A rose would not smell as sweet if it was called, as it likely is called in German, a sourbloodpetal. Or whatever. Naming things, getting the good names for things, brings with it many victories.
What a glorious and sad day is for an empiricist who is also a scientist to see that, after careful and methodical experiments, that a hypothetical object is disproved to exist.
Glorious because now that a we know the assumed was only imaginary, we have one fewer obstacle, and we are one kiloFauci less wrong. (Fauci is the unit of "being wrong".)
Sad day too, because most other scientists will oppose the new discovery. They depend on institutions, and institutions depend on political power, which in turn depends on industries and banks. Disproving a scientific theory creates some discomfort, some irritation. Scientists fear the imaginary consequences of approximating reality using science. Scientists are as corrupt as the institutions they depend on, measured in miliRockefellers (Rockefeller is the unit of corruption.)
The empiricist and scientist who verifies that imagined things are imaginary crashes at high speed against the unexpected reality of the thorough corruption of his peers. SAD!
I dunno, I think a Fauci is more similar in measurement to Teslas. IOW, politicians usually measure in tenths of a Fauci, while meteorologists are measured in picofFaucis.
Ah, the term "empirically adequate" Adequate for what purpose? The ability to manipulate the world in some fashion. The person who does that (describes the world so it can be manipulated) is called an engineer.
Most of so-called scientists are in fact engineers. They don't like to be called that because engineers wear funny hats and throw coal into a boiler. Scientist is so much cleaner.
Also, "There is a distinction between being true in all respects and being true about what is observable". So, Truth is not an objective - because we know that Truth means true in all respects. Engineering looks for contingent "truths", these being predictions given certain constraints.
Now there is nothing wrong about engineers per se. Depends on what is being engineered of course. Where as actual science - the search for physical truth - can have nothing wrong with it nor with the Truth that is discovered.
Engineers don't care about reality, they care about 2 things: 1) the ability to reproduce a manipulation with some reliability, 2) reducing cost. And maybe a third: getting paid.
A fire broke out in a college dormitory. The mathematician was first to wake up seeing that there was a fire extinguisher on the wall and then satisfied with an answer to the problem he went back to sleep.
The physicist was next to wake up. He was fascinated by the fire, studied, it, took notes, especially on how the base of the fire could be extinguished easily. Overcome by smoke, he passed out.
Last the engineer woke up, read the notes of the mathematician and the physicist, grabbed the fire extinguisher and put the fire out-
More likely some regular student or staff member woke up and used the fire extinguisher designed by the engineer, who studied truths developed by the scientist. There are a lot more students and staff than engineers.
Engineers precede both physicists and mathematicians in MANY discoveries. The former leans Aristotelian (evidence driven), where the physicist is split between evidence-based and the theoretical, while the mathematician is typically Platonic (theoretical driven).
Engineers have as strong a chance of pulling us out of the current nightmare in Physics as the physicists do. Mathematicians will only help if they can link into matching results with Reality.
Don't diss the Engineers. They care about Reality possibly more than the others.
There is a series of very interesting videos on Youtube which basically show how to explain things (eg Gravity) to a 1st grader, a 12th grader and a PhD student. Depending on your background knowledge, and your need to use the information, there are very different realities about things.
You don't need to know the crystalline arrangement of a piece of metal to use a knife to cut some string.
Philosophy (physics, evolution, religion, politics, sex) is an interesting pastime as long as you don't take it, or yourself, too seriously. Discussing whether something is 'real' or just a rearrangement of chemicals in your fevered mind is fine except that you have just burned off your hand.
Philosophy is much more important to those things you name, not less. Materialism is a dominant if not the dominant philosophy of Science. Accepting (even demanding) this philosophy be the lens in which we "see" the world is potentially crippling to Science and discovery.
Philosophy is not an inconvenient appendix to the body of Science. It is the eyes and mind through which Science is apprehended and functions. Turning philosophy over to incompetents within the field is not sensible.
The philosophy of Materialism never lets you get past "why does Reason exist?", as our host showed in his last post. In fact, Materialism self-destructs as a driving philosophy -- you can't prove Reason works or even exists -- eliminating any valid results that fell from the use of said Reason. But, Reason is the only tool Materialism has, therefore, it becomes a dead end as an overarching philosophy. Remove that philosophy completely? Then all you have is people grinding out results from mathematical equations, but you don't necessarily have the reason for why this is true. Accurate results also don't tell you if the mathematical formula is a description of the mechanics of the system OR merely a calculation system.
An example of this confusion between calculation versus physical behavior is planetary epicycles versus Keplerian motion. Epicycles stuck around as long as they did because they were a very effective calculation and predictive tool compared to early Copernican models. But, the epicyclic system was not effective in describing how planetary bodies actually moved.
