Science is insane?

[Ex-User (5841)]

Admittedly not too much of a complicated thought, but given the simple pop culture definition of insanity being repeating the same thing and expecting a different outcome, are those who follow the scientific method in good faith using falsifiable hypotheses therefore insane?

Building on this... logic, is it then more logical to eschew empiricism for something else in the epistemological soup? Magic, perhaps? (Magic defined as "empiricism +" as opposed to something entirely separate from empiricism). Maybe that God guy or something.

Challenge: Make this thread interesting without derailing.

 

[redbaron]

Viewing science from the perspective of common sense often dictates that yes, science is insane and its ideas are ludicrous.

Though it seems to have been shown time and again that whatever limitations science has, it still remains the most capable model we have of both predicting and engineering outcomes.

And yes, you touched on something regarding logic/empiricism. What is logical is not always the same as what is observational/empirical. The problem with logic is that it's adversely affected by context.

Its contextual malleability makes logic fast, while empiricism is quite slow.

Choosing between the two therefore seems to me, a matter of pragmatism.

 

[QuickTwist]

God knows everything
God shares some of what he knows with us,
Therefore, we know much.

 

[Ex-User (9086)]

Let's go with a hermetic interpretation of the Bible that I found interesting as far as Bible goes.

Satan, as all angels, ate from the tree of life
We ate from the tree of knowledge

We will never be able to become godlike, unless we create or synthesize that tree of life.
At most, mastering our knowledge, we can become as omniscient as god.
We would be as powerful as Satan is by utilizing Life, immortal and influential.

Science is not a complete view and doesn't describe all knowledge.

 

[The Void]

Let's go with a hermetic interpretation of the Bible that I found interesting as far as Bible goes.

Satan, as all angels, ate from the tree of life
We ate from the tree of knowledge

We will never be able to become godlike, unless we create or synthesize that tree of life.
At most, mastering our knowledge, we can become as omniscient as god.
We would be as powerful as Satan is by utilizing Life, immortal and influential.

Science is not a complete view and doesn't describe all knowledge.

I guess it is not about creating or synthesizing, but the trees are metaphors to something.

But to intepret metaphors we just make stories. I don't find any use anymore. May be they actually don't even mean anything.

But there are still lots of stories about tree of life.

@OP

There are things that cannot be known even by God. With every answer rises another question. There is no end to it.

Spoiler

Transparent Man: Oh so you think science is going to figure it all out? Let me ask you something. How does ice melts?

Fat Man: what? What kind of silly question is that?

Transparent Man: Just answer me!

Fat Man: The water molecules in ice are more strongly attached to each other when it is not in the form of water. That is why ice is a solid. As the ice warms up, the heat makes the molecules jiggle around more and more. When it is warm enough, the molecules cannot stay stuck to each other like they did when they were ice. It is then when they break away from each other and melting happens.

Transparent Man: How does heat makes the molecules jiggles?

Fat Man: I don’t know, I guess when they are heated, the molecules absorbs the energy and the energy increases the entropy of the molecules?

Transparent Man: And how does that happens? Also can you answer me, how does we get an opposite and equal reaction with every action?

Fat Man: What kind of ridiculous questions are these? Now will you ask how will the ball move if I punch it?

Transparent Man: Yes How? How is force applied in something? How can force create acceleration or motion? How does force actually works?

Fat Man: Well it is the way it is. There are just these basics laws of physics based on which everything runs.

Transparent Man: We can always go deeper into a subject. From classical mechanics to quantum mechanics, we can learn about deeper mechanisms of nature responsible for the mechanisms appearing on the surface. We can go deeper and deeper but in the end we face the same wall, a wall in which it is written: That is how it is; deal with it. So what is the meaning of all these explanations and theories, if everything is just based on a law or a way which itself has no explanation? Doesn’t it makes all the explanations and theories we have, just superficial? All theories are just most probable sounding stories to connect the dots that are found from physical evidence and also based on the assumption that what we perceive is true. The more humans learns the more they understand that they don’t understand. Fools confuse the fingers pointing the moon with the moon. I can apply heat and melt an ice, without even knowing how it is happening. Only with the superficial understanding about how nature works surely science can make great machines, and manipulate, destroy and create. But they not necessary truly know. How the effect follows the cause? To explain why one effect follows a certain cause one can give some description of an underlying deeper system of cause and effect responsible for the apparent cause and effect. But I can again ask how that effect follows the cause and so on indefinitely. For example I can observe when heat is applied, ice melts. So here, there is a cause that is heat and an effect that is melting of ice. Now how does ice melt when heat is applied? So I can study even more deeply to find out an underlying deeper system of cause and effect which involves the jiggling of molecules and increase of intermolecular spaces. But how does heat do that? So I have to study even deeper, but I can go on asking how indefinitely like this and in the end I will face the wall I mentioned about. Yes science can figure things up to a certain extent and it can give us deeper insight on workings of nature and how to use the laws to predict and manipulate and I do have great respect for the scientific methods and its endeavors but still we don’t truly know much of an anything.

