How far can science go?

[tanqttnml]

I wonder what are you guys point of view about science?

How far has it gone to?
How farther can it go?
Has it gone too far?
Is there a limit to science? Or is science unlimited, it can continue till the end of time?


I personally love to discover things, to get to know more about every, I'm very curious by nature. I've been reading a lot of magazines about science and discoveries. I think that science has gone quite far yet, but not as much as it can, since there's still a lot of things we don't know, as for where does the Universe ends, if it does.

All around me, I hear a lot of people saying that science has gone too far, it can make clones out of our DNA, it is about to find a way to live eternally, etc. But those people are only those who ignores what it's all about.

On the other hand, there are people who thinks that it's nice to have science so we can discover things but not more than that. They are afraid, somehow imo, that science manipulates us. They are fine the way they are and the way things are and things work. But I'm totally not like that, and what makes me frustrated is that when I give out my ideas, many of them don't understand me.

I don't really think science can go ''too'' far, but sure thing is, we cannot do whatever we want to just for science. It implies some ethics and morals. Still it is just a way to prove our existence in this world, how it really works. Are we who we are, physically? Or are we manipulated by some higher and more intelligent being?

Science is here to clear those states to us, to verify theorically what is said. A combination of philosophy and science doesn't necessarily make things clearer, but they do push up deeper, to finding a solution. So I don't think there's really a limit to science, since we can always find something that doesn't go our way.

And if there was a limit to science, which imo is logically impossible, what would it become of us, who all are at the search of a meaning in life? The desperation to find an answer where there isn't keep us from going foward. Without a goal, there is no destiny, there is no meaning. All of it would just end.

 

[lightspeed]

How far has it gone to?

How farther can it go?

Has it gone too far?

Is there a limit to science? Or is science unlimited, it can continue till the end of time?

The possibilities could be endless. We could go much further.

 

[loveofreason]

These are good questions.

I agree that the human quest for knowledge is fundamental to our nature. We are driven to discover, to experiment, to interpret and translate our discoveries to others.

Science is a rigorous, but not the only, framework for this drive. It is essentially a pure thing. What we face, and what causes fear for many, is the corruption of science by unnacountable corporate interests. When it comes to the question of "Has it gone too far?" I think the answer is science cannot go "too far", but the goals of those controlling the science can easily go too far. The applications of research can easily be misused. Sadly, if people don't think too deeply, they are inclined to blame the science and scientists rather than the (often hidden) money and power behind scientific developments. As ever, the important questions are, How well do we know ourselves? and Who benefits?

The tragedy for science is that the average person is not taught how to think, so their reactions will always be easily bought and manipulated by those with the greatest forces of persuasion.

The realm of science is an ever expanding frontier, I'm not aware of any theoretical limits. In the long run "all that can be imagined, will be done". I think any hypothetical end to this quest is equivalent to an end of purpose. To an end of imagination. Beyond an end to purpose, I simply can't imagine what form life could take.

 

[Death]

I think science has never gone far,there are many things out there that feeds our curiousity,when we find an answer to an question,another question pops out and sometimes we find answers to other questions which we think we would never ask,and from here the chain reaction curiosity continues..

 

[Phorlakh]

The tragedy for science is that the average person is not taught how to think, so their reactions will always be easily bought and manipulated by those with the greatest forces of persuasion.

Honestly. It seems like the general populace has become increasingly resistant to...I don't know, thinking? People seem pretty keen on putting in their two cents, but rarely does their opinion reflect any kind of rational process.

What scares me are people who poo-poo science because they lack a "questioning mind," something INTPs and INTJs take for granted. Faith is all well and good, but when it becomes a template for thought, that's where we get people like Fred Phelps or Pat Robertson and the mindless hordes that follow them.

I believe science is essentially limitless. All we're doing is observing and interpreting nature and applying its concepts. We're nowhere near an 100% understanding, and I don't think we ever will be. What's more, I don't believe science is at odds with whatever faith people subscribe to. Unfortunately, the faith that's mass marketed now encourages this "us vs them" mentality, and science has found itself in the "them" category. It's the loud, ill-informed, opinionated segment of the population that annoys the crap out of me.

I know I'm being a bit critical of religion, but I dare you to name a force more persuasive than the lure of becoming a superious butthole because "I'm going to heaven and you're not so nyah nyah nyaaaah."

 

[Sphere]

Scientific progress is like climbing hill after hill with a deep valley between each. You can't really know when it will end before everything has become clear.

 

[Vrecknidj]

I'm not really sure what's meant by how far science can go. But, I'm going to make an assumption, and wander down that path, and see what anyone else thinks.

