Does science have limitations?

[Philosophy Explorer]

There's a great thread running titled "The Limits of Science" about science investigation. My thread aims to look at science from a more theoretical side. For example what does science need to be called science? It's generally agreed it needs testable theories that an experiment can say yes or no to. Besides that, what else does it need? How far can it look? Back in school, one of my science teachers said QM was a dead subject which I know isn't the truth (thanks to NOVA and Flipboard). In math, back around 1900, David Hilbert issued a list of 23 questions (some of which were solved). Do we need a new list to stimulate math? (I don't think so). Will new fields of science keep opening up? Is there a point that science can't go any further? Or is it never-ending?

These are some of my questions. Can you supply answers?

PhilX

[Scott Mayers]

There's a great thread running titled "The Limits of Science" about science investigation. My thread aims to look at science from a more theoretical side. For example what does science need to be called science? It's generally agreed it needs testable theories that an experiment can say yes or no to. Besides that, what else does it need? How far can it look? Back in school, one of my science teachers said QM was a dead subject which I know isn't the truth (thanks to NOVA and Flipboard). In math, back around 1900, David Hilbert issued a list of 23 questions (some of which were solved). Do we need a new list to stimulate math? (I don't think so). Will new fields of science keep opening up? Is there a point that science can't go any further? Or is it never-ending?

These are some of my questions. Can you supply answers?

PhilX

I think Hilbert's questions were not defeated. I don't know the particular list (...yet). But with regards to the resolution to accept Godel's "Incompleteness Theorem", Russel's Paradoxes, Turing's answers, and QM's Indeterminacy, I believe these closed the controversy prematurely. It segregates the intellectual introspection of theory from the practice. The practice now takes precedence in the definition of science. Yet, it is still dependent upon the logic/math and human interpretation of the observations. "Science" defined solely on the method lacks credibility without accepting the role of philosophy as significant part within it. Most supporting the present paradigm act in kind to any religion when they have an underlying belief that dictates no certainty or closure can ever be known. I question how one can assert this belief with the very closure they deny is even possible!??

[Scott Mayers]

Ironically, a 'priesthood' of authority is also slowly taking precedence as institutions begin to actually close off topics of controversy within their ranks and to others who want to participate from the general public.

[Philosophy Explorer]

Ironically, a 'priesthood' of authority is also slowly taking precedence as institutions begin to actually close off topics of controversy within their ranks and to others who want to participate from the general public.

Due to the internet (i.e. forums) and other means, I don't see where the "priesthood" will be successful at this in the long run.

PhilX

[Obvious Leo]

Ironically, a 'priesthood' of authority is also slowly taking precedence as institutions begin to actually close off topics of controversy within their ranks and to others who want to participate from the general public.

Easily the most cloistered of such priesthoods is the priesthood of physics, for whom model-building is the sole operational methodology. The cosmology of Ptolemy is an object lesson in what can happen when the model being built on is founded on a false a priori assumption. Thomas Kuhn was easily the most enlightened of all the 20th century philosophers of physics and he understood very well the fundamental limitation of the model-building method. So did Albert Einstein.

"It is the THEORY which determines what the observer will observe"....Albert Einstein.

What both Kuhn and Einstein were pointing out is that physics can only model a NARRATIVE of the universe and that this narrative is the property of the observer. We cannot model the universe the way it truly is because this concept has no meaning external to the observer. We can only model the universe the way we think it is and this model is only useful until such time as it becomes self-contradictory. When it does so then we can know with absolute certainty that our narrative of the universe is false. IT ISN'T WHAT WE THINK IT IS.

Einstein could see immediately that the spacetime narrative was inherently self-contradictory and a century further down the track it has clearly become even more so. It's always disappointing to see a beautiful theory destroyed by an inconvenient fact but science is supposed to place itself above such things. The priesthood of physics is therefore not a science because it has shown itself extremely reluctant to allow the facts to fuck up a good story. However surely a century of self-delusion is long enough. The models of physics make no sense because spacetime is a flawed narrative of the world.

[Scott Mayers]

Ironically, a 'priesthood' of authority is also slowly taking precedence as institutions begin to actually close off topics of controversy within their ranks and to others who want to participate from the general public.

Due to the internet (i.e. forums) and other means, I don't see where the "priesthood" will be successful at this in the long run.

