I will put you in the science is a religion category - I prefer to keep science and religion seperate.
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Does anything exist?
- Thread starter Scorpion
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I will put you in the science is a religion category - I prefer to keep science and religion seperate.
Gibberish.
If you think I am "advocating for the former", then you could not possibly have ever read anything I have ever said anywhere on this entire site!
How could you possibly think that, when I have said and explained (often in great detail) the exact opposite?
But ... it's not just "what fits the available data then it's science". Science does vastly more than that. It explains why that data fits with existing theories or with new models (models and theories are very different things, as I'm sure you know), and when results are published then the interpretation (if its' an important one) immediately gets tested all over the world with every piece of equipment and every type of experiment known to Man ... eventually, if the explanations continue to hold up under all possible types of tests and scrutiny, then all sorts of people often start making new devices which should work if the science is indeed correct … and that's how we now have all the millions of technological devices that have improved everyone's lives so much.
So it's a lot more that just “what fits the available data”.
But if people think that the world around us (which is what science detects and explains) is not actually real, that it's all some sort of illusion, then it's their job to explain how that could be the case … what is their evidence for suggesting that? How does philosophy explain any such thing?
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Steve
Penultimate Amazing
Exactly. 'Photon", like so many words in science, has an entirely different meaning to lay persons than to scientists. In physics the name "photon" is merely convenient shorthand for, as LarryS says, "the results of the observation(s) of photons are consistent with (a particular class of) models.
Steve
Penultimate Amazing
Why would you do that? Philosophy is much more akin to religion than hard science will ever be - make things up and pretend, without evidence, that they are true. Seems that religion is another thing that you do not properly comprehend.
Well, that's not true either!
When we see (detect with our human senses) a bus, or a football, or the moon in the night sky, they are indeed as we perceive them with our eyesight. The only thing that differs from that as an additional piece of knowledge, is that if we look at such objects on a vastly smaller scale (e.g. an atomic scale), or if we look at them on some vastly larger scale, then we can see either more detail or less detail about their structure.
Yes, of course we now know (thanks to science, not thanks to anything else like philosophy) that our human senses are limited ... we can only see a certain level of detail or a certain range of colours with our eyes; there are sounds that are at too high frequency or too low frequency for human hearing to detect; and there are similar deficiencies in smell, touch and taste. But none of that has anything to do with reality being very different than the way we perceive it either through our animal senses or via all sorts of instrumental techniques.
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"Nothing is 100% absolutely certain, up to and including reality itself somehow self proving itself therefore I am morally and intellectually justified in making stuff and/or denying reality."
That's how philosophy is like Woo Slinging.
That's how philosophy is like Woo Slinging.
Belz...
Fiend God
What are you talking about? Where did anything I say amount to religious belief? You are being disingenuous.
What I said is that you are creating a distinction that is unwarranted. You are trying to make "science" into a specific box that insulates your beliefs and musings from skeptical inquiry. It's not going to work, here.
Now, put your money where your mouth is, and establish a connection between that and your ridiculous accusation.
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Sabine Hossenfelder is a theoretical physist - so I would tend to accept her definitions of science over some random persons on internet - especially when her take is the same take I learned re science.
Here is the link for her video that precedes the one I linked earlier - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ka9KGqr5Wtw
Rather then me trying to restate it one more time - she expresses the point very clearly beginning about 2:35 into video - and maybe 20 seconds.
OK, I watched the whole of that video this time (it's quite short anyway). And firstly, I don't think she is the woman who I saw on YouTube talking about hidden dimensions of space, but anyway -
- I would not particularly disagree with what I think she is saying in that video ... what I think she is saying, or rather what she is doing, is taking the position that it is not her job to argue about whether or not the things that science detects (in fact what we all detect every day) is what someone wants to call "real" or "unreal" ... she is content to take the position of saying that the data fit extremely well with how any of us detect the objects and events.
That's exactly what I've been saying too. Except, I am also asking the philosophers here, what is your evidence for saying that the objects and events do not exist in the sense of not being anything at all (not in the sense that they may be slightly different in some respects from what our current measurement and theories/maths show ... we all know that scientific theories and models are open to improvement as we learn more-&-more about the universe around us).
