The Limits of Science

[skakos]

No. Newton's theory was wrong. ...

About what? Its still used to today to lob objects around and plot velocities, etc, it may well be an approximation but for blunt large scale things it works well enough to be right.

There is no "field" now. Just curved spacetime. And the example of Euclidian geometry is not an actual example: you can invent any geometry you want by simply changing axioms ...

Yeah, Euclid's ones and the axiom that changed was the parallel postulate, mainly because this was the one that was not clearly proved by Euclid in the way all his other ones were.

- Mathematics do not have a very good relation with "reality" (if such thing even exists). My point is that science provides models. Models to describe the things we see. The theories behind these models have nothing to do with "Reality" per se. For example in reality we have lines. It does not matter if they are parallels or not. If they are Euclidian or not. The lines do not care for our models. They just "are".

What do you mean by a line in reality?

I agree with you and Kant that there is a noumena. So the reality is phenomena and as such I think the models and theories get closer to this reality by being more useful in predicting its behaviour, hence science and maths are so far the best ways we appear to have of finding the 'truth' 'behind' phenomena.

But you do not know the goal here. You do not know "reality" so you cannot tell if the theory is close or not to it. Careful: Being close to observable measurements IS NOT the same with being "correct" as a theory. The theories are MADE to agree with the measurements, so they obviously do! (tautology)

[skakos]

The difference I'm pointing out is the religious faith that accepts a 'God' with zero evidence and the faith of confidence that has at least some evidence.

An obscure Palestinian carpenter from 2,000 years ago is still the best known person in the history of Western culture. There's not a single philosopher or scientist etc who has so broadly and deeply engaged the human mind. Some people (not me) find this remarkable story to be credible evidence of something beyond random chance.

I'm not attempting to prove anything here about God, only that the religious belief doesn't arise from nothing.

I'm a historian.. and the only recorded evidence for jesus outside the bible is of a wandering "rabi"

maybe you should re-evaluate what you define as evidence?

Witnesses and written accounts are evidence. People seeing Christi after he was resurrected are evidence. What kind of evidence do you have in mind?

[Hjarloprillar]

As the one book is the only evidence.

It is thus 'valid' evidence ?
Dont get me wrong. I think Jesus WAS.
But thats not based in evidence but in desire for such a MAN. to have been. Great story,
But so is Wotan. Or the Greek gods.

I LOVE A GOD STORY.

In the old times we camped about a fire and great tales were told.
The Bard came to be.
Now he works for DC comics.
And makes Iron men from playboy billionaire genius.
And we understand less how a PC works than how thor threw bolts of lightning.

THAT IS THE LIMMIT OF SCIENCE.
That the actions of legendary Gods are blaze' compared to what we can do now.
AND WHAT WE WILL ONE DAY DO.. THERE ARE NO LIMMITS.
For doing.'IS what science is all about.'
You dont villify oppenhiemer for NOT being 'destroyer of worlds or as bainbridge said , a son of a bitch'

PRILL

[Arising_uk]

But you do not know the goal here. ...

What goal?

You do not know "reality" so you cannot tell if the theory is close or not to it. Careful: Being close to observable measurements IS NOT the same with being "correct" as a theory. The theories are MADE to agree with the measurements, so they obviously do! (tautology)

Not quite as we can pretty much make any idea fit the measurements, its called metaphysics, scientific theories arise in an attempt to explain what we see and measure and to postulate either more experiments to prove what it says or to postulate experiments that would falsify what it says.

My take is that we cannot know this 'reality', i.e. its Kants noumena, as such what we can know is the phenomena and so far the best method we appear to have so far of understanding 'it' appears to be the scientific method.

[Kuznetzova]

Disagreeing with me does not mean that I have "shown" that I do not understand something. The incompleteness theorem is all too simple. If you do not see that it poses any limitations to the all-mighty Science then this is not really my fault. Hope Science will someday provide you with all the answers you seek.

Science is not concerned with formal theorem proving, mathematics is. Godel's theorem was a result about the existence of proofs, not the validity of ones that already exist. As far as what Godel did to philosophy, I think he showed that mathematics is a language created by human beings, and that there are problems involved in meta-references in deductive systems. I understand exactly what the theory says. I studied it in college and I have the textbooks to prove it. I even read a biography of Kurt Godel. I have already formed my opinions about what these theorems suggest and hint at, philosophically speaking.

Reality is a subjective things, as far as each and every one of us perceive it.

This is stoner philosophy.