PhilX

I'm not sure because I've noticed that the most popular science forums all act with certain authoritative dictates that limit what one can speak. I even noticed one actually dictate 'how' one must speak. It demands that everyone speak with American spelling and grammar! I happen to find value in this personally but disagree that such behavior enhances science because it discriminates those who have value to contribute but lack the same cultural background. Almost all of them universally either disallow posting questions that place the integrity of specific past theories, like Relativity, or opts to redirect such 'speculations' to a dunce section!

[Scott Mayers]

Ironically, a 'priesthood' of authority is also slowly taking precedence as institutions begin to actually close off topics of controversy within their ranks and to others who want to participate from the general public.

Easily the most cloistered of such priesthoods is the priesthood of physics, for whom model-building is the sole operational methodology. The cosmology of Ptolemy is an object lesson in what can happen when the model being built on is founded on a false a priori assumption. Thomas Kuhn was easily the most enlightened of all the 20th century philosophers of physics and he understood very well the fundamental limitation of the model-building method. So did Albert Einstein.

"It is the THEORY which determines what the observer will observe"....Albert Einstein.

What both Kuhn and Einstein were pointing out is that physics can only model a NARRATIVE of the universe and that this narrative is the property of the observer. We cannot model the universe the way it truly is because this concept has no meaning external to the observer. We can only model the universe the way we think it is and this model is only useful until such time as it becomes self-contradictory. When it does so then we can know with absolute certainty that our narrative of the universe is false. IT ISN'T WHAT WE THINK IT IS.

Einstein could see immediately that the spacetime narrative was inherently self-contradictory and a century further down the track it has clearly become even more so. It's always disappointing to see a beautiful theory destroyed by an inconvenient fact but science is supposed to place itself above such things. The priesthood of physics is therefore not a science because it has shown itself extremely reluctant to allow the facts to fuck up a good story. However surely a century of self-delusion is long enough. The models of physics make no sense because spacetime is a flawed narrative of the world.

We agree on the general problem but I disagree to your particular assumption of where the problems lie. That's why I opened the thread on Platonic Forms to which no one is participating in. I was hoping to engage with you or others there because it relates to our particular differences philosophically. I believe that the reason for even physicists you disagree with happen to dismiss philosophy is due to accepting your kind of rationale: that maps, math, or logic, are mere human creations used to measure reality for practical purposes. Contradictions exist within physics. Yet you and they agree that 'contradiction' itself either serves no further value OR require accepting a tentative and permanent state of indeterminacy. To me, contradiction is a function of nature which motivates abstract models and laws which manifest themselves into reality.

[Philosophy Explorer]

Ironically, a 'priesthood' of authority is also slowly taking precedence as institutions begin to actually close off topics of controversy within their ranks and to others who want to participate from the general public.

Due to the internet (i.e. forums) and other means, I don't see where the "priesthood" will be successful at this in the long run.

PhilX

I'm not sure because I've noticed that the most popular science forums all act with certain authoritative dictates that limit what one can speak. I even noticed one actually dictate 'how' one must speak. It demands that everyone speak with American spelling and grammar! I happen to find value in this personally but disagree that such behavior enhances science because it discriminates those who have value to contribute but lack the same cultural background. Almost all of them universally either disallow posting questions that place the integrity of specific past theories, like Relativity, or opts to redirect such 'speculations' to a dunce section!

Not just science forums Scott, but practically all forums. With apps and software that can translate, I don't know how much of an issue this is plus nothing bars you from opening up your own website (outside of finances) if you want to be more liberal towards users. A separate thread on the limitations of science websites may be in order.

PhilX

[Obvious Leo]

Contradictions exist within physics.

You're the master of the pithy understatement, Scott. For over a century physics has stood on three pillars which have been universally accepted as canonical doctrine, namely SR,GR and QM. Yet it is now very well understood that these three pillars are mutually incompatible theories which are shrouding the truth of our universe behind a veil. There isn't a physicist worthy of the name who doesn't know bloody well that there must exist an underlying theory which would make all these models compatible with each other and yet one dare not question the underlying spacetime paradigm on which these models are based. Does that make sense to you?