In my own field, I happen to have a background in epistemology. For those outside the loop, epistemology is the branch of philosophy that is concerned with questions such as "How do we tell knowledge from belief?" and "How do I determine which beliefs are reasonable?" and "How do I know which opinions are more valid than others?"

Insofar as science is an epistemic enterprise, excepting the fun puzzles of Hume's fork, I think that science has a long, long way to go yet. I have no way to know this, but I assume that the universe is so vast that we're not going to run out of stuff to learn about it. And I think that Bacon's method is basically the best way of extracting information from this universe, if our goal is to get information that we can then exploit for the purpose of control. Of course, there are other goals.

Science, like religious faith (ironically--at least, ironically to some), depends upon doubt in order to function. And, I think we're not in any danger of running out of doubt.

Dave

 

[Vrecknidj]

That said, more Americans believe in ESP than evolution, so it's an uphill battle with the general population...

Dave

 

[BriX]

I think science has never gone far,there are many things out there that feeds our curiousity,when we find an answer to an question,another question pops out and sometimes we find answers to other questions which we think we would never ask,and from here the chain reaction curiosity continues..

Agreed, Science and logic are transductive. There seems to be a latent creative energy within the organizational structure of truths educed from the scientific method and critical reasoning. Everything seems to connect when viewed the right way and tessellates new truths and new ideas.

Religious belief, sentiment, experience etc. is pre-critical and fosters within itself a state of awe, wonder and reverence (the trinity of "sanctity"), but doesn't move beyond this, indeed it can't and probably shouldn't. At the core of Religiosity is a necessary absence of reason. I don't understand why the scientifically minded consider it a weakness (they must have a certain prejudice towards irrationality, on the contrary it is Religion's enduring source of strength. This anti-rationalist streak speaks to the part of us that rejects the IS-ness of the world.

Likewise, I can't understand why the faith-filled try to justify their unjustifiable beliefs to lend critical strength to their personal testimonies of spiritual experience. Religiosity is comprised of a fundamentally different class of phenomena that are scientifically and logically vacuous; therefore you shouldn't bother to try to make sense of the one with the other.

The temptation is of course to do just that.

Their is a strong inclination to frame the class of all things properly the providence of Science in religious terms, and conversely, to scientifically analyze the spiritual. But it's quite obvious that they are apples and orange paint.

The scientifically minded will, justifiably assert that their worldview -- grand narrative of existence -- is more comprehensive, arguable, falsifiable, sensible, self-consistent and egalitarian. They justifiably affirm that Religiosity is miss-step on the path to order and understanding and fairly criticize its polarizing and stultifying societal effects. But fair criticism is its providence; fair criticism is the bedrock of Reason. It's a certain amount of agreement between the many on whatever subject is at issue. How is this a fruitful ground for the experience of the irrational? It's not, and of course it's not.

The Religiously minded person will not have the same justifications at hand, but then again, they don't need them. They operate from a fundamental supposition that the world of Science (the ration-able world) is a sort of particular modality of existence, but only one, and not the only one, or even the ultimate one. The great tension between the worlds of Science and Religion is that each has a tendency to view itself as a total explanation of existence, and thereby subsumes or more often, disregards, the epistemological, ontic and moral value of the other.

Science works from the supposition that by providing a rigorous, fine granularity explanation of the functional aspects of Religiosity (social function, political function, psychological function, neuro-chemical functionality) that the genie is somehow captured in the bottle. Religion is rationalized and thereby marginalized. But the element of "what it is like" to be in a spiritual state remains elusive simply because these sorts of qualitative phenomena are non-reductive.

Science can, and likely will some day soon, be able to say definitively that with a brain-state (X) within which a (Q)-fiber firing at (V)-rate, with the exchange of (A, B, C)-neurotransmitters a (Y)-spiritual qualitative state will present itself in the subject. Following this demonstration and extensive deliberation it will be declared that:

(X)-brain-state = (Y)-spiritual-state.

This of course will come as no surprise to the scientifically minded and will come of no consequence to the religious experiencee. The facts about brain-states, regardless of their specificity and granularity will fail to be explanatorily relevant of the qualitative religious experience. Science will explain the cause and structure of spiritual belief and spirituality but will never explain the phenomena explicitly enough to override the spiritual experiencee's tendency to feel it's otherness and it's mysteriousness. It will remain un-ration-able for as long as it exists and must so to exist.

So to answer the original question whether Science has an end, yes it does, it ends where it isn't. The real question is whether Religion has a beginning. Still trying to figure that one out.

