A Good Infinite Regress Step of Some Cosmological Arguments

[Arising_uk]

Speculative science like vacuum genesis, virtual particles, string theory. Many Sci Fi stories use some kind of speculative science, sword and sorcery doesn't.

'Speculative science' may well be used in SciFi but normally it's speculation as to how the social framework would change as the result of a technology based upon current theories or it speculates about a technology that is currently not possible and maybe impossible such as FTL.

That theoretical physicists and cosmologists speculate about what kind of physical models might fit their mathematical ones is just that, a sometimes part of Theoretical Physics but this is in no-way this thing that you and others claim to be 'unconventional science'. Still waiting to hear what this is?

[Arising_uk]

Einstein used "thought experiments" to develop his theories but then he and other scientists used conventional science to prove the theory.

So what? As 'thought experiments' are part of theoretical Physics and by-the-by he developed it using Mathematics as this is the language they model with, then it was proved by experimental Physics. Still hearing nothing about this 'unconventional science' that IC claims exists and you appear to agree with.

[Immanuel Can]

My popcorn is ready.

Popcorn? Well, then you need a movie.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CulBuMCLg0

[thedoc]

Speculative science like vacuum genesis, virtual particles, string theory. Many Sci Fi stories use some kind of speculative science, sword and sorcery doesn't.

'Speculative science' may well be used in SciFi but normally it's speculation as to how the social framework would change as the result of a technology based upon current theories or it speculates about a technology that is currently not possible and maybe impossible such as FTL.

That theoretical physicists and cosmologists speculate about what kind of physical models might fit their mathematical ones is just that, a sometimes part of Theoretical Physics but this is in no-way this thing that you and others claim to be 'unconventional science'. Still waiting to hear what this is?

Since you don't like what I've come up with, you make something up and we'll see if it sounds any better.

[uwot]

If this is the cosmlogical argument,

Whatever begins to exist has a cause;
The universe began to exist;
Therefore:
The universe has a cause.

Well, that pretty much is the basis of William Lane Craig's version of the cosmological argument.

Then what evidence is there that the Universe began to exist?

The 'Universe' as a term, is becoming more and more contentious. Some people take it to mean everything (material) that exists; to some it is everything that was created at the big bang, to some it is everything that we have the means to see, and for others it is any old nonsense they happen to believe. Yer pays yer money and takes yer choice. There is good evidence that everything we can see all started in the big bang; so there is evidence that the 'Universe' in that sense began to exist, but there is bugger all evidence for anything beyond what we can see, for the simple reason that we can't see it.

[Arising_uk]

Since you don't like what I've come up with, you make something up and we'll see if it sounds any better.

So far I'm hearing nothing from you, or IC about what this 'unconventional science' is? What you describe as 'speculative science' is just normal conventional theoretical physics.

[thedoc]

Since you don't like what I've come up with, you make something up and we'll see if it sounds any better.

So far I'm hearing nothing from you, or IC about what this 'unconventional science' is? What you describe as 'speculative science' is just normal conventional theoretical physics.

You don't like what I have stated and you don't like what IC has stated, and you can't come up with anything yourself, OK so much for that. Unconventional science is speculative science. You don't know what you are talking about, you're just looking for a fight.

[Arising_uk]

You don't like what I have stated and you don't like what IC has stated, and you can't come up with anything yourself, OK so much for that. Unconventional science is speculative science. You don't know what you are talking about, you're just looking for a fight.

No I'm not, I just want to know what IC meant when he used the term 'unconventional science'?

You came up with the term 'speculative science' and gave some examples and I pointed out to you that there is nothing 'unconventional' about this as it is just what some theoretical physicists do, i.e. try to think of physical models that fit their abstract mathematical models regardless of evidential or experimental evidence.

Tell you what, since, for whatever reason, IC won't deign to talk to those he thinks are going to burn in hell why don't you ask him what he meant by the term ''unconventional science'. As if it's what you think it is then I stand by my assertion that there is nothing 'unconventional' about such a practice and the reason why I think I know what I'm talking about is that I've studied phil of science and have talked to physicists and cosmologists about such things.