I have no love for the Platonist world of eternal truths which physics has so wantonly embraced but I do occasionally pine for the good old days of ancient Athens. Back in Plato's day the entire priesthood of physics would have been sold into slavery as a punishment for their arrogance. In our more enlightened times we instead hail them as geniuses because nobody can understand a fucking word they're saying, including them. Not only can they not explain the universe to the ordinary Joe, they can't even explain it to each other!!

[Scott Mayers]

PhilX,

Although indirectly related, I commented on "The Prisoner's Dilemma and The Evolution of Morality" that beneficial class distinctions enable the beneficial classes in society as a whole to favor selfish motivation over the non-beneficial classes which favor altruism. But the beneficial classes define what WILL be allowed in practice. At present, the sites that favor authoritarianism in science will predominate by default of the practitioners to be of a beneficial class. This means that as time progresses, a more restrictive 'selfishness' will drive them to become more authoritative. I believe this is what those like Marx and Hegel referred to by social history to remain cyclic. As any initially 'good' society is at the beginnings, in time, all of them become more and more authoritative and too powerful. Then, unless a revolution occurs to overthrow that system whole, the abuses of the authorities keep getting worse and more concentrated in fewer hands.

The power of the present paradigm will prevent the success of any potential means to communicate effectively ideas that reflect dissent. I could not, for instance, afford to compete by trying to build my own forum. I don't belong to the beneficent classes and so would have to conform to theirs to even gain ground before I attempt to differ. One's credibility counts with respect to the people's ability to determine this through the very societies that grant what is authoritative or not.

[Scott Mayers]

Contradictions exist within physics.

You're the master of the pithy understatement, Scott. For over a century physics has stood on three pillars which have been universally accepted as canonical doctrine, namely SR,GR and QM. Yet it is now very well understood that these three pillars are mutually incompatible theories which are shrouding the truth of our universe behind a veil. There isn't a physicist worthy of the name who doesn't know bloody well that there must exist an underlying theory which would make all these models compatible with each other and yet one dare not question the underlying spacetime paradigm on which these models are based. Does that make sense to you?

I have no love for the Platonist world of eternal truths which physics has so wantonly embraced but I do occasionally pine for the good old days of ancient Athens. Back in Plato's day the entire priesthood of physics would have been sold into slavery as a punishment for their arrogance. In our more enlightened times we instead hail them as geniuses because nobody can understand a fucking word they're saying, including them. Not only can they not explain the universe to the ordinary Joe, they can't even explain it to each other!!

I disagree with the particular assumption that the problem lies with the spacetime paradigm. It lies with the dismissal of math and logic as functions of reality to which you agree. The physicists can accept contradictions between SR, GR, and QM because they simply dismiss their contradictions because they don't contemporarily affect present technology in practice. Since SR/GR deals with the very large while QM deals with the very small, while they recognize a problem, they won't care as long as they work in their locally distinct areas of interest.

And since practicing science politically favors only the technological results that arise from the practice, those like you and I only prove how our divergent armchair philosophies provide no use for the prevailing paradigm. You and I agree that philosophy should be a functional part of science proper but only my belief that certainty can be found by its reconciliation would be of interest to the endeavor. You still actually agree to the very indeterminacy of reality through thinking and logic that drove science to separate themselves from philosophy altogether. You're not offering to science any more reason to bother caring to appeal to philosophy for even those parts of philosophy they use (the modeling or math) that you agree isn't real. So even if you might be correct on your particular disagreement with them, you'd have to appeal to their practice to participate. That is, they'd welcome you if you joined their ranks by accepting the authority of their past theories and then compete to alter them by redressing the past errors using language that doesn't appear to conflict with them even where they do. Otherwise, to them, all philosophers to them are perceived as the very Platonists you reject.

[Obvious Leo]

You make a very interesting point, Scott. As you can imagine I am much unloved in physics forums where the bloke who speaks of metaphysical matters is the bloke who farted in the elevator. Everybody tries to move quickly away from me but absolutely NOBODY will ever engage with the arguments I'm putting because It's not the physics which I'm calling into question. What I'm questioning is the narrative of physics and what I'm trying to do is redefine the way we think the world.