Spoiler

Transparent man: Tell me, what is 1+1?

Charming man: 2, duh?

Transparent man: It can also be 10 if it is binary number system. I never did mention the number system so your answer is wrong. It is same for your theory. There was a premise and then you constructed a conclusion. But you may have just missed other possible possibilities. May be your conclusion is incomplete and you are missing something just like you missed the possibility of the addition being based on a different number system than what you thought to be? How can you know?

Spoiler

Transparent Man: What is knowledge? What is the definition of knowledge? Actually there isn’t one. The definition is stuck up in lots of debates. A revolutionary definition was made by Plato. But there are some cases which find flaws in that definition. So in a sense we did not really even know what ‘know’ means and we still are shamelessly using the word ‘know’ but then in what basis we even use the word? Who knows? Ok let us use the classic definition for now. Knowledge is justified true belief. But in some cases the belief is there, truth is there, and there is a sufficient justification but still not knowledge. It happens when the justification is wrong or incomplete though appears to be sufficient to the senses. But then to know if the justification is correct or not we have to justify the justification and then to know the justification of the justification is correct or not we have to justify the justification of the justification and so on till infinity. Thus we go nowhere, really. Most of the time you see what you believe, not the other way around. Just like this man here saw 2 as an answer to 1+1 because he subconsciously believed that the addition is based on the conventional number system used in day to day life. There are many examples and illusions of minds that psychologists can show you to demonstrate how belief systems limits perception of possibilities and distorts perceptions. Life is like a wonderland. Nothing is really known. Imagine a land of nonsense and you are walking in it and then you see a blue bubble attacking a red bubble and two bubbles combines to form a white bubble. And the same thing happens each time they attack each other. First you distinguish between them then categorize and label them as red bubble, blue bubble and white bubble and then you recognize a pattern among them. Now you can use this knowledge to predict what happens when you see next time when a red bubble attacks blue bubble. But in fact you still don’t know what the bubbles actually are, you just named them, and still don’t know what is exactly happening or how is happening. You just named the process and patterns. Things just happen. And then one day the rules may change completely, red bubble may clash with blue bubble to create a nuclear explosion someday. Who knows? Anything can change completely? Who knows how, what, why? You may study deeply and learn how, why and stuff but with every answers, arises new questions. This reality is just like that. So who knows the truth? You can’t even say that there is no absolute truth because then that means it is just a relative truth based on someone’s perspectives that there is no absolute truth because if you say that the absolute truth is that there is no absolute truth then you are just making a joke and if it is a relative truth that there is no absolute truth then there is a possibility that there is an absolute truth. So does no one here has the truth?

I am turning to an epistemological nihilist

All knowledge seems superficial to me.

Some knowledge assists survival, some may help to liberate from suffering, some may breed even more, but all superficial and without indepth understanding.

what more, I believe a super indepth perfect understanding is not possible even by a God mind.

PS: I don't even believe in my own belief.

 

[Architect]

Admittedly not too much of a complicated thought, but given the simple pop culture definition of insanity being repeating the same thing and expecting a different outcome, are those who follow the scientific method in good faith using falsifiable hypotheses therefore insane?

Not sure how you could conclude that. By that definition of insanity those who are, for example, religious are insane. It's amply demonstrated that praying doesn't make any difference yet they keep on doing it. Science is precisely the opposite, its a system for finding out what is true, not just for an individual but what is true for everybody in every circumstance.

 

[Brontosaurie]

God knows everything
God shares some of what he knows with us,
Therefore, we know much.

ban pls

 

[Base groove]

Not sure how you could conclude that. By that definition of insanity those who are, for example, religious are insane. It's amply demonstrated that praying doesn't make any difference yet they keep on doing it. Science is precisely the opposite, its a system for finding out what is true, not just for an individual but what is true for everybody in every circumstance.

This, and praying, are both examples of a frame of mind that externalizes the locus of control.

Praying, however, can have a measurable effect (similar to placebo) which is probably due to a person exerting willpower to change their situation. Many people who pray for strength feel stronger.

 

[Cognisant]

This thread should be moved to the faith and spirituality section.

Also regarding the OP, saying the scientific method is insane is pretty stupid but the lateral thinking required to be an inventor and the existential implications of seeing the human body & brain mechanistically can be detrimental to one's mental health.

 

[Base groove]

Also regarding the OP, saying the scientific method is insane is pretty stupid but the lateral thinking required to be an inventor and the existential implications of seeing the human body & brain mechanistically can be detrimental to one's mental health.

I believe his interpretation was more along the lines of:

If A is true, then B.
A.
Therefore, B.​

You are saying A isn't true which is fine but it's still sound reasoning.

The reason that it is not A in the first place is that science and empiricism systematically changes one variable at a time so really you are simply not "trying the same thing over and over". If a scientist were to do so, then yes, A > B, they are insane.

