Re: Hard Sci-fi?

On 5 Maj, 21:10, Niels <n...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Monday 05 May 2008 19:48, Tue Sorensen wrote:



On 5 Maj, 18:36, Niels <n...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Monday 05 May 2008 17:30, Tue Sorensen wrote:
Niels wrote:
Let's say you're studying some subject X, and that you're good at it
and producing good, usefull practical results. I can then easily
invent any number of bogus "philosophical" questions, and then claim
that you're ignorant and don't have a clear idea of the fundamental
nature of X. But you were doing great before I came along, and my
questions don't change the usefullness of your work. My silly
questions are superfluous and should be dismissed. Science is doing
just fine without philosophy of science.

I'm sorry but I don't think that's a scientific attitude. Sure, if the
questions are *bogus*, but they may not be. Philosophy of science
concerns itself, among other things, with the nature of the scientific
method, and that's rather important.

If my science (X) has build a spaceship that works, how are your inquires
into the nature of the scientific method going to affect that fact? They
aren't. Could you give an example of this "important" of which you speak?

Okay, I see there's yet another crucial aspect of science that
completely eludes you. And it's *still* the subjectivity/objectivity
problem. If you, as an individual, build a spaceship that works, you
can claim that you have done the same as a man who builds a row-boat
that works. You have used your own personal ingenuity. THAT'S NOT
SCIENCE.

Oh, I thought you had convinced me that the concept of science includes all
technology.

Only when there IS science. From the subjective viewpoint of some
stone age guy carving a hollow tree canoe, there is only religious
superstition.

My mistake, I'll go back to thinking that science is the method
by which we examine the world.

Emphasis on "we" - now write that a hundred times in letters five feet
high and don't forget it. Science requires the concept of objectivity,
which requires agreement between a plurality of people as to how we
perceive the world.

Science is a world view that a community of interacting
scientists have agreed on. Something can only be called science when
it has been accepted as such by the scientific community. Science is a
*cultural phenomenon* that represents rational agreement about natural
inquiry and the method and results of such inquiry. A scientist
removed from his scientific community is strictly speaking no longer a
scientist. Science is an institution that goes definitively beyond the
subjective person. It's a collective activity. If no one is around to
acknowledge that what you do is science, then it's not. You can choose
to call it that, just as you can choose to call it Fred. But the
cultural phenomenon of science is a team-effort and can never be
anything but.

If I'm all alone I can't use critical thinking to examine my world, achieve
technological progress and change my environment?

Effectively, no. And even to the tiny extent that you can, it won't be
science, but only personal ingenuity. Where will you learn critical
thinking when language (and hence thinking) is a phenomenon that can
only proceed from a collective social environment? And even if you can
think, where will you have learnt to think critically? Everything you
can do is contingent on someone else having done something first, to
provide you with the intellectual and technological tools. Modern
human beings evolved more than 100,000 years ago, and did not manage
to invent agriculture until maybe 15,000 years ago. For 85,000 years
they progressed infinitely slowly, just developing slightly better
stone tools once every few thousand years. Technological progress?
Literally at the rate of continental drift! Virtually no progress in
one person's lifetime. Anything more than that requires a vital
culture around you.

What you call science (anything technological or mechanical that
works) can vary from a row-boat to a spaceship, but you forget that in
order to make that technological leap, an entire civilization that
manufactures mass-produced electronics and many other thing is
required. Hence, there comes a level when individual ingenuity must be
replaced by the technological fruits of a larger culture, and it is
*only* under those circumstances that advanced technology becomes
possible. Only by having many people involved in researching checks
and balances can anything be said to approach objective truth;

Objective truth? Aren't we talking about science? You know, best guesses and
such? Are you sure you're not a philosopher?

Scientific fact = truth. And I did say "approach". Yes, they're best
guesses and may some day be revised. But it's the closest thing we
have to truth, and the ONLY thing we can reasonably call truth. Just
as we must define the scientific description of nature as (the closest
thing we can determine to be) reality.

one
true reality that all scientists can agree about and which can become
the common world view that further scientific activity is based on.