In any case, believing in the power of Science while having in front of you the subjectivity of our senses

"the subjectivity of our senses".
You're a solipsist.

[Kuznetzova]

Careful: Being close to observable measurements IS NOT the same with being "correct" as a theory. The theories are MADE to agree with the measurements, so they obviously do! (tautology)

[skakos]

As the one book is the only evidence.

It is thus 'valid' evidence ?
Dont get me wrong. I think Jesus WAS.
But thats not based in evidence but in desire for such a MAN. to have been. Great story,
But so is Wotan. Or the Greek gods.

I LOVE A GOD STORY.

In the old times we camped about a fire and great tales were told.
The Bard came to be.
Now he works for DC comics.
And makes Iron men from playboy billionaire genius.
And we understand less how a PC works than how thor threw bolts of lightning.

THAT IS THE LIMMIT OF SCIENCE.
That the actions of legendary Gods are blaze' compared to what we can do now.
AND WHAT WE WILL ONE DAY DO.. THERE ARE NO LIMMITS.
For doing.'IS what science is all about.'
You dont villify oppenhiemer for NOT being 'destroyer of worlds or as bainbridge said , a son of a bitch'

PRILL

Evidence is seeing people with zero brain activity having conscious experiences (NDEs).
Dogmatism is saying that the brain generates consciousness despite the above evidence...

[skakos]

Disagreeing with me does not mean that I have "shown" that I do not understand something. The incompleteness theorem is all too simple. If you do not see that it poses any limitations to the all-mighty Science then this is not really my fault. Hope Science will someday provide you with all the answers you seek.

Science is not concerned with formal theorem proving, mathematics is. Godel's theorem was a result about the existence of proofs, not the validity of ones that already exist. As far as what Godel did to philosophy, I think he showed that mathematics is a language created by human beings, and that there are problems involved in meta-references in deductive systems. I understand exactly what the theory says. I studied it in college and I have the textbooks to prove it. I even read a biography of Kurt Godel. I have already formed my opinions about what these theorems suggest and hint at, philosophically speaking.

Reality is a subjective things, as far as each and every one of us perceive it.

This is stoner philosophy.

In any case, believing in the power of Science while having in front of you the subjectivity of our senses

"the subjectivity of our senses".
You're a solipsist.

OK. So do you believe that senses are objective? How would you explain that to a colour-blind man?

[skakos]

But you do not know the goal here. ...

What goal?

You do not know "reality" so you cannot tell if the theory is close or not to it. Careful: Being close to observable measurements IS NOT the same with being "correct" as a theory. The theories are MADE to agree with the measurements, so they obviously do! (tautology)

Not quite as we can pretty much make any idea fit the measurements, its called metaphysics, scientific theories arise in an attempt to explain what we see and measure and to postulate either more experiments to prove what it says or to postulate experiments that would falsify what it says.

My take is that we cannot know this 'reality', i.e. its Kants noumena, as such what we can know is the phenomena and so far the best method we appear to have so far of understanding 'it' appears to be the scientific method.

OK.

There is a theory which says "The brain generates consciousness".

Then we observe ONE (let's say its only one for now) person who did have zero brain activity and yet, DID have consciousness.

Why isn't that theory falsified?

In an ideal world, that theory would be immediatelly abandoned.
It is not, because many scientists BELIEVE things to be correct and ARE NOT willing to give away their beloved axioms for new ones.
Maybe they are just bored. Or perhaps the money are too much to ignore...

[skakos]

Careful: Being close to observable measurements IS NOT the same with being "correct" as a theory. The theories are MADE to agree with the measurements, so they obviously do! (tautology)

What?

Not liking the obvious?

[Arising_uk]

...
There is a theory which says "The brain generates consciousness".

Then we observe ONE (let's say its only one for now) person who did have zero brain activity and yet, DID have consciousness.

Why isn't that theory falsified?

Because science has been around quite a while now and as such is full of supporting interconnections. To drop a theory because of one instance would mean having to re-write a lot of other theories in other disciplines. Now if you can produce a repeatable experiment that reduces a persons brain activity to zero and then prove by whatever means that when restored they were conscious all that time then I guess you'd be getting somewhere.

A good example is the LHC and the 'discovery' of particles that go faster than light, by your standard they should have dropped Einsteins theory with this result. Instead they looked for errors and at the methods used as to much of Physics gives secondary support to the theory just to drop it upon one result.

