Thread: What is Science?

I agree with the first group in that Science is the objective study of the universe. And, because this is necessary:



[EDIT]: Does this belong in philosophy, or extended discussion?

Originally Posted by Licity

Reading through a lot of posts, mainly here and the the Beyond Dreaming section(I cannot speak for R/S, I never go there), I have noticed that most of the discussions between skeptics of anything and believers of anything tend to degrade into fights about science and the scientific method. It seems to be a misunderstanding about the definition of "science".

Those that approve of the scientific method will claim that the intention is to find undeniable, objective proof of the existence or effectiveness of something. They usually convert such proof into text or numbers, the commonly accepted way of presenting information.

Those that disprove of the scientific method will claim that the only objective of science is to push away anything considered too strange. They believe that subjective evidence of a claim, such as their own experiences is enough to warrant a belief in something's existence.

I am with the first group. The fact that something cannot be proved indicates one of two things: either (A) the thing does not exist or work or (B) we do not yet have the method of testing and producing repeatable results on the topic. Science is not a device to crush ideas that do not fit with what is accepted, it is a tool we use to ensure we only accept what is true. It takes a long time and extensive repetition to begin to call a theory a law. Scientists are seeking the truth and being careful about what to support.

The point is, the first group does not want to believe in anything that may be suggested by subjective evidence alone. We want to be certain that we have investigated everything we believe to the best of our abilities.

An important side note here is that the scientific method MUST APPLY EVERY TIME. There is nothing we cannot explain. If something cannot be explained, then it either doesn't exist, or we merely lack the tools for doing so. If you walked up to a random philosopher from ancient Greece and tried to convince them of the existence of bacteria, tiny animals invisible to the naked eye that are responsible for a large percentage of illnesses, they would have thought you to be in the second group; you had no way of supporting your claim. When the microscope was created, we suddenly had a method to prove that bacteria were, in fact, real.

Looking back, I can see that I can't support what I have said in the first paragraph, because I do not offer evidence of my claim that science is the base cause of arguments. This can be tested. I could count every topic and see where the topics go. I won't, because this is easily done(although time-consuming) and I wanted to post something like this anyway.

So, where do you stand? Agree or disagree? If the latter, what is Science in your mind?

I essentially agree with you on most points. I think for a societal development and human understanding of the world the scientific method is absolutely imperative, and the only really reliable tool we use.
This said i think in a more personal understanding of the world, it is not wise to entirely adhere ones understanding to the scientific method. Personally we work on the level of exxperiences of objects and emotions; and although science is absolutely apt as to explain why and how we have these experiences, I don't feel it completely encompassing to an actual experience in itself. Qualia, is what I'm getting at. Our actual sense of experiencing something, is not a scientific thing. I hesitate to call it profound, it is more a deeply subjective thing. At the root of all our enquiry and empirical understanding of the world, we have this basic sense of "experiencing something". I feel that the actual experience in itself can never be subject to objective scientific enquiry, essentially because the only way in which they can be observed, is by a subjective enquirer personally.

Classic example of this:



Mary, the brilliant color scientist.


Mary, so the story goes, is imprisoned in a black and white room. Never having been permitted to leave it, she acquires information about the world outside from the black and white books her captors have made available to her, from the black and white television sets attached to external cameras, and from the black and white monitor screens hooked up to banks of computers. As time passes, Mary acquires more and more information about the physical aspects of color and color vision. Eventually, Mary becomes the world's leading authority on these matters. Indeed she comes to know all the physical facts pertinent to everyday colors and color vision.

Still, she wonders to herself: What do people in the outside world experience when they see the various colors? What is it like for them to see red or green? One day her captors release her. She is free at last to see things with their real colors (and free too to scrub off the awful black and white paint that covers her body). She steps outside her room into a garden full of flowers. "So, that is what it is like to experience red," she exclaims, as she sees a red rose. "And that," she adds, looking down at the grass, "is what it is like to experience green."

Mary here seems to make some important discoveries. She seems to find out things she did not know before. How can that be, if, as seems possible, at least in principle, she has all the physical information there is to have about color and color vision — if she knows all the pertinent physical facts?

