The Limits of Science

[mgb]

The limits of science.

1. The primitive.

Science is primitive in that it studies only primitive things; how atoms are joined together, how energy flows through physical systems, how spacetime is shaped and so on.
Given this limitation the rationality that emerges from science remains primitive if it stays within the sphere of materialism because matter is primitive.

With respect to the assertion of primitivism, 'evolved' would pertain to the personal; the mystery of being, life, consciousness, creativity, intelligence and the reality of the person.

To argue that the mystery of being and the reality of the person can be encompassed by the primitive rationale of science is like saying literature can be encompassed by the primitive logic of Boolean algebra. It is hardly feasable.

The rationale of science has not made any progress in addressing the mystery of being and of the person and the argument that these phenomena are within the domain of science, is an article of faith, rather than a realistic reflection of the realm of science.

2. Properties and emergence.

In earlier times it was thought that the classical (physical) universe held within itself, the explanation for its own existence. This idea was shattered with the advent of quantum mechanics which shows that the classical system is an emergent property of the foundational quantum spacetime of energy. The cause of the classical universe is outside it. In this respect, science does not explain the classical universe, it describes it. A causes B is a description of what is happening. What A and B really are would constitute an explanation.

Quantum reality has not fared any better. There are mathematical descriptions of what is happening (astoundingly accurate in many cases) but what it is that is happening and what makes it happen is as opaque as ever. What energy is, and why it behaves as it does, is a mystery and until that mystery is resolved there are only relative explanations or descriptions, in scientific understanding. No doubt, a large part of this problem concerns the fact that there is no logical reason as to why the laws of nature are what they are, since they are, or seem to be, contingent. Any ultimate explanation must address the phenomena of existence and being. What are existence and being?

3. Being

Our sense of being is the most precious and evolved aspect of human experience and it is completely outside the realm of science. It is hard to see how it can be reduced to material descriptions. A neuroscientist puts his finger on a thing and says 'we are nothing more than' (meaning a collection of neurons etc). But the thing under his finger must be interpreted and this is not easy; at all times the dictum 'Correlation is not causation' must be observed. Just because A and B are found together does not automatically mean that A causes B (there may be an unknown C, such that C causes A and C causes B). Just because neural activity is associated with thought does not mean it creates thought.

An analogy would be an internet page on a computer screen. If someone, not knowing what the internet is, decides to examine the situation he may look at the various systems and sub systems in the computer and learn that these systems are, somehow, making the page appear on screen. He can get into quite a bit of detail with this and eventually come to the conclusion that the computer has created the page, as well as the meaning of the words on the page. Every thread of his rationale tells him that the page originated in the computer and, while there is some truth in this (the computer organizes the page to be displayed) he has gone too far if he becomes convinced that the computer wrote the page and produced it in its entirety. In reality the page was broadcast from a remote server and the meaning in its text was created by a human mind.

Likewise with thought and the brain. The brain organizes many things, but it does not think. At least science has not shown that it does and any 'evidence' going in this direction can be subtly misleading.

4. Intellect and intelligence

Intellect and intelligence are not the same. Intelligence is a creative understanding that is a faculty of the conscious mind and of being. Intellect is an instrument of the intelligence. For example, creative intelligence in art, music, literature and the conscious apprehension of other minds and of being, is far more than reductive intellect. Science, for the most part, is dependent on the intellect, which is primitive, because intellect is essentially reductive. (It may be that the intellect evolved to test and to organize the flow of experiences as they come to us through our senses; to examine and grasp the logic of everyday physical experience.) The best science is when the intellect is imbued with the higher creative intelligence of the mind. But it is hard to see how it can work the other way; how intellect can inform intelligence, except by the most complicated philosophical routes.

Science relies on the intellect to discern the patterns that are behind physical reality. This bringing into focus the patterns behind physical appearances, is the essence of science.

