So, what's science then?

Philosophy
101

You do this same thing in many other threads.

The topic is the 4th item in the article. Here’s a quote,

Newtonian physics was the dominant paradigm for centuries despite unresolved problems. As these problems multiplied, Einsteinian physics began to dominate. Most of the time, scientists are “puzzle solvers” working on problems within a given paradigm. It is only right before a paradigm shift, Kuhn suggested, that they actively start to work on the major problems.

But you’re, “it’s the math” argument ignores paradigm shifts. You don’t care that math has changed, because the math describes our understanding now, so you say it’s right, now. Then you somehow believe it’s always right.

You’re like 1st century Jews who saw problems with Moses, so they said Jesus fixed it, and therefore God is good.

102

[quote=“lausten, post:101, topic:10237, full:true”]
You do this same thing in many other threads.

The topic is the 4th item in the article. Here’s a quote,

Newtonian physics was the dominant paradigm for centuries despite unresolved problems. As these problems multiplied, Einsteinian physics began to dominate. Most of the time, scientists are “puzzle solvers” working on problems within a given paradigm. It is only right before a paradigm shift, Kuhn suggested, that they actively start to work on the major problems.

Yes that’s “HOW you do science”. But I read the OP as asking “WHAT is science”?

But you’re, “it’s the math” argument ignores paradigm shifts. You don’t care that math has changed, because the math describes our understanding now, so you say it’s right, now. Then you somehow believe it’s always right.

Of course, Human maths have changed along with deeper understanding of the mathematical nature of spacetime. Universal maths has remained the same since the beginning. Humans have acquired an ability for better (more accurate) measurements and more precise descriptions of natural mathematical phenomena. That is what caused the changes in human maths.

Example: Newtonian gravity was extended and improved by Einstein, but is not wrong in and of itself in relation to the Earth.

Einstein’s genius changed science’s perception of gravity

General relativity has grown more important than it was in Einstein’s day

Important to whom? Mankind or the Universe?

Albert Einstein opened humankind’s eyes to the universe.

Ah yes, that’s more like it!

Before Einstein, space seemed featureless and changeless, as Isaac Newton had defined it two centuries earlier. And time, Newton declared, flowed at its own pace, oblivious to the clocks that measured it. But Einstein looked at space and time and saw a single dynamic stage — spacetime — on which matter and energy strutted, generating sound and fury, signifying gravity.

Newton’s law of gravity had united the earthly physics of falling apples with the cosmic dances of planets and stars. But he couldn’t explain how, and he famously refused to try. It took an Einstein to figure out gravity’s true modus operandi. Gravity, Einstein showed, did not just make what goes up always come down. Gravity made the universe go ’round.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/einsteins-genius-changed-sciences-perception-gravity

Keep in mind that I am a hard atheist.

You’re like 1st century Jews who saw problems with Moses, so they said Jesus fixed it, and therefore God is good.

Are you proposing that our measurements and understanding of God has improved and are more accurate? In what way is that, pray tell?

Isn’t that what Islam claims? is Islam an improved version of OT and NT?

103

That is your opinion.

Others can argue math is a creation to help us better under the world.

Okay, so the cosmos is such a fine tuned thing, interwoven folds within folds would be recognizable by increasing human logic and mathematical sophistication.

Still, it’s our human invention, for our specifically human needs and desires.

1 Like
104

Why ask that? What point does this make?

And you are talking about how math is the essence of spacetime.

That’s a premise.

That’s what I’ve been saying. It doesn’t support what you’re saying.

105

I think that is an axiom. If something is not mathematically permitted, it cannot happen.

Indeed, the human symbolization of universal maths has helped us understand the world (universe) better

Travel through time and explore the greatest mathematicians and biggest mathematical discoveries in history.

Note the term “discoveries”, not “inventions”.

Discoveries are made of something pre-existing, inventions are products of the human mind. Humans discovered universal mathematics and invented a symbolic language to codify it.

106

Yes, some people think that. I don’t care anymore. Youve said some outrageous things, like “math is the essence of spacetime”, that you aren’t defending anymore. I have no idea what point you are making. You jump around. Just drop it.

107

Where did you get “outrageous idea” from? I didn’t invent the concept of mathematics being an essential property of the universe. This has been debated since Plato.

Is Tegmark’s “MUH” outrageous"? Yes let’s kick him out of MIT!

image
image734×969 207 KB

https://space.mit.edu/home/tegmark/crazy.html

108

You didn’t say essential property, you said essence of spacetime.

