Marvels, Magic and Mysticism (from is belief/lack a choice)

Michael said:

I have to agree with Maxx on this one. Though his attempts to explain the discrepancies in the Big Bang with alternative theories violate the law of energy conservation, he still had good reason to attempt alternative explanations.

Steady State and plasma theory do not agree with observation and have their own problems, much more than Big Bang theory, but they are still interesting and present points that beg for more investigation.

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Oh, I wasn't talking about his cosmology, he's done some qualified work there. Though actually, 'Steady State' is complete rubbish and he probably knew it, or at least should've. What enrages me was his absurd crusade against Darwinism. Without any credentials in biology, he made seriously wrong statements about abiogenesis and evolution (i.e. boeing/junk yard argument or his attempt to discredit the archaeopterix fossils).

WalkingContradiction said:

What enrages me was his absurd crusade against Darwinism. Without any credentials in biology, he made seriously wrong statements about abiogenesis and evolution (i.e. boeing/junk yard argument or his attempt to discredit the archaeopterix fossils).

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I see. I didn't know about that.

WalkingContradiction said:

Oh, I wasn't talking about his cosmology, he's done some qualified work there. Though actually, 'Steady State' is complete rubbish and he probably knew it, or at least should've. What enrages me was his absurd crusade against Darwinism. Without any credentials in biology, he made seriously wrong statements about abiogenesis and evolution (i.e. boeing/junk yard argument or his attempt to discredit the archaeopterix fossils).

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I'm not sure what Fred's problem was. I blame the culture of the time, which seems to have demanded a constant stream of scientists of Einsteinian abilities making statements of more or less Papal authority, but they ended up with a cultural mess (which persists) in which a random set of scientists who have assemble a few ok credentials can make a some nice cash by telling people what they think want to hear. There's even a prize for it, the Templeton

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Templeton_Prize

This is a marvelous method for perpetuating certain vacuous cultural fig leaves. Set up by an American who was knighted (oh boy) the prize goes to anyone who can sound scientific and give people the dose of certified spiritual verbiage they crave.

WalkingContradiction said:

Not sure about this, and if it does then to a much lesser extent. The properties of matter are self-organizing. Life started out (relatively) simple and got more complex over time.

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True, but that's not related to my point.

All science does is assume that reality (or part of it) is explainable.

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I think you may be confusing description with explanation.

"How reliable is experience?"

Truth:= Whatever model of interrelated definitions accurately predicts the outcomes of experiments (or happenings in general).

This view is called model-dependent realism. Though I just made up that definition, so it could be better but should work for our purposes. Notice how it fits for mathematics as well as science in general.

In this view, your question becomes meaningless. Science is realiable because it produces results, not because it has some claim to an obscure absolute truth beyond our experience.

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An explanation is a claim to obscure absolute truth beyond experience. Not a few scientists (e.g. Penrose) are enthusiastic Platonists who believe that mathematical truth somehow inhabits a higher plane of experience and science is a way to get glimpses of that plane.

That's an entirely mystical point of view.

Accepting that science is descriptive - and only descriptive of experience, not of reality - isn't.

There is absolutely nothing in science that is remotely explanatory, because the concept of "explanation" doesn't apply - except as narrative and mythology.

Maybe two models, relying on different definitions, might do equally well for certain experiments. That's the wave/particle 'problem' in QM. The thing is, there doesn't need to be one absolute truth, it's beyond our experience anyway. So why not be pragmatic and accept both models if they produce consistent results?

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Because you end up with models that contradict each other and are clearly incomplete, at best.

When people first discovered non-Euclidean gemoetry, they thought of it as a cool mathematical trick. Only later, when Einstein used it for general relativity, did it turn out to have bearings on nature. It's remarkable how armchair logic comes to find out things about the universe. It shows that there must be something right in our methology.

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No, all it proves is that if you throw enough random math at the wall, some it sticks.

This is the point here. There's nothing miraculous about the process. Grad courses are math mills producing more or less random models that are sort of consistent, maybe, perhaps, creating random predictions that are likewise.

The predictions are tested. Occasionally, some of them match experience.

But this is just a random walk through a theoretical landscape. Genius-levels of insight happen occasionally (q.v. Einstein) but that's not how most science is done.

And you're still missing the key point which is that science assumes that intrinsic human perceptual and analytical biasses don't matter, and it's possible be truly objective in spite of them.

In fact it's assumed, for completely arbitrary reasons that cannot be justified logically or empirically, that a professional consensus of description and experience is identical to objective understanding.

In reality we have no idea how wide experience can be. It's possible we don't even know how wide human experience can be.

So assuming that human experience and logic are somehow magically pre-calibrated for objective truth, and can do more than make predictions about human experience and logic, is a position that can't be justified.

RichardLeon said:

An explanation is a claim to obscure absolute truth beyond experience.

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I don't think that's what people mean when they use the word explanation.

For example, suppose I'm an archaeologist and somebody asks me to explain why a particular site was abandoned and I say, "the river became too deeply entrenched in the sediment. The inhabitants could no longer water their fields and they moved away."

That's an explanation and it doesn't make any claims to obscure absolute truth beyond experience.

Richard: More insight into the scientific method, eh? Good stuff, mostly, and I can appreciate what these ideas mean to science.

Other than what Maxx had to say, which makes sense (although it never would have occured to me, just as your distinguishing between "explanation" and "description" would not have), I like what you have to say.

RichardLeon said:

And you're still missing the key point which is that science assumes that intrinsic human perceptual and analytical biasses don't matter, and it's possible be truly objective in spite of them.

In fact it's assumed, for completely arbitrary reasons that cannot be justified logically or empirically, that a professional consensus of description and experience is identical to objective understanding.

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Here we go. It's possible to be truly objective. I don't think so. I think all the methods scientists use help them to get as close to objectivity as they can, but they will never be completely objective. No matter what, they still have to live inside their own heads.

But then, you make this point yourself, sort of, by admitting that science assumes this, and then go on to say it's arbitrary and can't be justified.

Hmm. I guess I'm not being all that critical here.

Michael said:

Here we go. It's possible to be truly objective. I don't think so. I think all the methods scientists use help them to get as close to objectivity as they can, but they will never be completely objective. No matter what, they still have to live inside their own heads.

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If this monster objectivity is impossible, why is it a mark against the sciences that they don't acheive this monster objectivity?

In fact, all scientific work that I've seen uses the mechanisms of subjectivity (eg. observations, surveys, sampling) to work out the ranges of possible states of interest. These kinds of protocols incorporating subjectivity as a mechanism have been common in the sciences since Galileo's work on the errors inherent in different types of observations. The sciences are pretty sophisticated when it comes to using the mechanisms of subjectivity.

Maxx said:

If this monster objectivity is impossible, why is it a mark against the sciences that they don't acheive this monster objectivity?

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It is not a mark against it. That isn't what I meant at all. I have a lot of respect for science; I just try to keep it in perspective.

Maxx said:

The sciences are pretty sophisticated when it comes to using the mechanisms of subjectivity.

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I agree.

Maxx said:

If you start with the idea that basic existence is odd, what do you do when you find something odd?

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Everything is equally odd?