belz...]

What I don't get is why the Philosophy Supporters keep getting pissy when we say their argument has advanced beyond "Everything is philosophy because philosophy says so" and swear up and down that's not their argument.

Because they realise how stupid that argument is, and try to dress it otherwise.

 

[IanS]

Im not sure if you purposely or mistakenly excluded all factors that contribute to the evidence. Factors that occur before any evidence is available. A person has thoughts that inspire an hypothesis that results in the evidence. Those thoughts are impacted by that persons worldview, biases, training, network, childhood, philosophy, etc.

You are actually claiming that scientists are biased, such that their explanations (from the data or experiments and from the maths) are flawed (inc. "wrong") because their bias lead them to find the result they wanted or believed in, in the first place.

But in science, the whole of anyones academic training & education leads you to be very much aware of such possibilities and to be very highly on guard about it. Probably to much greater degree than is found in any other area of academic research.

However, on top of that, science also has a very rigorous peer review process which will normally detect anything like that & prevent it's publication. And beyond that, if that peer review process fails to spot the problem, then with important papers it will certainly be spotted immediately all over the world by other specialists in the field, and you'll get loads emails and letters quite mercilessly pointing out your mistakes ... or in some cases other will simply publish a paper savagely tearing your earlier paper apart.

So, whilst scientists are indeed human, they are probably the least likely in society to publish biased untrue claims (at. least in core science ... what goes on in fringe areas of science and in all sorts of subjects that now like to add the word "science" to their name, that's anyones guess).

 

[Pixel42]

Indeed the purpose of the scientific method is, to a large extent, to compensate for those very biases. Your thoughts and biases may influence the hypothesis you come up with but proper application of the scientific method will ensure that, if you're wrong, that hypothesis will be disproved.

Some of the most famous and influential experiments ever done actually found the exact opposite of what the scientists who did them expected. The Michelson Morley experiment is a famous example. More recently, the studies of supernovae which everyone expected to show that the expansion of the universe was slowing down, but which actually showed it to be speeding up.

 

[JoeMorgue]

I sense that the "If you can't do something 100% perfectly with 100% consistency you are (somehow) worse than someone who doesn't even try" thing starting to rear its head again.

Much like with other circles of life, the spiteful and the Proudly Wrong are going to try to argue science is bad because it has standards it sometimes doesn't live up to, so we should embrace things which have no standards so they can never let us down or be pretentious or hypocritical.

 

[Belz...]

Indeed the purpose of the scientific method is, to a large extent, to compensate for those very biases. Your thoughts and biases may influence the hypothesis you come up with but proper application of the scientific method will ensure that, if you're wrong, that hypothesis will be disproved.

Some of the most famous and influential experiments ever done actually found the exact opposite of what the scientists who did them expected. The Michelson Morley experiment is a famous example. More recently, the studies of supernovae which everyone expected to show that the expansion of the universe was slowing down, but which actually showed it to be speeding up.

In fact, my experience is that scientists LOVE IT when they discover something that upends everything they thought was true. It's more amazing work for them in the future.