Equally, the creative intelligence discerns the patterns behind the world of conscious experience. In this respect, the intelligence, in discerning the order and patterns in the word of being, is to being what the intellect is to science.
That is, the intellect in relation to material world, is as the intelligence is in relation to the world of being and consciousness.
Both are concerned with comprehending the order of the world, on different levels.

5. Proof

Some materialists seem to argue that only things that can be proved are admissable as elements of a world view. This view has proven to be misguided, as the failure of Logical Positivism shows. Also, there are things that are true that are not proved. For example, radio waves were not part of the world of things proved during the Middle Ages. Yet they were as real then as they are now. How one would form a world view based on proved things during the Middle Ages, is hard to see. Yet we exist in a world today where things proved are seen to be sufficient as a foundation for a world view. This cannot be adaquate. Firstly, because things proved will always only be a small subset of all truth. Secondly because proof, in the absolute, or near absolue, sense is only in terms of primitive truths; material relations and mathematical relationships.

This subset of primitive proved truths is hardly sufficient to address onthological questions concerneing the nature of being and consciousness. This means that a world view that emerges from a subset must be on very shaky ground because it does not contain unproved things that are true. A dramatic example is how the finitude of facts concerning the classical universe led scientists to believe that a whole world view could be constructed from those facts. As it turns out, facts about the classical universe are, in reality, only concerned with emergent properties (matter) of the mysterious quantum world.

Equally, Hilbert's attempts to formalize all mathematics and put it on a firm footing, were destroyed by Godel's Incompleteness Theorem. Mystery leads to the appearance of certainty and certainty is undermined by the very investigations that establish it.

And still, the world of life, being, creativity, consciousness - the highest points of the evolution of the universe - remain as elusive as ever.

[mgb]

Intelligence falls under the umbrella of science.

Really? And there is no intelligence outside science? You must be joking.

Intelligence is the application of knowledge attained through past experience and an application of logic based on axioms intended to explain or represent physical processes.

That is a definition of science. Intelligence is the ability to correlate features of reality in a way that leads to understanding. It has to do with creative thinking and that is why the best science is creative.

As for revealed truth, you're trying to assert divine revelation. Fantastic, something else that is totally fake. Don't want me to call it fake? Demonstrate it to me now. Because until you do... it's fake.

So what cannot be demonstrated must be fake? This is scientism. There are truths beyond proof. You don't seem to recognize that there are.

Penrose's main argument is that true A.I. is unlikely to be a reality because the human mind does not think in an algorithmic way. It thinks intuitively and is able to ascertain truths that are not algorithmically computable.

He gives the example of Turing's Halting Problem; a Turing machine can be given a question and it will keep going forever, without ever stopping and never answer the question. This is the Halting Problem. But human beings can answer similar questions by insight and understanding. There are some things that are not computable and cannot be answered by feeding data into an algorithm but can be answered by intelligence. So intelligence is much more than you give in your definition.

If you mean we use one set of mathematical axioms to represent reality's physical interactions, then yeah. But "self-evident" never came into this argument until you fallaciously dragged it in.

'Self evident' in this respect means they are coherent and cannot be reduced to further simplification.

Axioms that accommodate the concept of infinity are anything but self-evident in reality because we don't see any infinities. But when we develop an axiomatic statement, we can use infinity as a number in our math models.

I didn't say anything about infinity when I said 'a + 1 for all a'. Infinity is not a number, it is a set.

These are axiomatic assumptions so algebra works. They're not self-evident, they were agreed upon by committee for their usefulness.

That's tantamount to saying that scientific truth is what a committee agrees is truth...it takes more than that to establish truth. But you may be partially right in this as has already been pointed out in this thread.

Well that's a tautology.

"Two lines that never meet never meet." Brilliant.

Sometimes even the most seemingly self evident axioms have to be stated. The parallel postulate is Euclid's fifth axiom. It is not as self evident as it seems. It is not as simple as you make it sound to say two parallel lines never meet. In fact there are problems with it.