 

[Vrecknidj]

Actually, now that I think on this a little more, there's something to be said for the progress Aquinas made on this front. (Admittedly, this was long before Bacon and the introduction of the inductive enterprise as a cohesive method, so, science per se did not yet exist. Nevertheless, its precursor did...)

For Aquinas, the question to ask is "How is truth known?" There are, he thought, two answers to the question: natural reason and supernatural reason. From a certain point of view, Aquinas' answer amounts to science (i.e. natural reason) and religion (i.e. supernatural reason).

And, if Kurt G[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]ö[/FONT]del is right (and I have every reason to believe he is), then neither natural reason nor supernatural reason can lay claim to complete universality of applicability. So, we kinda need both.

Dave

 

[Sphere]

One man's magic is another man's science.

 

[Zeke Johnson]

How farther can it go?

To the limit of the human brains capacity to conceptualize.

Has it gone too far?

No, the problem is peoples ego's are incapable of wielding such power. A classic case of Lord of the rings, the ring consumes it's user. Until we transcend our animal consciousness,
science is our greatest danger ( Nukes etc ).

Is there a limit to science? Or is science unlimited, it can continue till the end of time?

Science is limited to time/space, in that once you go beyond the atom, the particles seem to exist in fourth dimensional space, they randomly move position etc, many spectrums are outside of human measurement, we are limited to the three dimensional stratas only.

 

[Yozuki]

Yozuki is thinking science is the post evolution and outward brain of the human mechanical. Indeed the science is the mainstay of the process of the brainiac forward to the funny exploration troubleshoot the nature. Too funny the brain is the acting, and too funny is the human acting the brain.

The science is the brain, and the brain having no limiting activity. Ultimate rendering is the brain and the science is the rendering activity and the more. Science is the ultimate, yeah!

 

[wadlez]

Science can go all the way, because science is just using logic to explain things instead of religion.
Who in what profession actually refer to themselves as scientists or would say "I'm a scientist", A chemical engineer, psychologist and a Geologist don't refer to themselves as scientists. A baker or an electrician have as much right to refer to themselves as scientists because they use logical means to do there jobs as compared to using magic. So basically if you look at science this way, science is everything that isn't make believe or magic.

To the limit of the human brains capacity to conceptualize.

The human brain is not a limit for science, already we are looking at brain augmentation technology that could increase our intelligence and memory capacity.
Also artificial intelligence could possibly conceptualize much more than we currently can.

 

[Cabbo Pearimo]

It can go as far as the laws of the universe and of man will let it. Religion is and will be getting in the way, but if we try it can go as far as anything.

 

[ectius]

Science has both lengthened our life spans and quickened our deaths. It'll go until humankind runs out of ways to counteract the deadliness, and then we'll end it all.

 

[EditorOne]

Sphere and Ectius appear to have touched two important facets of the issues involved.

When science outstrips the ability of many to understand it, for them it enters the realm of religion -- also not understood, where you take things on faith. You lose the weight of reason and drop back into competition of things taken on faith. Or, as Sphere said, magic.

The other way science can go "too far" is when its volatile or otherwise dangerous products and byproducts outstrip our collective ability to control them. Many folks used to feel that way about nuclear power plants, that we had created something that could easily get out of our control with dire consequences. There's always nuclear war as one future produced by science, and global warming as another.

An optimist says continued application of science will find a way to counteract the byproducts; on the other hand, our ability to use science to gain and keep power may be the real danger zone. Nobody seems to have a cure for megalomania.

 

[Cabbo Pearimo]

You're forgetting; we're all going to die anyway! Who cares!?

 

[Zero]

If we could truly progress in science we would be much better off. There are two types or phases of science; one that observes and one that constructs and experiments. Tsunami walls and education are a result of observation and then trying to construct something that would help cope with Tsunami. They also have warnings and try to educate the public about what to do in the case of a tsunami. As they say, "knowing is half the battle".

If we understood more about reality and how the planet works we could probably avoid all kinds of natural disasters or at least be more readily prepared for them. The more we know, the wiser choices we could make.

Then there are the cases in which we want to see how far science can go to make our lives easier. It's a hit or miss process, a process of trying and progressing on past methods. Watches, for instance, their were many ancient time keeping structures, like sun dials or sand timers.

The problem with this progression is normally the conscience and morality. Within culture and religion science doesn't have a lot of room to grow. I think if pressure was taken off of science to be so careful and even conventional in approach it would actually be safer. If more people believed in and respected science there would be more people to help construct it, so to speak. There would be more people who would be concerned about how science can best progressed, rather than concern that it is progressing. The problem is when science tries for something new or counter culture, culture and religion notoriously get in the way.

