Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's the (an) alternative?
Nothing I say will convince you.
So don't try to convince. Just give us some alternatives to consider.
Physicists and Philosophers Debate the Boundaries of Science
111–120 of 168 posts
Re: Physicists and Philosophers Debate the Boundaries of Science
#112Physics used to be "hard science" - if it wasn't testable, it wasn't meaningful. Physicists used to look down on other sciences for that reason. This article shows how much worse things have become. Nobody can figure out a way to test string theory. In cosmology, you can only observe, not experiment. As the article points out, the big questions are out of reach for scaling reasons. Trying to fix the problem through w…
I don't understand -- we've spend trillions on wars, lost trillions because of poor policies that line the pockets of pharma and wall street, hundreds of billions on sports and entertainment (which is not a waste but is not contributing to technology either...), and you have an objection to spending a few billion on producing knowledge?
You've got an equivocation [1], three red herrings [2], and one begged question [3].
Equivocation:
You used "we" to mean government ("trillions on wars"), then private citizens ("hundreds of billions on sports..."), then back to government ("a few billion on producing knowledge"). "Our" war spending is certainly not related to "our" watching ESPN.
Red herrings:
War spending, lining corporate pockets, and private entertainment are unrelated to whether -- and to what extent -- fundamental physics should be government-funded. In fact, one may be a peace-loving socialist and still not believe that this research is the best investment for a nation's finite resources.
Begging the question:
You've assumed that research into string theory, multiverse theory, etc. produce knowledge, which is the very question being debated here. Knowledge is generally regarded as justified true belief [4] (albeit with qualifiers [5]). At issue here is whether one's scientific beliefs are adequately justified without empirical support -- i.e., whether we're producing any knowledge at all regarding this issue.
As a disclaimer, I was a researcher at a government lab for 5 years. In many cases, I believe scientific research is worth funding. That said, we should take care to present sound arguments regardless of the topic.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivocation 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_herring 3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question 4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belief#Justified_true_belief 5. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/knowledge-analysis/
Re: Physicists and Philosophers Debate the Boundaries of Science
#113Nowadays, as several philosophers at the workshop said, Popperian falsificationism has been supplanted by Bayesian confirmation theory, or Bayesianism, a modern framework based on the 18th-century probability theory of the English statistician and minister Thomas Bayes. Bayesianism allows for the fact that modern scientific theories typically make claims far beyond what can be directly observed — no one has ever seen…
http://andrewgelman.com/2015/12/17/gathering-of-philosophers... Andrew Gelman is the author of the most popular of the advanced "Bayesian Data analysis" text and is considered the standard. He says false, bayesian falsificationism is better than confirmation theory and deborah mayo founder of error statistics essentially agrees with him.
The linked paper of Gelman is a really good read on Bayesian thinking in philosophy of science:
http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~gelman/research/published/phil...
Re: Physicists and Philosophers Debate the Boundaries of Science
#114Probably, "we" should take a reductionist approach and stop piling up nonsense upon nonsense, mis-using math, statistics, probability and publishing more compilations of unjustifiable and unverifiable references to another products of unconstrained imagination, ambitions and self-praise.
Ironically, since Upanishads, there is a maxim, popularized by Buddha, that we should strive to "see things as they are" instead of worship nonsense produced by society of mediocrity.
No better advice, probably, could be given. We are in the situation quite similar to that one of 6th-7th century AD, where almost every person who could barely write produce volumes of "religious" and "philosophical" doctrines, commentaries, commentaries to commentaries and similar crap (so called Tantric Buddhism texts, which are available in museums).
Nowadays, people who were barely graduated and had, lets say, not quite developed, highly constrained, too specialized and excessively brainwashed minds are doing "research", that egotistic pompous meme-joggling we could read in any so-called academic journals.
So, let's try to see things as they are, not misuse math to produce modern hymeras and mumbo-jumbos.