One possible explanation is that that there is a realm of subjective, phenomenal qualities associated with color, qualities the intrinsic nature of which Mary comes to discover upon her release, as she herself undergoes the various new color experiences. Before she left her room, she only knew the objective, physical basis of those subjective qualities, their causes and effects, and various relations of similarity and difference. She had no knowledge of the subjective qualities in themselves.




In all senses I agree with OP. All I am saying here is that there is certainly an intrinsic reality of the world which science holds no ground over, by definition it cannot.






Edit: this very much is philosophy, Invader.

Originally Posted by Licity

They believe that subjective evidence of a claim, such as their own experiences is enough to warrant a belief in something's existence.

Please explain further what you mean by subjective.

Are they taking personal experiences and warping them(like the famous person on this forum who said he prayed for juice and got juice) or do you mean they simple use no evidence at all and simply "feel" something is true? Or were you using it in even another way the word could be used?

I believe that people can have personal experiences that are in fact objective. Well, perhaps experience is the right word lol.

I never go to the beyond dreaming section because of the stipulation that if a person is posting there it should be assumed that the person doesn't want ridicule and is only interested in speaking to other people who either accept their claims are true, or people who are not interested in claiming the original statement was false. In a situation like this it means that not only can I not say that they are wrong and provide evidence for why they are wrong, but I also can't even ask for evidence that they are correct.

Science is really just a poweful philosophy; in order to understand reality, you simply have to test it.

Empiricism has so far been the most powerful philosophy known to man. Huge philosophical issues have actually been conclusively settled, such as the nature of time, space, life, and determinism. No other thought process is yet to achieve so much.

However I do still set aside a considerable amount of value in other philosophies. Mathematics, for example, has nothing to do with empiricism, but has discovered many truths. Logical thinking can also be used where empiricism fails, or at least in conjunction with empiricism, for example regarding the possibility of multiverses, which can be deduced by a mainly mathematical argument rather than an observational one.

Mary, the brilliant color scientist.

I would say there is a distinction between studying how colour works, and experiencing colour. Personally I think this relatively famous thought experiment is a bit redundant. Why not just talk about studying the chemistry and biology of tasting a new food (ourselves). The only way to learn what the new food tastes like is by eating it... is it not just another mechanism of learning facts about the food?

Originally Posted by Xei

I would say there is a distinction between studying how colour works, and experiencing colour. Personally I think this relatively famous thought experiment is a bit redundant. Why not just talk about studying the chemistry and biology of tasting a new food (ourselves). The only way to learn what the new food tastes like is by eating it... is it not just another mechanism of learning facts about the food?

Absolutely.


The actual experience of 'what its like to taste something' cannot be objectively verified is all.

I suppose at the ultimate level of reductionism, experience would be reduced to a set of neural activities, for example, 'red' could end up as {n928830 > n2888317, n239100 > n9301002...}. This is definitely lacking in the essence of experience, that is to say, qualia.

Although actually I believe there is objective information missing here, too... there is no time, or causality. This is simply a history. Nobody would claim that knowing about the Tudours somehow makes the Tudours real at that moment... I think this is similar to the Mary situation.

If however we did include the complete set of infomation, that is to say, introduce time... it could, for example, be done with a Turing machine: then all the information would be there, and, I believe, as a functionalist (I'll justify that if you want), that the exact same experience would exist.

Originally Posted by Xei

I suppose at the ultimate level of reductionism, experience would be reduced to a set of neural activities, for example, 'red' could end up as {n928830 > n2888317, n239100 > n9301002...}. This is definitely lacking in the essence of experience, that is to say, qualia.

Although actually I believe there is objective information missing here, too... there is no time, or causality. This is simply a history. Nobody would claim that knowing about the Tudours somehow makes the Tudours real at that moment... I think this is similar to the Mary situation.

If however we did include the complete set of infomation, that is to say, introduce time... it could, for example, be done with a Turing machine: then all the information would be there, and, I believe, as a functionalist (I'll justify that if you want), that the exact same experience would exist.

The experience would exist just in and of itself?

With no observer?

If you simulated the red network, that network would be the conscious observer, and would experience red.

You can't really 'observe' the network observing red, any more than I can observe you observing red.

That's what the self/mind is. An abstract deterministic mathematical graph.

Very interesting.

If I knew more about Neural networking I'm sure I'd be inclined to agree.

It's actually from a solely philosophical perspective. There has currently been next to no progress at all in working out how neural networks actually work. Nobody has any idea.