I'm guessing you are a follower of NDE's, mainly I suspect because of the religious slant of some of them, and I think them interesting. My take would be that it's Body that produces consciousness and that the 'brain' is a misnomer for the CNS. As such I guess that processing could still be taking place elsewhere even when we can't measure it in the 'brain'.

In an ideal world, that theory would be immediatelly abandoned. ...

Science is not pure logic, much to many metaphysicians chagrin. It has to be empirically testable and repeatedly so.

It is not, because many scientists BELIEVE things to be correct and ARE NOT willing to give away their beloved axioms for new ones.

Thats religion not science. Its more nuanced than that, its because to much else also corroborates an axiom for them to give it up so easily but the difference between science and religion is that once it becomes overwhelmingly and repeatably testably false then they will give them up.

Maybe they are just bored. Or perhaps the money are too much to ignore...

Neither and scientists are amongst the lowest paid.

[skakos]

...
There is a theory which says "The brain generates consciousness".

Then we observe ONE (let's say its only one for now) person who did have zero brain activity and yet, DID have consciousness.

Why isn't that theory falsified?

Because science has been around quite a while now and as such is full of supporting interconnections. To drop a theory because of one instance would mean having to re-write a lot of other theories in other disciplines. Now if you can produce a repeatable experiment that reduces a persons brain activity to zero and then prove by whatever means that when restored they were conscious all that time then I guess you'd be getting somewhere.

A good example is the LHC and the 'discovery' of particles that go faster than light, by your standard they should have dropped Einsteins theory with this result. Instead they looked for errors and at the methods used as to much of Physics gives secondary support to the theory just to drop it upon one result.

I'm guessing you are a follower of NDE's, mainly I suspect because of the religious slant of some of them, and I think them interesting. My take would be that it's Body that produces consciousness and that the 'brain' is a misnomer for the CNS. As such I guess that processing could still be taking place elsewhere even when we can't measure it in the 'brain'.

In an ideal world, that theory would be immediatelly abandoned. ...

Science is not pure logic, much to many metaphysicians chagrin. It has to be empirically testable and repeatedly so.

It is not, because many scientists BELIEVE things to be correct and ARE NOT willing to give away their beloved axioms for new ones.

Thats religion not science. Its more nuanced than that, its because to much else also corroborates an axiom for them to give it up so easily but the difference between science and religion is that once it becomes overwhelmingly and repeatably testably false then they will give them up.

Maybe they are just bored. Or perhaps the money are too much to ignore...

Neither and scientists are amongst the lowest paid.

So you actually agree that one single NDE should make science abandon its materialistic dogmas and you admit that they do not because they are... bored to do it?!? Wow.

And to get facts straight, you have completely misunderstood the point here. The point is not that the "brain generates consciousness" theory is proved and we are trying to disprove it.

THE POINT is that ALL observations are EQUALLY COMPATIBLE with the theory "brain generates consciousness" AND the theory "brain is just a receiver of consciousness".

Think of the example of a TV to understand what I say.

You see TV playing.
TV is broken.
You stop seeing images from the TV.

Theory 1: TV generated the image.
Theory 2: TV was a receiver for the image.

BOTH are compatible with what you observe!

WHY did you choose one theory over the other if not due to dogmatism?

[Arising_uk]

So you actually agree that one single NDE should make science abandon its materialistic dogmas and you admit that they do not because they are... bored to do it?!? Wow. ...

No, thats pretty much exactly what I didn't say.

And to get facts straight, you have completely misunderstood the point here. The point is not that the "brain generates consciousness" theory is proved and we are trying to disprove it.

THE POINT is that ALL observations are EQUALLY COMPATIBLE with the theory "brain generates consciousness" AND the theory "brain is just a receiver of consciousness". ...

Apart from the point that we apparently cannot find a transmitter that is. So the weight is upon you to find one that we can test. Until then it appears reasonable to assume that we're a self-contained kinda thing.

Think of the example of a TV to understand what I say.

You see TV playing.
TV is broken.
You stop seeing images from the TV.

Theory 1: TV generated the image.
Theory 2: TV was a receiver for the image.

BOTH are compatible with what you observe!

WHY did you choose one theory over the other if not due to dogmatism?

Because I know where the broadcast studio is in one case and in the other you are just postulating one to fit your religious dogma.

I refer you to this thread(about half-way down), TV, radio its all the same.
viewtopic.php?f=16&t=10567&p=136867&hilit=radio#p136867

[Kuznetzova]

[Kuznetzova]