When you don’t invent terms, what you say is off topic and trivial, when you use undefined phrases, I don’t know what you’re saying.

109

[quote=“lausten, post:108, topic:10237, full:true”]

You didn’t say essential property, you said essence of spacetime.

Essence = Essential property .
OK, hmmmm, need some Philosophy here… :thinking:

Essential vs. Accidental Properties

First published Tue Apr 29, 2008; substantive revision Mon Oct 26, 2020

The distinction between essential versus accidental properties has been characterized in various ways, but it is often understood in modal terms: an essential property of an object is a property that it must have, while an accidental property of an object is one that it happens to have but that it could lack.
Let’s call this the basic modal characterization, where a modal characterization of a notion is one that explains the notion in terms of necessity/possibility.

In the characterization just given of the distinction between essential and accidental properties, the use of the word “must” reflects the fact that necessity is invoked, while the use of the word “could” reflects that possibility is invoked.

The notions of necessity and possibility are interdefinable: to say that something is necessary is to say that its negation is not possible; to say that something is possible is to say that its negation is not necessary; to say that an object must have a certain property is to say that it could not lack it; and to say that an object could have a certain property is to say that it is not the case that it must lack it.

Essentialism in general may be characterized as the doctrine that (at least some) objects have (at least some) essential properties. This characterization is not universally accepted (see §3), but no characterization is; and at least this one has the virtue of being simple and straightforward.

> As for specific essentialist claims, we have already encountered one—the claim that the property of being human is essential to Socrates. Another example is the claim that Socrates’s biological origin—Socrates’s parents, or more particularly, the sperm and egg from which Socrates arose—is essential to Socrates.

The first example is a brand of sortal essentialism while the second is a brand of origin essentialism. Both of these kinds of essentialisms have figured prominently in the philosophical literature.

more… Essential vs. Accidental Properties (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

110

Okay, we’ve beaten on that drum long enough. For argument sake, okay, math is everything. But the question for this thread was: What’s science then?

I’ve read through that article again and doesn’t have much to say much about that particular question, though it does offer a list the top philosophical concerns.

4 of the hardest unsolved problems in philosophy — and some possible solutions. By Scotty Hendricks

The hard problem of consciousness

asks why any physical state creates conscious mental states at all.

Why is there something rather than nothing?

why is there anything at all, rather than nothing?

The Ship of Theseus

addresses questions of identity, what is the real you?

The demarcation problem

how to distinguish science from non-science?

…the little video at the end was cool, “How to detect baloney the Carl Sagan way | Michael Shermer”.

Write, you do back up your claims about microtubule and such with solid sources for us to learn from. So please be clear, nothing between the lines here.
Trying to get into a whole different conversation - more on track with the initial post.
I just want to try to help get this thread back to what science is and how to assess the dubious claims being made out there, … in a world where dishonesty seems to be getting worse, rather than better.

In 1995, just a few months before his death, astrophysicist Carl Sagan published The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. In that book, he wrote a chapter called ‘The Fine Art of Baloney Detection’, and from it sprang what skeptics call the ‘baloney detection kit’.

This is a set of tools for critical thinking that has continued to develop since Sagan’s death, 22 years ago. Here, skeptic and science writer Michael Shermer explains key lessons from Sagan, and from his own college freshman course ‘Skepticism 101’, where teaches students ten basic questions that will help them debunk untruths, and call out baloney when they see it.

  1. How reliable is the source of the claim?

  2. Does the source make similar claims?

  3. Have the claims been verified by somebody else?

  4. Does this fit with the way the world works?

  5. Has anyone tried to disprove the claim?

  6. Where does the preponderance of evidence point?

  7. Is the claimant playing by the rules of science?

  8. Is the claimant providing positive evidence?

  9. Does the new theory account for as many phenomena as the old theory?

  10. Are personal beliefs driving the claim?

Appreciating we are evolved biological thinking creatures, understanding the physical reality ~ human mind divide, helps dissolve those conundrums. Leaving us ready to move on a more enlighten perspective.

111

The research and application of mathematics in trying to solve the mysteries of the Universe!
We’re doing it already.

When we do science we are trying to understand the Universal laws that guide everything. Maths have been “unreasonably” effective in unraveling some of the mysteries surrounding the existence and properties inherent in the tapestry of the greater geometry of the Universe.

112

Must you be so tedious.
Do you actually communicate with the world through binary code, perhaps mixing it up with morse code when you’re trying to be poetic?