[uwot]

You came up with the term 'speculative science' and gave some examples and I pointed out to you that there is nothing 'unconventional' about this as it is just what some theoretical physicists do, i.e. try to think of physical models that fit their abstract mathematical models regardless of evidential or experimental evidence.

Frankly, anything beyond data collection is speculative, and there are some real hardballs who think even that is. You're right, of course, theoretical physics can be as outré as you like, but it only really becomes 'science' once people start using the model to produce demonstrable effects. By and large, what people mean by speculative/unconventional/new-age/creationist 'science', is their bonkers idea, without the results.
I should add that science doesn't have to 'true', it simply has to work.

[Belinda]

uwot wrote:

Frankly, anything beyond data collection is speculative, and there are some real hardballs who think even that is.

Within philosophy of science there's a name for this theory of science , which I've been trying to remember and failed to google it. Could you please tell me the phil of science jargon for what you describe?

[uwot]

uwot wrote:

Frankly, anything beyond data collection is speculative, and there are some real hardballs who think even that is.

Within philosophy of science there's a name for this theory of science , which I've been trying to remember and failed to google it. Could you please tell me the phil of science jargon for what you describe?

There are more names in philosophy of science than you can shake a stick at, but the general umbrella term is empiricism, which people who dig their heals in about call anti-realism these days. But you might just as easily be thinking of nominalism, instrumentalism, relativism, or any one of several other -isms I'll try to remember, if the above doesn't answer your question.

[Arising_uk]

Frankly, anything beyond data collection is speculative, and there are some real hardballs who think even that is. You're right, of course, theoretical physics can be as outré as you like, but it only really becomes 'science' once people start using the model to produce demonstrable effects. ...

Well I agree and was going to mention this but didn't want to muddy the issue.

Even so and ignoring the phil of science this is a practice engaged in by 'conventional' theoretical physicists, a type of brainstorming I'd call it, and at times I presume gives them insight into developing their abstract models and might even come up with some testable hypothesies - not that it applies to the world until then mind.

[thedoc]

Well, none in conventional science ...

What's 'unconventional science' when it's at home? Let me guess, religious metaphysics or even creationism.

Since you coined the term "unconventional science" you define it, no-one else used that term till you invented it. IC did not come up with the term.

[Immanuel Can]

Since you coined the term "unconventional science" you define it, no-one else used that term till you invented it. IC did not come up with the term.

That's true: but I did say "conventional sciences."

But don't worry. I had something specific in mind when I wrote that. I was thinking of those the verificationists tend to revere, such as physics, chemistry and, though they have somewhat less confidence in it, biology. Below those are the aspiring "sciences," such as psychology, anthropology, sociology, political 'science,' linguistics, history, cultural studies, and so on down...all disciplines whose pedigree is regarded as less purely "scientific" than the Big Three.

Good cartoon for this: https://xkcd.com/435/

Now, where cosmology fits on that scale is an open question. Sometimes it's about physics, sometimes about theories of history, and sometimes about hopeful guesses based on quasi-mathematical but non-empirical models. It is sometimes a kind of science, but sometimes a kind of fervent, ideology-driven speculation. In the case of cosmology, it takes some thoughtful discernment to separate the wheat from the chaff: not all that gets said under that umbrella is equally "scientific."

Even more importantly, we do not have any reason to suppose (or obviously, any "scientific proof") that the conventional sciences exhaust the world of The Real...and good reasons to suppose that perhaps they do not. After all, sciences are not things that pre-exist human beings, or even, in their present incarnation, pre-exist the last century; they are fairly recent, invented categories into which we slot certain kinds of facts that we glean by limiting ourselves to certain kinds of methods. They aren't "out there" waiting to be discovered, like the Moon: the conventional categories are a sort of "grammar" we use to keep our knowledge neat for our own purposes. But biology bleeds into physics and chemistry, science itself owes a great deal to psychology, among other things. The borders are permeable; and none of the sciences contains, on its own, a complete and satisfying description of the world as we know it...which is why we have a bunch of them, and not one.

[Arising_uk]

...

Since you coined the term "unconventional science" you define it, no-one else used that term till you invented it. IC did not come up with the term.

Fair point and since I coined it as the implication implicit in IC's "conventional sciences" I think it has proved its point, there are no 'unconventional sciences'.