Let me give you an example. One of the statements I routinely make in my process philosophy is that the universe is continuously coming into existence at the speed of light. This is a perfectly true statement and one which contradicts none of the epistemic models which physics uses. In all my years of trawling around physics forums no physicist has ever denied the truth of this statement and yet neither has any physicist ever been able to appreciate the profound significance of it. I have pointed out time and time again that when we think the world in this way then we are forced to the conclusion that the universe can physically exist only in the time dimension. The more enlightened amongst the priesthood have occasionally conceded that what I'm saying is true and that what I'm offering is indeed an alternative way of thinking the world. However then they will quickly close ranks with a remark like "nevertheless, that's not the way we do physics". No matter how carefully I argue my case they refuse to see that this alternative way of thinking the world is precisely the unification model they're looking for.

Even when I assure them that my philosophy doubles as a legitimate scientific hypothesis they steadfastly look the other way. It yields a testable prediction which would unambiguously falsify the spacetime paradigm and yet they claim that to test this prediction is unnecessary because it is a prediction which violates physical law. It does no such thing, it merely contradicts their model. So blinded are they by their own hubris that they appear to have forgotten what science is all about. No true theory can ever be proven true but a dodgy one can always be falsified. The spacetime paradigm is falsifiable.

[Scott Mayers]

Thank you Leo, I believe that you and I actually agree to a high degree. I see your interpretation of "existence" to require time as a pre-requisite based on how we actually understand "existence". I can't disagree. I only extend this by defining existence as a function of totality where non-existence also 'persists' (it's hard to escape the language that begs our bias to presume existence regardless) alongside each other. The non-existent class may not actually even be a part of totality. But as long as existence implies any unending process, like knowing the future, the non-closure of existence implies some part of reality which has yet to become and acts as a part of non-existence until realized. Thus non-existence remains something 'true' about totality.

Since 'science' deals with the practice within "existence", their use of modeling is rightfully questionable in your philosophy. My own philosophy accepts models with exception to them being required to be "real" because I assume the "non-reality" within a larger context to have meaning that is still 'real' but only infinitely so. In this sense, this accords with your view too because the process of infinite closure accepts that time is still necessary to actually be able to recognize (justify) it as real. So while we might disagree on the surface, I see this as more about a difference of perspective only.

[Obvious Leo]

the non-closure of existence implies some part of reality which has yet to become and acts as a part of non-existence until realized. Thus non-existence remains something 'true' about totality.

In my philosophy I don't actually acknowledge non-existence as a valid construct but I think I get where you're coming from. The process universe restores the metaphysical distinction between past, present and future which the 4D manifold denies. The "real" universe can only be said to exist in the ever-moving present. The past universe is most definitely a universe which exists no longer but it is a universe which once existed and thus it has a single history. There is only one possible combination of events which can account for our universe being the way it is today and these are events which have already occurred. Therefore the universe is the way it is and not some other way not because this has been mandated by physical law but simply because that's the way the game played out. The self-organising universe is beholden to no physical law beyond the universal doctrine of causality but this has profound implications for the future because it literally means that the future is utterly unknowable. Obviously we must regard the future as a state of non-existence but unlike the past it has no fixed trajectory. This directly contravenes the spacetime paradigm of physics but I regard it as an axiomatic truth that the future is nothing more than an infinite index of possibilities. We can make predictions about the future only to a finite order of probability for the simple reason that the future hasn't been made yet. Newtonian physics claims the opposite because it is a timeless paradigm.

Since 'science' deals with the practice within "existence", their use of modeling is rightfully questionable in your philosophy. My own philosophy accepts models with exception to them being required to be "real" because I assume the "non-reality" within a larger context to have meaning that is still 'real' but only infinitely so. In this sense, this accords with your view too because the process of infinite closure accepts that time is still necessary to actually be able to recognize (justify) it as real. So while we might disagree on the surface, I see this as more about a difference of perspective only.

I agree. In fact I reckon we're very much on the same page with much of this but are merely expressing ourselves in different forms of language. The stumbling block I regularly encounter when I seek to explain myself is a general reluctance on the part of people to take me literally. When I say that 3 dimensional space does not physically exist I insist on being taken literally. When I say that the universe is an autopoietic non-linear dynamic system performing a chaotic computation at the speed of light I expect people to take me literally. Alan Turing might have believed that his Universal Reality Maker was nothing more than a metaphorical device to illustrate a self-organising reality but that's not what I reckon. I reckon the Universal Turing Machine is a precise definition of what our universe actually IS. An eternal and cyclical reality MAKER which programmes its own input and never repeats the same reality twice.