For two thousand years, many attempts were made to prove the parallel postulate using Euclid's first four postulates. The main reason that such a proof was so highly sought after was that, unlike the first four postulates, the parallel postulate is not self-evident. If the order the postulates were listed in the Elements is significant, it indicates that Euclid included this postulate only when he realised he could not prove it or proceed without it.[10] Many attempts were made to prove the fifth postulate from the other four, many of them being accepted as proofs for long periods until the mistake was found. Invariably the mistake was assuming some 'obvious' property which turned out to be equivalent to the fifth postulate (Playfair's axiom). Although known from the time of Proclus, this became known as Playfair's Axiom after John Playfair wrote a famous commentary on Euclid in 1795 in which he proposed replacing Euclid's fifth postulate by his own axiom.
Proclus (410-485) wrote a commentary on The Elements where he comments on attempted proofs to deduce the fifth postulate from the other four, in particular he notes that Ptolemy had produced a false 'proof'. Proclus then goes on to give a false proof of his own. However he did give a postulate which is equivalent to the fifth postulate.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_postulate

Nope, intuition never has to play a part in this. You've leeched off aspects of intelligence, which is a primitive (there you go, that word you like so much) method of verification that we use in order to disseminate knowledge developed through scientific insights.

I'm not aware that basic or primitive truths are used to disseminate knowledge. Basic truths need to be developed into a system of knowledge before they can be useful.

[Walterbl]

You've done nothing to provide me a method to figure out which is which.

Thats what your brain is for.

There is no evidence the universe "began" to exist, so premise 2 is unsubstantiated.

The second law of thermodynamics means the universe cannot be eternal. Entrophy would have increased to a maximum by now.

[mgb]

There is no evidence the universe "began" to exist,

The cosmological argument does not require a beginning in time. It goes like this;-

Everything is made of something else. For example

1. a chair is made from wood
2. wood is made from cells
3. cells are made from molecules
4. molecules are made from atoms
5. atoms are energy

It is possible to deconstruct everything in the classical, physical universe until we get outside the material universe and enter the universe of pure energy.

The question now is; Can energy itself be deconstructed into a deeper kind of energy?
Whatever the answer, this process of deconstruction cannot go on forever; it cannot be turtles all the way down.

At some point we must come to some substance that is not made from something else.
That substance is a necessary existence. It is not created and is eternal.
The theist/atheist debate is trying to answer this question; Is this eternal, necessary existence God?

__________________________________________________________
1. A contingent being (a being such that if it exists, it could have not-existed or could cease to exist) exists.

2. This contingent being has a cause of or explanation[1] for its existence.

3. The cause of or explanation for its existence is something other than the contingent being itself.

4. What causes or explains the existence of this contingent being must either be solely other contingent beings or include a non-contingent (necessary) being.

5. Contingent beings alone cannot provide a completely adequate causal account or explanation for the existence of a contingent being.

6. Therefore, what causes or explains the existence of this contingent being must include a non-contingent (necessary) being.

7. Therefore, a necessary being (a being such that if it exists, it cannot not-exist) exists.

8. The universe is contingent.

9. Therefore, the necessary being is something other than the universe.


https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cosm ... -argument/

[mgb]

Now, in terms of religion...what are Plato's cave-dwellers to do? How do they find out whether or not there is an outside?

Good question. They could begin with a question; 'Is there something more?'. Is there something more than this world of appearences? Religion is a kind of rumour that there is something else. The first part of finding out is to realize that this world is a world of appearences. The next part has to do with awareness. You might not agree but a lot of what scientists do has to do with awareness; an awareness of the order of the world. For the artist the order of the world is beauty. For the religious it is spirit. For the scientist it is essentially mathematics. All these are facets of the same thing.

Agreed...but the difference is that religious people make claims about what the world really is like, without ever doing any work to back up their claims.

Not necessarily. Many religious people, such as Leibnitz, Plato etc, are deep thinkers.

Both you and Muhammed can't both be true.

Why?