My hypothesis, so to speak, would be that without cultural and religious restraints science could progress quicker and in more directions; with more general interest in knowledge and progress it could be safer. Culture and religion are probably not going to subside to progression though.

For instance male contraceptive (other than condoms) seem to be difficult for culture to accept. There appear to be several safer and more effective male contraceptive methods (some [stuck/slowed] in development) than female ones. Our culture accepts that it's females who have to take the responsibility for their sexual behavior. The market of female contraceptives is 73%. A lot of phony cultural arguments and fears come up in regards to male contraceptives. However in the past just getting past the idea that women could have control over their contraception was difficult enough. There are still religions that are against any type of birth control. Culture has been able to change, but it takes a long time...

Note that part of the reason male contraceptives aren't getting any publicity and/or people don't seem to know about them is in part due to the fact that they're not as profitable. This is offtopic, but if you care to check where I'm getting this about contraceptives check malecontraceptives.org

 

[loveofreason]

...science is the post evolution and outward brain of the human mechanical.

Interesting observation. But which memes shall advise that outward brain?

Once we control our genome we control our evolution. The area of transhuman speculation is fascinating.

Yet human culture is so infantile - our opinions bought and sold; our fears farmed for profit; our worth calculated in terms of money; our souls warehoused in strange holding tanks called religion. We enjoy a twilight childhood.

That watchful eye? It's not some sky-father, it's the money machine. Wealth determines the direction of scientific progress. So when I say "we" control our evolution I tip my hat to the human ideal, but concede the actual "we" is the 'they' with the deepest pockets.

One man's magic is another man's science.

Science has both lengthened our life spans and quickened our deaths.

If we could truly progress in science we would be much better off.

I would agree that the way science is embedded in our culture is the immediate limiting factor*. The regard with which we hold science is disturbing. It is held up as an antithetical entity to that of 'faith', and we wage a battle between "natural" and "supernatural" reason when to be balanced we need both. (Thanks Dave, for using these terms.)

Science has fallen to the propensity of people to deify what they don't understand. Yet science is not a god. It is an endeavour of the human mind. We habitually confuse scientific inquiry with technological application, and technology with "magic".

There are two types or phases of science; one that observes and one that constructs and experiments.

Unadulterated science. The inquisitive mind. I think the genuine scientist is subject to a great love affair with the natural world, every bit as much as an artist is impassioned. Both scientist and artist are attempting to render their passion for the world into something communicable to other humans. Into understanding. They are not dissimilar, indeed they overlap and co-exist, as evidenced in such minds as Leonardo Da Vinci's.

The breed of "science" that stirs fear in the common culture is its corrupted application. The commercially driven technology. This is what stands for science in the common mind. When I say corrupted I mean that the desire for knowledge is no longer an end in itself. Knowledge is enslaved to money. Research is funded for profit; for probable return.

My hypothesis, so to speak, would be that without cultural and religious restraints science could progress quicker and in more directions; with more general interest in knowledge and progress it could be safer.

Yes. And without the almighty drive for profit, it wouldn't be the false deity it has become.

*Given enough time and the irrepressible thirst of the curious mind, this limit must ultimately fall away, as surely as our culture shall dissolve.

 

[Zero]

This we can see, this we can observe, this we know... And we'll do nothing about it.

Ignorance.

 

[Cabbo Pearimo]

Ahem? Guy trying to remind you of the absolute pointlessness of continued existance? Not to say that it should end, of course. Why bother? Why ask why? Why is asking why so much more fun? WHY?

 

[Radioactive_Springtime]

My friend can't wait for the Theory of Everything

 

[CowSavior]

Reality is the spawn of ideas!!!!!!

REGISTER AND CONCUR!!!!!

 

[Zero]

Usually when someone makes an absurd and extreme statement we would instantly ask for proof...

This thread isn't suppose to be about God or gods.

Just because the majority of us are INTPs doesn't mean we can't have a bit of organization...

 

[loveofreason]

Usually when someone makes an absurd and extreme statement we would instantly ask for proof...

This thread isn't suppose to be about God or gods.

Just because the majority of us are INTPs doesn't mean we can't have a bit of organization...

True. Off-topic God and science discussion moved http://intpforum.com/showthread.php?t=402

 

[Frosty]

Science can, and likely will some day soon, be able to say definitively that with a brain-state (X) within which a (Q)-fiber firing at (V)-rate, with the exchange of (A, B, C)-neurotransmitters a (Y)-spiritual qualitative state will present itself in the subject. Following this demonstration and extensive deliberation it will be declared that:

(X)-brain-state = (Y)-spiritual-state.

I think you may find that this hypothesis has already been disproven (as documented in Mario Beauregard's recent book "The Spiritual Brain").