Re: Repost of a Conundrum

On Dec 22, 11:31 pm, dmca...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (David Canzi) wrote:
In article <1749a315-422a-4854-b735-279b6186d...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,



Bill  <b...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Every time the world seems comprehensible, something comes along to
ruin everything and I have to start all over. I had been convinced
that science was the study of nature so that everything within nature
was open to scientific investigation. Since any "thing" outside or
beyond or apart from nature could not be natural, "it" could not be
studied by science and was therefore, not scientific. A supernatural
reality was, by definition, unscientific. Alas, it's more complicated
than that.

Einstein lamented than his greatest blunder was his Cosmological
Constant and the universe was understood as functioning without it.
Turns out his second greatest blunder was believing the Cosmological
Constant was his greatest blunder. Now the universe is understood as
being almost entirely composed of stuff that cannot be observed by any
means known to science. Less than 5% of everything that exists is
available for scientific investigation. Since 95% of all that exists
is beyond the reach of science, most of the universe is, literally,
supernatural.

Your definition of observation is too narrow.

Consider this:  Scientists seeking some X particle, which they
believe exists on theoretical grounds, build a giant accelerator
which collides two beams of particles inside a detector.
The collision energy is enough to create a number of heavy
short-lived particles that disintegrate into a large number of
lighter and longer-lived particles.  The short-lived particles
that are created can be recognized by analyzing the paths their
longer-lived disintegration products take through the detector.
So... the scientists start up the accelerator, the detector detects
the disintegration products of the short-lived particles produced
by the accelerator, a computer collects these measurements, and
a supercomputer grinds for hours or days analysing them.  And at
last, the computer displays its verdict on the screen: the pattern
of scattering produced by the particle they seek has been detected.
And the scientists then publish a paper saying something that
you might think is funny: "We have observed the X particle."

Which reminds me, see this: http://billconner.com/cern.html


All they've actually seen with their eyes is a message on a
computer screen, but they're perfectly right to say that they've
observed the particle.  They've detected effects of the particle's
presence that are distinguishable from what would be detected in
its absence.

That's all we're doing when we observe anything, by any method
of observation.  Even when we're looking straight at something,
such as a tree, we are detecting the effects the tree has on the
light that reaches our eyes, and those effects are distinguishable
from the light that would reach our eyes if the tree wasn't there.

The orbits of stars at the center of our galaxy are the orbits
we would see if there was a black hole there, and not the orbits
we would see if there was not a black hole there.  Even though
we can't image it with our telescopes, we have observed the
black hole.

Similarly, we have observed effects of the presence of dark
matter and dark energy that are distinguishable from what we
would observe in the absence of dark matter and dark energy,
We have observed dark matter and dark energy.

That may not really help though. Knowing that something is the effect
of something else doesn't necessarily tell us what that something else
is. We infer its existence from observable effects but all we really
know is the physics of the thing affected. We know half of what
happened and have to infer the other half. The other half in this case
is called "dark" because there's no way to know what it is, and what
it does is a consequence of the physical properties of the thing
affected by it. We still don't know anything about the unseen cause.
So, yeah, it's a conundrum.

In a very literal sense this "dark" stuff is super-natural because
it's above, apart from, other than, the nature we know. Forget any
religious connotation, whatever "it" is, it ain't nature. The only way
to preserve the notion of nature being co-extensive with all of
reality is to re-define nature. This will be tricky since science will
then be left with just 5% of all that exists to study which reduces
it's relevance by 95%. I doubt if anyone wants that.



--
David Canzi     "...the fact that we can become accustomed to anything, however
                disgusting at first, makes it necessary to examine carefully
                everything we have become accustomed to." -- G. B. Shaw

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: What is Intelligent Design?
    ... When you subtract dark matter and dark energy, ... the nature available for science to study - the "visible" 4% of the ... certainly not nature in the sense of "nature is all there is". ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: A better word for "falsifiable"?
    ... if you are not going to learn about the nature of science ... Gell-Mann did *not* ignore known particles if they didn't ... can only be called an attempt at falsification ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Free To Believe Whatever They Please?
    ... age the extent of their freedom to interpret nature?" ... tried to start one science class with a bang. ... principles of a Christian conception of the universe?" ... being many more truths which are simply believed than truths which are ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Minimization principal for evolution
    ... Science is a very strict methodology requiring testable theories of nature ... population genetics which entirely dominates evolutionary theory today. ... just obvious reasons. ...
    (sci.bio.evolution)
  • Re: Is my CS instructor nuts?
    ... absolute blacks and whites are rare in nature. ... they can CHANGE the law at that level. ... a computer science class, but then dismissed, like Zionism or Fortran. ... the patent office do not legislate the second ...
    (comp.programming)