I believe this is also described in CS Lewis' "Miracles", where he points out that adding more and more incorrect premises to an argument eventually undoes the entire argument. Materialism as a driving philosophy cripples your ability to find the most true methods of Science.
Materialists don't acknowledge that they can't argue Reason into their toolbox, but just use it to grind out results, then incorrectly claim that only Materialism is necessary for Science to function. This philosophy can't help but lead to incorrect results along the way of discovery.
When inundated with tons of bovine excrement, deflection is the only means of protection.
When you can write your thoughts in a clear and concise manner then there can be a discussion, until then you are the one who is hiding your ignorance in ridiculous verbiage.
"Philosophy is not an inconvenient appendix to the body of Science. It is the eyes and mind through which Science is apprehended and functions. " is nonsensical tripe.
It has no meaning whatsoever.
Re-word it so that a six year old can understand what, if anything, you are talking about.
I would take it to mean that science is tacitly based on and constrained by implicit and unquestioned philosophical assumptions, at least until some crisis in science forces us to confront and reexamine those hidden premises in our reasoning.
Hans G. Schantz has a good series of articles describing the historical assumptions that underlay the scientific paradigms of the past. I link an example:
I take that "Science" is not constrained in any way, but that scientists are constrained by their beliefs and abilities.
“One could not be a successful scientist without realising that, in contrast to the popular conception supported by newspapers and mothers of scientists, a goodly number of scientists are not only narrow-minded and dull, but also just stupid.”
James Watson – a co-discoverer of the DNA double-helix structure
-
Scientists claim they are looking for truth but in reality 99.9% are looking for fame/wealth.
"The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue. Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness."
“Such is professional jealousy; a scientist will never show any kindness for a theory which he did not start himself.” Mark Twain
-
The greatest problem wth science ( for really smart people) was given by a really smart young man who went into physics and said "when he started experiments with the purpose of eliminating false hypotheses, what he found was that on the contrary, many more hypotheses were presenting themselves with every result (whether they supported or opposed the hypothesis being tested) , leading to many, many more experiments which led to ...."
So he turned instead to technology and made a fortune.
"I take that "Science" is not constrained in any way, but that scientists are constrained by their beliefs and abilities."
Boy howdy.
IMO scientists are less rational and more biased than "untrained" people, because they almost always overestimate their ability to be rational because "we're trained scientists!".
Reality has a knack of taking us down the path of our choice without our noticing except that the going is smooth. And so we travel on and on. Ever deeper into the wood of our own absurdities.
All the while reality is waiting for us to come to our senses. The real question is how much patience does she have.
Mortimer Adler held that “truth is the sovereign idea by which we judge. He believed that beauty is a special kind of goodness, which is itself a special kind of truth. He also held that truth—by distinguishing certain from doubtful judgments, and by differentiating matters of taste and matters of truth—provides the ground for understanding beauty and goodness. “
Born a Jew, he converted to Anglicanism, and then Catholicism on his deathbed.
Personal hero of mine. He wrote a lot of great books.
Matters of truth are where disputes are fruitful, matters of taste are where disputes are not.
I like hockey, you like baseball - that is clearly a matter of taste.
I think light is made of both particles and waves, you think only waves…
Quantum mechanics defends biblical creation. There are linguistic tells: big bang theory and God particle. For God to exist, it is necessary that space and time precede matter's existence.
Newtonian physics holds at atomic scale. Time is a consequence of matter like light. See how at https://twitter.com/Mark_Pollina
Yes science does not and can not describe Reality as It Is which is necessarily prior to any thought process however seemingly insightful.
Nor can Christian philosophers/theologians because all of their philosophy and/or theology is based on self serving mind created constructs too.
So too with the "catholic" church the primary purpose of which is to gain power and-control over all of humankind. Go ye therefore and convert all nations to the "one true way"
Feser's five "proofs" are just pretentious posturing.
At another level we "spend" a third of lives in bed wherein the seemingly solid world disappears both in the dream state wherein everything becomes a psychic fluid plastic indefinable realm.
And in the state of deep restful dreamless state wherein we are relieved of the inherent stress of having to deal with apparent others and a multitude of things. Such dreamless sleep is in effect a poor man's Samadhi.
While I take the point that the statistical notion of chance is a tool of thought, and not intrinsic to reality, I still wonder if it is really the case that chance, or true randomness, does not physically exist?
What a glorious and sad day is for an empiricist who is also a scientist to see that, after careful and methodical experiments, that a hypothetical object is disproved to exist.
Glorious because now that a we know the assumed was only imaginary, we have one fewer obstacle, and we are one kiloFauci less wrong. (Fauci is the unit of "being wrong".)