Give it a break. None of these challenges can be addressed with math.

Nor communicating with people and encourage critical thinking skills.

113

The Five millions dollar intellectual entertainer Max Tegmark?
Hoffman? Penrose, dark matter doesn’t exist anymore? Sorry they are out of bounds of simple constructive science. They are the dreamers, the preachers for the religious impulse within the rational scientist types, who’ll never admit it, even as their philosophy loses sight of the line between physical reality and our human mind in all it’s fantastical glory.

Always looking for the ultimate truth, well because we are human and entitled to know The Answer To Everything, even if we need to make it up.
Look at the history of science, it’s chock full of smart people who became enamored and ultimately convinced in their interpretations, even as they knew they were only scratching the surface of the evidence.

114

[quote=“citizenschallengev4, post:112, topic:10237”]
Give it a break. None of these challenges can be addressed with math.

[quote=“citizenschallengev4, post:110, topic:10237”]
The hard problem of consciousness
asks why any physical state creates conscious mental states at all.

In general, a certain sensitivity to the occurrence of an interactive (partial) differential equation that must “be solved”

Why is there something rather than nothing?

That’s what we are trying to figure out, that’s Science!

why is there anything at all, rather than nothing?

WHY is irrelevant. HOW will tell us why.

IMO, given what we do know about origins and dynamical forces present, it was a matter of probability under certain conditions, that a mathematical object (pattern), an energetic singularity might emerge and expand in possibly measurable differential equations (dimensions).

The Ship of Theseus
addresses questions of identity, what is the real you?

I identify myself as extraordinarily fortunate. I consider myself to be a very small mathematical probability of materialization as living, thinking organism. WOW!

The demarcation problem
how to distinguish science from non-science?

Tell that to Jules Verne and Peter Higgs.

Higgs boson

Elementary particle

Higgs boson

The Higgs boson, sometimes called the Higgs particle, is an elementary particle in the Standard Model of particle physics produced by the quantum excitation of the Higgs field, one of the fields in particle physics theory. In the Standard Model, the Higgs particle is a massive scalar boson with zero spin, even (positive) parity, no electric charge, and no colour… Wikipedia

And old reliable: “Gravity”.

115

You aren’t answering the questions. If math has the answers, then show me the math. If it can someday have the answer, then that’s it, we’re done, there’s nothing else to say, just go do the work and get back to me when it’s published.

But until then stop posting about it here.

1 Like
116

Yet this same prayer, same religion was forced on other groups of people. Either convert or die. Slaves had to convert, Native Americans (kids were even sent to Carlisle schools, unable to speak their language or even practice their own beliefs), Pagans were forced to convert, and many more groups of people were forced to convert or die. IMHO, the problem is people cannot see that the idea of god is a human concept and everyone is entitled to have their own concept or none at all.

117

I have asked this before. If anyone has a better alternative narrative, speak up, if not let’s explore what we do have. By all accounts maths seems to be effective, even if “unreasonable”.

And, I’m sorry if I am “interfering with an otherwise unproductive discussion”.
At least I am putting something on the table. Why the knee-jerk dismissal?

118

Knee jerk? Are you kidding? You’ve been repeating yourself for 2 weeks on this thread, and the same posts are all over this forum. We aren’t exploring anything. You aren’t going to end the debate on math being discovered or invented. It’s an interesting aside to me, and I’m not dismissing anything, but for you, you can’t let go of it. What do you want from me? Should I just write a post saying you are correct?

119

No, I am merely posting my perspective. But agreement on one or more points would be welcome.

The problem is that at this fundamental level there are no choices. It comes down to a singular causality .

Apart from God, which is not scientific, the only other common denominator I know of is maths.

IMO, Science is that which investigates a single, or several common denominators that point the way to causality, origin, and evolution. AFAIK, an essential mathematical aspect to universal interactions is a necessary function if used to make predictions.

Nobody complains about the constant use of the term “gravity” or “relativity”, they are not deepities but axioms. I consider maths to fall into that category and a discussion about exactly where or when maths is functionally present and becomes deterministic is a worthwhile pursuit.

120

Then you’re not exploring.

I didn’t either. Maybe if you responded to the things I DID say, I wouldn’t be having this meta-discussion.

But you don’t discuss that. You’ve changed from “math is all there is and determines everything” to “let’s discuss when it’s deterministic”. You change where you’re going with each critique. That’s not discussion, that’s evasiveness.