[Scott Mayers]

the non-closure of existence implies some part of reality which has yet to become and acts as a part of non-existence until realized. Thus non-existence remains something 'true' about totality.

In my philosophy I don't actually acknowledge non-existence as a valid construct but I think I get where you're coming from. The process universe restores the metaphysical distinction between past, present and future which the 4D manifold denies. The "real" universe can only be said to exist in the ever-moving present. The past universe is most definitely a universe which exists no longer but it is a universe which once existed and thus it has a single history. There is only one possible combination of events which can account for our universe being the way it is today and these are events which have already occurred. Therefore the universe is the way it is and not some other way not because this has been mandated by physical law but simply because that's the way the game played out. The self-organising universe is beholden to no physical law beyond the universal doctrine of causality but this has profound implications for the future because it literally means that the future is utterly unknowable. Obviously we must regard the future as a state of non-existence but unlike the past it has no fixed trajectory. This directly contravenes the spacetime paradigm of physics but I regard it as an axiomatic truth that the future is nothing more than an infinite index of possibilities. We can make predictions about the future only to a finite order of probability for the simple reason that the future hasn't been made yet. Newtonian physics claims the opposite because it is a timeless paradigm.

One way I can try to convince you of how the Cartesian space with time as a fourth dimension is to ask you how you define anything in the spaces at the moment where no time exists? If time is the only real factor or dimension, then you cannot interpret any two different things as belonging to distinctly separate places. And since time is all you understand, this implies that all distinct points in space including anything that could occupy them are one and the same. Also, since only you can perceive time from your experience while existing in it, you are asserting by implication that you are a solipsist. Correct?

Since 'science' deals with the practice within "existence", their use of modeling is rightfully questionable in your philosophy. My own philosophy accepts models with exception to them being required to be "real" because I assume the "non-reality" within a larger context to have meaning that is still 'real' but only infinitely so. In this sense, this accords with your view too because the process of infinite closure accepts that time is still necessary to actually be able to recognize (justify) it as real. So while we might disagree on the surface, I see this as more about a difference of perspective only.

I agree. In fact I reckon we're very much on the same page with much of this but are merely expressing ourselves in different forms of language. The stumbling block I regularly encounter when I seek to explain myself is a general reluctance on the part of people to take me literally. When I say that 3 dimensional space does not physically exist I insist on being taken literally. When I say that the universe is an autopoietic non-linear dynamic system performing a chaotic computation at the speed of light I expect people to take me literally. Alan Turing might have believed that his Universal Reality Maker was nothing more than a metaphorical device to illustrate a self-organising reality but that's not what I reckon. I reckon the Universal Turing Machine is a precise definition of what our universe actually IS. An eternal and cyclical reality MAKER which programmes its own input and never repeats the same reality twice.

I follow. I see though that you are being literal by the strict definition of our human defaulted bias to describe anything "existing" as anything involving time. Just because the language we use lacks a given word in our vocabulary to specify something that IS but lacks time, though, it doesn't mean that such a thing as realities without time lacks truth with respect to reality or totality.

To attempt to defeat your apparent solipsist stance, ask yourself if you could actually predetermine that time exists without at least some change or difference that you could define without spacial, or even mental, distinction between at least two different relatively static realities? Your conscious state of existence would shut off if everything remains perfectly constant. For example, try this experiment: stare blankly at one single point of your screen without any other changes in your visual range. [You'd have to include removing the blinking cursor by the way] If you remain steady, your brain will try to shut off the input by going 'black'. This isn't actually the best way to determine this since our eyes constantly move. But it can give you an example.

If this doesn't work, try to remember if you've ever lost past of time while even doing repetitive or constant functions. This loss time is due to the brain turning off the factors that don't change or remain consistent in both time and space. Sleep too is an example as the state is constant with respect to your neurons.

Another argument against your apparent stance is to question why you don't already know the future as it unfolds? With respect to totality, all truths (and/or non-truths) lie within it and so its recognition of reality as a whole is constant. As such, it doesn't feel itself as existing. But you, being a part of it, only contains a tiny portion of all that exists or you'd know it all simultaneously.