Sad day too, because most other scientists will oppose the new discovery. They depend on institutions, and institutions depend on political power, which in turn depends on industries and banks. Disproving a scientific theory creates some discomfort, some irritation. Scientists fear the imaginary consequences of approximating reality using science. Scientists are as corrupt as the institutions they depend on, measured in miliRockefellers (Rockefeller is the unit of corruption.)
The empiricist and scientist who verifies that imagined things are imaginary crashes at high speed against the unexpected reality of the thorough corruption of his peers. SAD!
Points for "kiloFauci"
Always thought the English language needed a word to quantify "being wrong".
So yesterday's weather forecast might typically measure three kiloFaucis, politician's speeches thirty, and government news releases 300.
Useful tool. Thank you.
I dunno, I think a Fauci is more similar in measurement to Teslas. IOW, politicians usually measure in tenths of a Fauci, while meteorologists are measured in picofFaucis.
IOW, even just one Fauci is a colossal fuckup.
Ah, the term "empirically adequate" Adequate for what purpose? The ability to manipulate the world in some fashion. The person who does that (describes the world so it can be manipulated) is called an engineer.
Most of so-called scientists are in fact engineers. They don't like to be called that because engineers wear funny hats and throw coal into a boiler. Scientist is so much cleaner.
Also, "There is a distinction between being true in all respects and being true about what is observable". So, Truth is not an objective - because we know that Truth means true in all respects. Engineering looks for contingent "truths", these being predictions given certain constraints.
Now there is nothing wrong about engineers per se. Depends on what is being engineered of course. Where as actual science - the search for physical truth - can have nothing wrong with it nor with the Truth that is discovered.
Engineers don't care about reality, they care about 2 things: 1) the ability to reproduce a manipulation with some reliability, 2) reducing cost. And maybe a third: getting paid.
No… definitely no..
A fire broke out in a college dormitory. The mathematician was first to wake up seeing that there was a fire extinguisher on the wall and then satisfied with an answer to the problem he went back to sleep.
The physicist was next to wake up. He was fascinated by the fire, studied, it, took notes, especially on how the base of the fire could be extinguished easily. Overcome by smoke, he passed out.
Last the engineer woke up, read the notes of the mathematician and the physicist, grabbed the fire extinguisher and put the fire out-
More likely some regular student or staff member woke up and used the fire extinguisher designed by the engineer, who studied truths developed by the scientist. There are a lot more students and staff than engineers.
Engineers precede both physicists and mathematicians in MANY discoveries. The former leans Aristotelian (evidence driven), where the physicist is split between evidence-based and the theoretical, while the mathematician is typically Platonic (theoretical driven).
Engineers have as strong a chance of pulling us out of the current nightmare in Physics as the physicists do. Mathematicians will only help if they can link into matching results with Reality.
Don't diss the Engineers. They care about Reality possibly more than the others.
This!
IMO Engineers make the best scientists, because as you noted: Their stuff has to work in the real world, not just in your head.
There is a series of very interesting videos on Youtube which basically show how to explain things (eg Gravity) to a 1st grader, a 12th grader and a PhD student. Depending on your background knowledge, and your need to use the information, there are very different realities about things.
You don't need to know the crystalline arrangement of a piece of metal to use a knife to cut some string.
Philosophy (physics, evolution, religion, politics, sex) is an interesting pastime as long as you don't take it, or yourself, too seriously. Discussing whether something is 'real' or just a rearrangement of chemicals in your fevered mind is fine except that you have just burned off your hand.
Philosophy is much more important to those things you name, not less. Materialism is a dominant if not the dominant philosophy of Science. Accepting (even demanding) this philosophy be the lens in which we "see" the world is potentially crippling to Science and discovery.
Philosophy is not an inconvenient appendix to the body of Science. It is the eyes and mind through which Science is apprehended and functions. Turning philosophy over to incompetents within the field is not sensible.
"... Philosophy is not an inconvenient appendix to the body of Science. It is the eyes and mind through which Science is apprehended and functions. "
Would you care to explain that in terms that mere mortals can comprehend.
It sounds terribly profound but has no meaning without a definition of pretty much every term you used.
For instance you say that philosophy is the mind through which science functions.
Really?
The philosophy of Materialism never lets you get past "why does Reason exist?", as our host showed in his last post. In fact, Materialism self-destructs as a driving philosophy -- you can't prove Reason works or even exists -- eliminating any valid results that fell from the use of said Reason. But, Reason is the only tool Materialism has, therefore, it becomes a dead end as an overarching philosophy. Remove that philosophy completely? Then all you have is people grinding out results from mathematical equations, but you don't necessarily have the reason for why this is true. Accurate results also don't tell you if the mathematical formula is a description of the mechanics of the system OR merely a calculation system.
An example of this confusion between calculation versus physical behavior is planetary epicycles versus Keplerian motion. Epicycles stuck around as long as they did because they were a very effective calculation and predictive tool compared to early Copernican models. But, the epicyclic system was not effective in describing how planetary bodies actually moved.