This can be said by the people whom you label as having hysteria. How do I, a person without a God, tell a person who knows God from a person who doesn't know God?

By their fruits ye shall know them. If a person is good you will be able to see God in them.

Are you claiming to be a person who knows God, and are able to recognise falsehood(s)?

In principle, yes. Not easy when it comes to the details though.

[AgnosticBoy]

The limits of science.
.

The subheading states "Can a true view emerge from science?". You presumed that it can not because there are limits to science and I agree with you. The limitation is due to 'methodological naturalism' because that approach requires that everything to be observed, measured, quantified, and studied methodically. Of course there are things that exist that don't meet that criteria like art, moral values, subjective experience, etc.

This limitation is why I don't close the door on the supernatural even when there's no scientific evidence for it. Atheists who say otherwise usually fail to factor in the "scope" or limitations of science. If a system of inquiry built to find only natural/physical things then of course I'd expect many supernatural matters to be left out.

[Tcg]

The limitation is due to 'methodological naturalism' because that approach requires that everything to be observed, measured, quantified, and studied methodically. Of course there are things that exist that don't meet that criteria like art, moral values, subjective experience, etc.

You are claiming that art can't be observed? Have you ever been to an art museum?

[AgnosticBoy]

The limitation is due to 'methodological naturalism' because that approach requires that everything to be observed, measured, quantified, and studied methodically. Of course there are things that exist that don't meet that criteria like art, moral values, subjective experience, etc.

You are claiming that art can't be observed? Have you ever been to an art museum?

The criteria I brought up mentions more than just observation so meeting 1 out of 3 or 4 factors will not suffice as being scientific. The point of art is to look or sound good and this is in the eye of the beholder. That aspect can not be quantified or measured in any concrete sense.

[TSGracchus]

[Replying to post 97 by AgnosticBoy]


AgnosticBoy: "The criteria I brought up mentions more than just observation so meeting 1 out of 3 of 4 factors will not suffice as being scientific. The point of art is to look or sound good and this is in the eye of the beholder."That aspect can not be quantified or measured in any concrete sense. That aspect can not be quantified or measured in any concrete sense.

So, you can't determine whether art is good or bad by referring to the art itself. It is what associations it evokes in the person looking at it that determines whether they like it or not. That appreciation can be quantified by how much they are willing to pay for it.
Van Gogh sold two paintings in his life, both to his brother. They weren't worth the cost of paint and canvas. Now any Van Gogh is "worth" millions.
I look at the Mona Lisa and see only paint daubed on canvas. I wouldn't give anything for it. It's only value is commercial to me.
On the other hand, Cellini's bust of Cosimo de Medici in the De Young museum in San Francisco nailed me to the floor when I stumbled on it when I was eleven years old. The impression of cruelty and evil it evoked in me was that strong. Great art, perhaps, but I wouldn't have it around. In short, the value of art is fantasy.

[brunumb]

[Replying to post 95 by AgnosticBoy]

The limitation is due to 'methodological naturalism' because that approach requires that everything to be observed, measured, quantified, and studied methodically. Of course there are things that exist that don't meet that criteria like art, moral values, subjective experience, etc.

The purpose of the scientific method is to gain knowledge and understanding of the world we live in. It provides a means for sorting the real from the imaginary. How does something like art do that? Art evokes emotional responses. It doesn't contribute to our understanding of the fundamentals of the universe.

The supernatural and the non-existent share the same properties. If something can be shown to exist, it is no longer regarded as supernatural. It joins the natural. When we look for explanations we apply the scientific method. That is not closing the door on the supernatural because if it can't be observed in any way it is as good as non-existent. In all of history, whenever any phenomenon was explained, that explanation was never supernatural. Leaving the door open to the supernatural is not the same as looking through that door and seeing something that isn't there.

[Bust Nak]

Whatever the answer, this process of deconstruction cannot go on forever; it cannot be turtles all the way down.

Why not? Every time people claim this, it's due to "intuition." Can you prove that it cannot be turtles all the way down?