But I noticed that when she said it was the job of philosophers to decide what is "real", she also added (a) that many scientists do find what philosophy says, to be deeply unconvincing, and (b) she says that she does not know what "real" even means in any such context anyway.
What I have said in all my previous posts here (just to be clear by repeating it again), is that all that scientists have to do is to examine whatever our senses or our instruments are confronted with, gather the data (whatever form that is in), and then produce an explanation which fits not only that particular set of data (that's the only data set that she actually mentioned) but also all of the data from all other experiments and observations and also fits all the major theories of science (e.g. in this case, i.e. her examples, quantum theory and general relativity).
So where is the problem with any of that?
Why should anyone think that the things we all detect are not not real in the sense of having no existence at all?
In fact - what could it even ever mean for anything to have no existence at all?
If you think that you cannot trust science to show us what is very likely to be “real”, then what better method do you think exists? What do you think has been anywhere near as successful as modern science at discovering and explaining to the world what is, as far as anyone can honestly tell, almost certainly what we should call a detailed true description of the universe around us (i.e. “reality”)?
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Sabine (and myself) pointed out the difference between stating something is real as it fits\explains observations (science) - and extending those results to saying therefore this thing(s) exists as real (philosophy/logic).
For example, we have 52,000 observations of particleX (science), we can infer particleX is real (philosophy/logic).
Or, as she suggests, a 'realist' might say - science observes particleX, included in that scientific method -> particleX is real, no philosophy/logic required This seems to be your and Belz position.. She (and I) points out that this (being a realist as she defines it) is a belief- this is doing philosophy or religion, not science.
As she says, there is no problem being a 'realist'.
Well, first of all I don't think YOU are "pointing out" anything (what qualifications do you actually have in core science research? ... what actually is your own experience working in core research?). Secondly your post makes no sense in English language ... it's complete gibberish! And thirdly I have told you at least 6 times here now that my position is NOT what you have just said! You keep doing that, in all of these threads where for years here you have been pushing your anti-science mystic view of the universe ....
... what I have told you 6 times here already (and probably 60 times before across all of the threads where you have been telling us about your mystical view of the world), is - I don't say anything about "reality" in the sense of claiming what is, or is not, "real" ... I have absolutely no need to make any fixed claims about that ...
... all that I do, and all that science and scientists really can do, and in fact that is also all that anyone can do if they are honest, educated and scientifically informed, is to say that what we do in science, ie with the so-called "scientific method" (which is not absolutely fixed by the way) is to study whatever we observe and detect, and then explain what we think the gathered data and evidence tells us about those objects and events that make-up the world around us. That's it. That's all we ever need to do. Arguments from philosophers about whether or not anything is actually "real", are utterly irrelevant & pointless unless & until they can show that there is some good evidential reason to conclude that the objects and events have no such existence at all.
I could add to that, just to make the actual view of almost everyone in core science really clear (though you may try to make some stupid opposition or dissent from this ... but I'll tell you anyway) that - personally I've never met any physicists, chemists or theoreticians who actually think that the objects and events that we detect are anything except absolutely real ... and also, that within the limits of our sensory perceptions and our instrumental limits, "exactly" the way that we perceive them, eg when you look at an object such as your mobile phone or a red double-decker bus or a cat, those things are more-or-less exactly as we see them and as we measure them etc.; they are not significantly different from we do actually detect ... to repeat;- most physicists, all that I've met (several hundred) accept that the objects and events are indeed real, and that out experiments and calculations etc. do model the actual reality of this universe ...
... BUT, we do not need to make any specific claim about any of that. We do not need to actually claim that everything must be real just exactly as we detect & describe it. That's just not necessary. And it's better science to maintain some element of caution like that, when as far as we can tell from QM, we probably cannot ever literally prove such things as a matter of 100% certainty (because the underlying forces are probabilistic, and not fixed in any certain way).