I believe this is also described in CS Lewis' "Miracles", where he points out that adding more and more incorrect premises to an argument eventually undoes the entire argument. Materialism as a driving philosophy cripples your ability to find the most true methods of Science.
Materialists don't acknowledge that they can't argue Reason into their toolbox, but just use it to grind out results, then incorrectly claim that only Materialism is necessary for Science to function. This philosophy can't help but lead to incorrect results along the way of discovery.
I am a bit of a bullshitter myself, but it is instructive to see an expert in full flow.
I acknowledge a truly great scientist.
“If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself.”
― Albert Einstein
Nice to meet you, Mr Deflector.
When inundated with tons of bovine excrement, deflection is the only means of protection.
When you can write your thoughts in a clear and concise manner then there can be a discussion, until then you are the one who is hiding your ignorance in ridiculous verbiage.
"Philosophy is not an inconvenient appendix to the body of Science. It is the eyes and mind through which Science is apprehended and functions. " is nonsensical tripe.
It has no meaning whatsoever.
Re-word it so that a six year old can understand what, if anything, you are talking about.
I would take it to mean that science is tacitly based on and constrained by implicit and unquestioned philosophical assumptions, at least until some crisis in science forces us to confront and reexamine those hidden premises in our reasoning.
Hans G. Schantz has a good series of articles describing the historical assumptions that underlay the scientific paradigms of the past. I link an example:
https://aetherczar.substack.com/p/263-the-misinterpretation-of-newton
I take that "Science" is not constrained in any way, but that scientists are constrained by their beliefs and abilities.
“One could not be a successful scientist without realising that, in contrast to the popular conception supported by newspapers and mothers of scientists, a goodly number of scientists are not only narrow-minded and dull, but also just stupid.”
James Watson – a co-discoverer of the DNA double-helix structure
-
Scientists claim they are looking for truth but in reality 99.9% are looking for fame/wealth.
"The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue. Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness."
Richard Horton richard.h orton@lancet.com
“Such is professional jealousy; a scientist will never show any kindness for a theory which he did not start himself.” Mark Twain
-
The greatest problem wth science ( for really smart people) was given by a really smart young man who went into physics and said "when he started experiments with the purpose of eliminating false hypotheses, what he found was that on the contrary, many more hypotheses were presenting themselves with every result (whether they supported or opposed the hypothesis being tested) , leading to many, many more experiments which led to ...."
So he turned instead to technology and made a fortune.
"I take that "Science" is not constrained in any way, but that scientists are constrained by their beliefs and abilities."
Boy howdy.
IMO scientists are less rational and more biased than "untrained" people, because they almost always overestimate their ability to be rational because "we're trained scientists!".
Reality has a knack of taking us down the path of our choice without our noticing except that the going is smooth. And so we travel on and on. Ever deeper into the wood of our own absurdities.
All the while reality is waiting for us to come to our senses. The real question is how much patience does she have.
Mortimer Adler held that “truth is the sovereign idea by which we judge. He believed that beauty is a special kind of goodness, which is itself a special kind of truth. He also held that truth—by distinguishing certain from doubtful judgments, and by differentiating matters of taste and matters of truth—provides the ground for understanding beauty and goodness. “
Born a Jew, he converted to Anglicanism, and then Catholicism on his deathbed.
Personal hero of mine. He wrote a lot of great books.
Matters of truth are where disputes are fruitful, matters of taste are where disputes are not.
I like hockey, you like baseball - that is clearly a matter of taste.
I think light is made of both particles and waves, you think only waves…
Let’s discuss that.
Quantum mechanics defends biblical creation. There are linguistic tells: big bang theory and God particle. For God to exist, it is necessary that space and time precede matter's existence.
Newtonian physics holds at atomic scale. Time is a consequence of matter like light. See how at https://twitter.com/Mark_Pollina
Join me. Become a realisht.
Yes science does not and can not describe Reality as It Is which is necessarily prior to any thought process however seemingly insightful.
Nor can Christian philosophers/theologians because all of their philosophy and/or theology is based on self serving mind created constructs too.
So too with the "catholic" church the primary purpose of which is to gain power and-control over all of humankind. Go ye therefore and convert all nations to the "one true way"
Feser's five "proofs" are just pretentious posturing.
At another level we "spend" a third of lives in bed wherein the seemingly solid world disappears both in the dream state wherein everything becomes a psychic fluid plastic indefinable realm.
And in the state of deep restful dreamless state wherein we are relieved of the inherent stress of having to deal with apparent others and a multitude of things. Such dreamless sleep is in effect a poor man's Samadhi.
While I take the point that the statistical notion of chance is a tool of thought, and not intrinsic to reality, I still wonder if it is really the case that chance, or true randomness, does not physically exist?