We allready have a true reality, science is about describing it.

That's what I'm saying. But one isolated person does not a scientist
make, and cannot make science, because he has no way of knowing what
is objective and what is just his personal experience.

This can never be the case for some isolated ship-builder's subjective
ideas about how things work. He can never know if he *really* knows
how things work, of if he just lives in a solipsistic world of his own
mental invention.

Science isn't looking for "how things *really* work". That's religion.

Whoops, already misplaced the "true reality" you mentioned above? And
can we please keep religion out of this?

What this comes down to is that I have just exposed a horribly
embarrassing fact about you, which in retrospect makes all kinds of
sense: When you use the word "science", what you actually mean is
"mechanics".

Just the opposite in fact.

I am compelled to ask the question that a TV host asked a famous film
director when he claimed his latest film was starring the late Marilyn
Monroe: How??!?!

But in what we currently call science fiction,
technology is often all we have, and so that's what we're talking about.

We're talking about what science is and what you mean by it, and,
according to what you have said in this thread, you mean "mechanics".
Otherwise we'd have to determine what you actually do mean by
"science", and that would probably get... philosophical!

You know that I've often said that such and such wasn't really SF because
it's all tech and no science, to which you've replied that the tech is
supposed to symbolize science.

Well, there *is* that, and I stand by that... but you usually complain
that there's no proper tech, either. And if we mean very different
things by "science", it's hard to see just how much we agree or not.

Personally, I believe that it's part and parcel of a
scientific attitude to accept that everything changes all the time
(except possibly certain physical laws and constants), even if some
things only do so very or even imperceptibly slowly. Anybody who does
not accept and even embrace such a principle of constant change cannot
be said to have understood the scientific world view in full.

Why not? "Everything changes" is philosophy, not science. Find me a 12th
century monk who chants "Everything changes" and I'll show you a guy who
can't build a spaceship!

If you understand the universe as science describes it, you must
accept that everything is in a state of continuous change! Any
contrary notion is obviously absurd! Understanding change will help
you to a better understanding of a great many experimental situations
and scientific principles. Science describes a universe in motion.
Reject constant motion, and you reject science itself. Sure, some
experiments can work without taking constant change into account, but
those are tiny, limited and frozen pictures of some limited situation.
If you desire greater understanding, and you should, then change must
become part of the equation. It is aggressive ignorance to deny this.

Or you could say that the universe consists of things that are blue and
things that aren't blue. That's obviously true, but that alone doesn't make
it a usefull notion. If you think that viewing the universe as being in a
state of continuous change helps scientific progress, please show us
explicitly how -- or withdraw your claim.

Progress itself is change!!! Change is a fundamental property of the
universe and is useful to keep in mind in any and all eventualities.
Any situation that does not change is exceptional for not doing so.
And even when you describe an unchanging situation, you need to engage
in motion to do it.

Your problems with limited situations shows that you don't get how science
works. Limited situations are what we strive for! We love being able to
isolate some part of a complex system!

You, my friend, are helplessly and blissfully ignorantly caught in the
early, primitive stages of science, where researchers work with
isolated systems. In the real world there are no isolated systems, and
the progress of science is increasingly reflecting that. In order to
get going at all, science has to start by describing limited parts of
complex systems, but doing so is the cradle of science and one doesn't
stay in the cradle! You are just not mature enough to leave it yet.

At the end of the day, science is empirical and quantitative. At its most
extreme it isn't about understanding the universe, it's about calculating
it. Whether you like that fact or not doesn't matter.

Does too. Science is about every aspect of nature, including human
emotions and experiences. The idea that science is only about
extracting raw data is nothing but a philosophical standpoint which
has not yet understood the dynamic nature of the universe and
everything in it. Philosophy, according to Daniel Robinson, is about
three problems: The problem of knowledge (what we can know), the
problem of conduct (how we should behave) and the problem of
governance (how we should structure society). All of these problems
will be taken over and resolved by science in due time.

- Tue
.

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