Re: Physicists and Philosophers Debate the Boundaries of Science
#115This crisis in Physics makes me happier than anyone can know. It signals the end of the dominance of Kantian philosophy in Physics. Mach's principle (Einstein's polestar), Popperian falsifiability, Cantor's paradise of infinity (as described by Hilbert) and all other derivatives of Kant are the dead-end of a false metaphysics and epistemology. We do indeed, live in interesting (or depending on your worldview, dangero…
> derivatives of Kant are the dead-end of a false metaphysics and epistemology
Sounds like you've been reading too much Ayn Rand. Nobody else places as much irrational blame on a single philosopher. Even if you think his philosophy is wrong, its much less wrong than things that came before it, and is certainly less wrong than claiming you can found a philosophy on 'A is A'.
Re: Physicists and Philosophers Debate the Boundaries of Science
#116Physics used to be "hard science" - if it wasn't testable, it wasn't meaningful. Physicists used to look down on other sciences for that reason. This article shows how much worse things have become. Nobody can figure out a way to test string theory. In cosmology, you can only observe, not experiment. As the article points out, the big questions are out of reach for scaling reasons. Trying to fix the problem through w…
> Physics used to be "hard science" - Physics is still a hard science. However, the edges of physics are difficult to test. > In cosmology, you can only observe, not experiment Saying that is like saying "we don't know evolution is true, because we don't see new species evolve every day". It's a naive approach to science. In both cases, you can use theories to make predictions about new things to look for. e.g. http:…
of course the image that the nfl puts forth of strong men fighting battles with what might seem like intelligent strategies plays into the hands of military types. Players get points for shooting. Is this a trap question? Casting shows OTOH are all about mating and increasing the troop strength.
Re: Physicists and Philosophers Debate the Boundaries of Science
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't understand -- we've spend trillions on wars, lost trillions because of poor policies that line the pockets of pharma and wall street, hundreds of billions on sports and entertainment (which is not a waste but is not contributing to technology either...), and you have an objection to spending a few billion on producing knowledge?
You've got an equivocation [1], three red herrings [2], and one begged question [3]. Equivocation: You used "we" to mean government ("trillions on wars"), then private citizens ("hundreds of billions on sports..."), then back to government ("a few billion on producing knowledge"). "Our" war spending is certainly not related to "our" watching ESPN. Red herrings: War spending, lining corporate pockets, and private ente…
Damn, and you just shut him down.
Re: Physicists and Philosophers Debate the Boundaries of Science
#118This crisis in Physics makes me happier than anyone can know. It signals the end of the dominance of Kantian philosophy in Physics. Mach's principle (Einstein's polestar), Popperian falsifiability, Cantor's paradise of infinity (as described by Hilbert) and all other derivatives of Kant are the dead-end of a false metaphysics and epistemology. We do indeed, live in interesting (or depending on your worldview, dangero…
> derivatives of Kant are the dead-end of a false metaphysics and epistemology Sounds like you've been reading too much Ayn Rand. Nobody else places as much irrational blame on a single philosopher. Even if you think his philosophy is wrong, its much less wrong than things that came before it, and is certainly less wrong than claiming you can found a philosophy on 'A is A'.
Are quantum computers even possible if A=A?
Re: Physicists and Philosophers Debate the Boundaries of Science
#119Re: Physicists and Philosophers Debate the Boundaries of Science
#120We had a rush of scientific breakthroughs 100 years ago. I believe we will have more. That experimentation in physics has slowed down to 18th century levels doesn't mean science is over, it just means the low-hanging fruit is over and we will have to continue slogging through theory before we discover new experiments. Science has always relied on philosophy for its underlying direction, it's just obvious again. It to…
> It took 2040 years before science/math could answer Zeno's paradoxes. And that's only if we assume calculus answered them. Which is not the absolute consensus of logicians/mathematicians. Many seem to believe they are simply about limits and that's all, but they may also point to a more fundamental aspect of reality. E.g. from Wiki: A suggested problem with using calculus to try to solve Zeno's paradoxes is that th…
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