So that lot, leaves you with exactly what I have repeatedly said to you - we deal with whatever we detect, and we describe and explain that according to whatever evidence we gather ... and then we test that by using as many different methods as science has in various labs all over the world ... then we try everything imaginable as ways to confirm or reject those conclusions ... and then lots of other people often build millions of different devices which should work in very specific ways providing the science is correct (otherwise it will not work!), and so far after billions of such devices have been developed, and after literally trillions of tests, nothing has ever been found to disagree with the established theories of modern science ...
... that is a pretty good indication that what we are detecting is indeed "real" in the sense of it existing in exactly the way we describe it. BUT, again, there is no need to go that extra step of actually claiming or insisting that we are describing exactly 100% pure "reality"... it's completely unnecessary to make any such claims about "reality". Which is why most papers in core science do not bother to make claims about that.
"Well this scientist said...."
Science isn't philosophy. You can't just invoke someone and go "Well it has to be science because a scientist said so" like you can with philosophers.
Belz...
Fiend God
I didn't give you a definition of science. You are EXTREMELY confused.
For the third time, my point is that you are misunderstanding the SCOPE of science by creating extra categories of stuff that are, by definition, outside of that scope.
Well put - for me it is summarised as "does exactly what it says on the tin", and to me that is where philosophy failed - in the end it did not do what it said on the tin.
The Navel Gazers are trying to drag us down into categorization semantics.
1. A method of determining information that actually reliability gives you accurate information.
2. A method of determining information that doesn't reliability give you accurate information.
Call each of those whatever you want. Science, philosophy, dancing the Charleston on a street corner in a jaunty beret.
1 is useful, 2 is not.
1. A method of determining information that actually reliability gives you accurate information.
2. A method of determining information that doesn't reliability give you accurate information.
Call each of those whatever you want. Science, philosophy, dancing the Charleston on a street corner in a jaunty beret.
1 is useful, 2 is not.
There are some scientists who will say all sorts of different things. Often quiet controversial things, especially those who appear on public platforms like YouTube, and especially if they have a book to sell. There are hundreds of thousand of scientists in the world, and with numbers that large you can expect some of them to say almost anything (no matter how odd or nutty) … and some of them clearly like the publicity & attention they get on platforms like YouTube …
… but of course 99.9% of scientists, inc. many of the most important and authoritative, will never come to the public attention. That's where 99.9% of the real core science is done.
A good many physicists (and others) may indeed just say that of course what we detect is actually the reality of the universe around us. The usual reason for simply coming straight out and saying that, is that they cannot be bothered with all the time-wasting pussyfooting that others will engage in (and they are not going to bother getting into a debate or an argument about it anyway … they have zero interest in that, and have better things to do). But as far as physicists are concerned, and especially theoreticians dealing with things like Big Bang Cosmology, Quantum Field Theory, and aspects of Relativity, most of them will usually be a bit more cautions in what they say, and they will say exactly what I have repeatedly said to you both here and in all your previous threads.
Incidentally, if anyone wants to read more on these issues, then there are 3 pretty nice books written in fairly simple layman's langauge -
1 What Is Real?, Adam Becker. J.Murray (publishers), 2018
2 Through Two Doors AT Once, Anil Ananthaswarmy, Penguin Random House, 2019
3 Beyond Weird, Philip Ball, Penguin Random House, 2018
They must be crap - they weren't written in the 18th and 19th century!
They aren't even in Latin!
I highlighted a few segments of your post - and I hope you can see you're all over the place. Having said that I am in agreement with you in that I share the same philosophy as you (and Belz) . . . but that's not the point . . . the point is it's a philosophy.
A scientist can be a devout catholic, agnostic or atheist, a Druid, dualist or monist. A scientist could believe in ghosts or that we live in a simulation, or believe reality is all a dream of some furry god.
Granted our beliefs can and will limit the type and greatness of any science we do - but anyone of any beliefs can do science. Even the great Sir Isaac Newton left some things for God - only to have another scientist a few decades later say 'hold my beer' that not be God that be science.
If you reread your post you can see where you are referring to science, and where you are referring to your beliefs.