All that is really known is that they are some sort of algorithmic, computational device. That's what the mind is (in my opinion; some are inclined to disagree, but their arguments always seem to be nonsense).

Originally Posted by Xei

It's actually from a solely philosophical perspective. There has currently been next to no progress at all in working out how neural networks actually work. Nobody has any idea.

All that is really known is that they are some sort of algorithmic, computational device. That's what the mind is (in my opinion; some are inclined to disagree, but their arguments always seem to be nonsense).

Hurm.

Originally Posted by Carôusoul

Mary, the brilliant color scientist.

I wouldn't say the color experience is subjective. As discussed further in the thread, vision is handled by neural networks. We cannot objectively describe color because we don't know enough about neural networks to explain them. Another way of putting it is that we don't yet have the necessary tools to explain color. How do we know color exists? We don't, we just observe differences in what we see compared to the light's frequency. We have no idea if that color exists separate from our perception.

Originally Posted by Sandform

Please explain further what you mean by subjective.

When I say subjective, I mean it can be When I say objective, I mean repeatable. If you claim to have psychic powers, I want you to show me that you can do it multiple times in different conditions. If you can only do it in a certain place or time, I will be suspicious that you are just doing some smoke-and-mirrors stage illusion. Better yet, show me how to do it.

Too many people expect me to take everything they say on faith, or provide unreliable evidence, such as pictures that could have easily been Photoshopped.

If you want another way to describe it, take literary analysis. I could read a book, and say it was good. Let's say you think it was bad. That is subjective, that is, it is subject to the observer to the point where it will affect the data. Objective data would be counting the number of verbs in the book. If the number is 2467 for me, then assuming no errors you will also get 2467. Anyone can repeat that and get the same answer. It is objective.

Originally Posted by Xei

Science is really just a poweful philosophy; in order to understand reality, you simply have to test it.

Empiricism has so far been the most powerful philosophy known to man. Huge philosophical issues have actually been conclusively settled, such as the nature of time, space, life, and determinism. No other thought process is yet to achieve so much.

However I do still set aside a considerable amount of value in other philosophies. Mathematics, for example, has nothing to do with empiricism, but has discovered many truths. Logical thinking can also be used where empiricism fails, or at least in conjunction with empiricism, for example regarding the possibility of multiverses, which can be deduced by a mainly mathematical argument rather than an observational one.

I would say there is a distinction between studying how colour works, and experiencing colour. Personally I think this relatively famous thought experiment is a bit redundant. Why not just talk about studying the chemistry and biology of tasting a new food (ourselves). The only way to learn what the new food tastes like is by eating it... is it not just another mechanism of learning facts about the food?

As above, we can't explain the mechanism through which taste is perceived, only that impulses go along nerves to the brain that then interprets them.

As for math, math is the most objective form of proof existing. 2 + 2 = 4. I don't care what you do, NOTHING can change that. Math is ideal, because barring errors any math problem always works out the same way. Math also has no physical connections to the world, just representations. I cannot physically show you the square root of three. The closest I can get is writing it down and showing you the paper it's on. Square root of 3 isn't a physical object, so we can't argue that sight/smell/touch/taste/hearing can subjectively change it.

If you can show me valid math to explain the existence of something we cannot explain against, then I would be inclined to believe it.

science is just a concept us humans created to explain our universe. To explain our own creation lol.

your example with bacteria is a great example of what most people are having a trouble grasping. We need more tools in order to investigate further in to things which may be physical, but we cant pick them up with current tools. Also, there lies the problem that while the information may be objective it still is open to interpretation by the subjective reader. Im not talking about simple things like 2+2=4. Im not sure how you could understand that subjectively any other way, Im just talking about more advanced subjects.

Originally Posted by tkdyo

your example with bacteria is a great example of what most people are having a trouble grasping. We need more tools in order to investigate further in to things which may be physical, but we cant pick them up with current tools. Also, there lies the problem that while the information may be objective it still is open to interpretation by the subjective reader. Im not talking about simple things like 2+2=4. Im not sure how you could understand that subjectively any other way, Im just talking about more advanced subjects.

I know 2+2=4 is a very simple example, it was just representative of those things that you cannot possibly dispute no matter what. What type of advanced subject did you have in mind?