Is science good for anything other than technological advance?: Philosophy Forums

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Is science good for anything other than technological advance?
Can science be a way of understanding our universe?

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Is science good for anything other than technological advance?

kkiiji
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Posted 11/05/09 - 04:35 PM:	#41
To Mega Therion wrote: Nope, it's a theory we have no reason to believe is inexact; QFT, for example. Ah so some type of experimental perfection, I see. I suppose such exact theories are as real as it gets.
Heard joke once: Man goes to doctor. Says he's depressed. Says life seems harsh and cruel. Says he feels all alone in a threatening world where what lies ahead is vague and uncertain. Doctor says "Treatment is simple. Great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight. Go and see him. That should pick you up." Man bursts into tears. Says "But Doctor... I am Pagliacci." Good joke, everybody laugh. Roll on snare drum... Curtains.

Cadrache
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Posted 11/05/09 - 05:03 PM:	#42
To start? A bunch of Einstein. "The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking." "A human being is a part of a whole, called by us _universe_, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest... a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty." "The human mind has first to construct forms, independently, before we can find them in things." We cannot construct forms independently if they already exist within everyday thinking because every day thinking is defined as 'acceptable ideas within society'. Individual observation is defined as valid only through Society and not by the individual. Edited by Cadrache on 11/05/09 - 05:34 PM. Reason: missed the quote commands.
"...There was a writer who asked why it was that when we find positive experiences we say that only the physical facts are real, but in negative experiences we believe that reality is subjective. He made an example of those who say that in birth only the pain is real, the joy a subjective point of view, but that in death it is the emotional loss that is the reality." - Tony Ballantyne, Recursion. _____________________________________________ Truth is want. - The internal state of matters. Truth is Need. - The external state of affairs.

Cadrache
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Posted 11/05/09 - 05:06 PM:	#43
It has been ages since actual 'new technology' has developed. The majority of all advancements has to deal with 'applications to pre-existing' knowledge. To tie everything back into the thread: How "pre-existing" was Kants' Forms?
"...There was a writer who asked why it was that when we find positive experiences we say that only the physical facts are real, but in negative experiences we believe that reality is subjective. He made an example of those who say that in birth only the pain is real, the joy a subjective point of view, but that in death it is the emotional loss that is the reality." - Tony Ballantyne, Recursion. _____________________________________________ Truth is want. - The internal state of matters. Truth is Need. - The external state of affairs.

SittinWSocratesTiff
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Posted 11/05/09 - 05:13 PM:	#44
"A human being is a part of a whole, called by us _universe_, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest... a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty." Your above reply is so spot on on so many levels. The remark about it being a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness is like poetry to me. What a precise way of explaining the ties that bind us that are put in place by our mind. It can be hard to get out of your own way at times.

mark73
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Posted 11/05/09 - 05:17 PM:	#45
kkiiji wrote: You missed my point and the point of the guy before me. Science itself doesn't even claim that it is the study of reality, it doesn't claim that its abstract theoretical models are reality, all it knows is that its models work. Science follows a highly pragmatic approach, and pragmatic approaches don't care much for what's actually out there. No scientist would claim that neutrons and protons are actually little balls surrounded by smaller electron balls, they're just models. No scientist would claim that cyclohexane molecules actually form a little chair in order to stabilize itself. These are all just models, models that help us make sense of the patterns in our observations and models that help us predict what will happen. In other words, science isn't really a direct account of what we observe, it is a string of models we pulled out of our ass that are inferred from what we observe. These models do not represent reality, scientists literately pull them out of their ass, Karl Popper called it some kind of moment of intuitive conjecture, in other words pull something out of your ass in a highly creative fashion. This has nothing to do with Kant, this has nothing to do with Phenomena and Noumena, this has everything to do with the very nature of science, a discipline being based on pragmatic models scientists pull out of their ass. I did not miss your point. I just think your definition of reality does not belong in any discourse of relevance to science and our everyday world. For the record I have a bilogy and a philosophy degree and I see no problem for science. I do see a problem for the minority of jealous philosophers who whine about science. Scientists do believe evolution happens and they do believe in the cellular and gentic level of the cell. In fact with electron microscopes you can see what is happening. You can see DNA replication. What were once hypotheses are now theories and facts. You can't see atoms but the world behaves as though there are atoms and that is an excellent reaon to believe in the existence of atoms. I think either we are using different definitions or we have different values. I don't think science has ever been in a better position to claim its studying reality.

