Re: Voting, moderation and the charter

Paul wrote:

On 5 Jun, 20:28, micha...@xxxxxxxxxx (michaeld) wrote:
Paul wrote:

[...]



I think the times article generally shiows a subtle bias against
Dawkins, producing quotes mean to highlight a certain weakness on
subjects like love and his sometimes grating scientific triumphalism:

"At the beginning of the 21st century, humanity is approaching a
staggeringly impressively near-to-complete
understanding..." {Intelligent Times reader thinks: yeah right, the
Victorians thought physics was achieving a near to complete
understanding, then came Einstein}

From the other comments in the article, I think it's clear that Dawkins
was here referring to having an impressively near complete
understanding
of currently available observations, rather than absolutely everything.

Victorian physicists knew about the precession of the perihelion of
Mercury and the constancy of the speed of light in different inertial
frames (Michelson-Morley experiment) but had an incredibly incomplete
understanding. There are similar observations at the moment that have
no explanation - dark matter, dark energy, inflation...
Dawkins does
say our future theories will we awe inspiringly marvellous and put
ttheological ideas of god in the shade, so i don't see how that
complies with his "near complete understanding".

If you read him as referring simply to observations that are currently
available, it is indeed the case that our understanding is impressively
near complete. Of course it's not absolutely complete - say because of the
examples of not-so-well understood phenomena that you mentioned - but
still remarkably near complete.

We have observations showing that the universe is expanding in a way
that is totally inexplicable.

The observed expansion of the universe is understood in the context of
well established inflationary models with a cosmological constant.

[...]

The fact that we exist, that there are any observations to make, is
beyond out current understanding.

Check out "The Goldilocks Enigma" by Paul Davies to get a feel for how
incomplete our understanding is, based on current observations and
what we cannot (yet?) observe.

I disagree with much of the content of that book and Paul Davies'
perspective in general, but I won't sidetrack the discussion by going into
details.

It is total presumption and hubris to suggest we are near a complete
understanding. How could you know we are near a complete
understanding? To do that you must understand what you are trying to
understand! How do you know that there are not an infinite number of
things to understand?

That is precisely what I have not been saying. I don't think we are
remotely near understanding absolutely everything. I'm talking in the
context of currently accessible observations and phenomena only.

Take physics for example. It is an amazing fact that essentially all the
phenomena of the everyday, macroscopic world, with its awesome complexity
and richness, can be understood in the context of a beautifully simple
theory like quantum electrodynamics. The standard model (QED + weak force
+ strong force) is so successful that a major problem for physicists
trying to go beyond it is that the particle accelerators have turned up
little new in the last few decades. We've had the fact the neutrino turned
out to be massive for example, but nothing really fundamental - instead
the results keep on confirming and reconfirming the standard model.
Physicists have become a victim of their own success in this regard.

This doesn't mean to suggest there aren't any problems left (even in the
context of currently accessible phenomena). How to extract a predictive
theory that is consistent with both the standard model and general
relativity (if indeed it is possible) is a major challenge. And it
certainly doesn't mean that absolutely *everything* is close to being
understood.

In fact, we cannot give a near complete
explanation of anything in FULL detail. As Socrates suggested, "we
know nothing" absolutely (even if we are near abolutely knowing
something). Can you give an example of something we have near absolute
knowledge of?

Mathematical theorems that have been proved are an example of absolute
knowledge, at least modulo the assumption that the human mind is remotely
rational. If you allow the possibility that we are all completely
delusional, then yes all bets are off.

Michael

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