mark73
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Posted 11/05/09 - 05:29 PM:	#46
exel+two wrote: You are only slightly off the mark. The thing you are forgetting is that humanity is comprised of individuals. Reality is perceived differently by different beings; the thing you forget is that each human is a different being. Science studies reality as the STUDIER perceives it. Meaning that "proof"; that thing that turns theories into "facts", is null and void. This is simply because that studier perceives things differently than you or I or any other human being or any member of species x. Thus science (as anything other than a tool for precipitating the effectiveness of human interaction with our environment) becomes belief, and many fail to see it. Ok qulaia may vary among individuals but I dont care. Through the public use of language we can all agree that the sky is blue and the grass is green. Through the publicly posted methodology of science we can all (provided we have access to a lab) can come to the same understanding of any particular phenomena. For example how DNA syntheis works. Language and science are public not private.

kkiiji
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Posted 11/05/09 - 05:42 PM:	#47
mark wrote: I did not miss your point. I just think your definition of reality does not belong in any discourse of relevance to science and our everyday world. For the record I have a bilogy and a philosophy degree and I see no problem for science. I do see a problem for the minority of jealous philosophers who whine about science. Scientists do believe evolution happens and they do believe in the cellular and gentic level of the cell. In fact with electron microscopes you can see what is happening. You can see DNA replication. What were once hypotheses are now theories and facts. You can't see atoms but the world behaves as though there are atoms and that is an excellent reaon to believe in the existence of atoms. I think either we are using different definitions or we have different values. I don't think science has ever been in a better position to claim its studying reality. That's funny cause I'm working on the exact same degrees haha. Yes in the field of biology there are many things that we can see, but specific detailed biochemical interactions of organic molecules we can not see at all. Sure you're right in saying that the mechanistic models we have of molecules match the observed behavior, but that doesn't mean we know what's really going on. We can reasonably assume that atoms exist, but we can't at all reasonably assume what they look like or what they do. We can only come up with models that are consistent with what we observe about them. The thing is these models aren't meant to be real, they are meant to be useful. To use the word real on science is just a bit inconsistent with what we typically use real for. Edited by kkiiji on 11/06/09 - 11:16 AM
Heard joke once: Man goes to doctor. Says he's depressed. Says life seems harsh and cruel. Says he feels all alone in a threatening world where what lies ahead is vague and uncertain. Doctor says "Treatment is simple. Great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight. Go and see him. That should pick you up." Man bursts into tears. Says "But Doctor... I am Pagliacci." Good joke, everybody laugh. Roll on snare drum... Curtains.

Cadrache
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Posted 11/05/09 - 07:32 PM:	#48
And to think... that middle one I came across only because I was looking for the other two.
"...There was a writer who asked why it was that when we find positive experiences we say that only the physical facts are real, but in negative experiences we believe that reality is subjective. He made an example of those who say that in birth only the pain is real, the joy a subjective point of view, but that in death it is the emotional loss that is the reality." - Tony Ballantyne, Recursion. _____________________________________________ Truth is want. - The internal state of matters. Truth is Need. - The external state of affairs.

exel+two
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Posted 11/09/09 - 08:23 AM:	#49
mark73 wrote: Ok qulaia may vary among individuals but I dont care. Through the public use of language we can all agree that the sky is blue and the grass is green. Through the publicly posted methodology of science we can all (provided we have access to a lab) can come to the same understanding of any particular phenomena. For example how DNA syntheis works. Language and science are public not private. Ah, but language is private: we are told what certain words mean but those words; when applied to our personal subject reality, mean something different then when they are applied to a different subject reality. Not everyone in the world would agree that the grass is green; some people are blind; they wouldn't agree that the grass is green; they have only our word to go on. Reality is a subjective phenomena. Just because one scientist draws a certain conclusion from observation of a given phenomenon; does not mean that every human being in existence will agree with his conclusion.

Cadrache
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Posted 11/09/09 - 12:25 PM:	#50
I was always somewhat amused by formulized curiosity. The act of determining in advance what you are allowed to think of is clearly an amazing advancement to Humanity.
"...There was a writer who asked why it was that when we find positive experiences we say that only the physical facts are real, but in negative experiences we believe that reality is subjective. He made an example of those who say that in birth only the pain is real, the joy a subjective point of view, but that in death it is the emotional loss that is the reality." - Tony Ballantyne, Recursion. _____________________________________________ Truth is want. - The internal state of matters. Truth is Need. - The external state of affairs.

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