 

[Base groove]

Science relies on an inverted interpretation of that knowledge:

"If we repeat the same thing over and over without seeing different results then we might have identified a causative relationship; it would be insane to think otherwise"

(tobacco smoking, global warming)

 

[Ex-User (5841)]

I probably crossed the philosophy/religion boundary in the OP. Sorry...

Challenge: Make this thread interesting without derailing.

And yes, you touched on something regarding logic/empiricism. What is logical is not always the same as what is observational/empirical. The problem with logic is that it's adversely affected by context.

Its contextual malleability makes logic fast, while empiricism is quite slow.

Choosing between the two therefore seems to me, a matter of pragmatism.

Spoiler

My hero!

@All:

What do we make of day job scientists who by night dance naked around fires while covered in goat blood? Are they, the apparent epistemological ubermensch due to assumed applicability in all contexts, where it's at; the truly... enlightened badasses at the pinnacle of the human condition?

Is the assumption of above average applicability valid?

Spoiler

Let's go with a hermetic interpretation of the Bible that I found interesting as far as Bible goes.

Satan, as all angels, ate from the tree of life
We ate from the tree of knowledge

We will never be able to become godlike, unless we create or synthesize that tree of life.
At most, mastering our knowledge, we can become as omniscient as god.
We would be as powerful as Satan is by utilizing Life, immortal and influential.

Science is not a complete view and doesn't describe all knowledge.

Actually, it's reversed. If we ate from the tree of knowledge, we'd already have it (this doesn't exclude us from... being other identifying labels, FYI, which is predicated on the teachings of certain other organizations that shall remain unnamed ). Such a perspective paints science as the legitimate enemy.

There are things that cannot be known even by God. With every answer rises another question. There is no end to it.

I am turning to an epistemological nihilist

Feynman does a pretty good job of explaining this:

Spoiler

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MO0r930Sn_8

Epistemological Anarchism.

Not sure how you could conclude that. By that definition of insanity those who are, for example, religious are insane. It's amply demonstrated that praying doesn't make any difference yet they keep on doing it. Science is precisely the opposite, its a system for finding out what is true, not just for an individual but what is true for everybody in every circumstance.

So if they're both insane, then they're on equal ground; both being ways of knowing predicated on the impossibility of achieving omniscience?

This, and praying, are both examples of a frame of mind that externalizes the locus of control.

Praying, however, can have a measurable effect (similar to placebo) which is probably due to a person exerting willpower to change their situation. Many people who pray for strength feel stronger.

This I'd actually deem pretty a pretty valid statement or three.

Internal vs external control will inevitably devolve back into free will vs determinism, which ends in being determined to believe in free will vs a single choice being made that determines all else through reciprocal causality.

 

[Ex-User (5841)]

This thread should be moved to the faith and spirituality section.

Also regarding the OP, saying the scientific method is insane is pretty stupid but the lateral thinking required to be an inventor and the existential implications of seeing the human body & brain mechanistically can be detrimental to one's mental health.

I know. I may or may not have been under the influence when I posted it.

That's why you combine both, silly. Just ask the almighty Temple Of The Screaming Electron.

Science relies on an inverted interpretation of that knowledge:

"If we repeat the same thing over and over without seeing different results then we might have identified a causative relationship; it would be insane to think otherwise"

More specifically, scientific replication relies on attempting to disprove existing conclusions, which can only be done in accordance with the scientific method if one legitimately believes the conclusion to possibly be untrue during experimental design, data collection, and data interpretation. Difficult if not impossible even before factoring in relational truth and more than a single link in a causal chain.

"We insanely repeat the same thing over and over because our method isn't good enough to figure it out on the first try."

 

[QuickTwist]

Admittedly not too much of a complicated thought, but given the simple pop culture definition of insanity being repeating the same thing and expecting a different outcome, are those who follow the scientific method in good faith using falsifiable hypotheses therefore insane?

Building on this... logic, is it then more logical to eschew empiricism for something else in the epistemological soup? Magic, perhaps? (Magic defined as "empiricism +" as opposed to something entirely separate from empiricism). Maybe that God guy or something.

Challenge: Make this thread interesting without derailing.

Not sure how you could conclude that. By that definition of insanity those who are, for example, religious are insane. It's amply demonstrated that praying doesn't make any difference yet they keep on doing it. Science is precisely the opposite, its a system for finding out what is true, not just for an individual but what is true for everybody in every circumstance.

Good arguments. One is subsequent to the other though.

 

[paradoxparadigm7]

What do we make of day job scientists who by night dance naked around fires while covered in goat blood? Are they, the apparent epistemological ubermensch due to assumed applicability in all contexts, where it's at; the truly... enlightened badasses at the pinnacle of the human condition

Yes. Dancing naked in goat blood is highly under-rated

On a serious note...the picture painted in your example (mild mannered scientist by day and visceral experiencer by night) seems to embody the paradoxical nature of man. Let us accept all who we are so as to not fall in the trap of dividing sanity and insanity. They are one and the same.

 

[Goku]

Admittedly not too much of a complicated thought, but given the simple pop culture definition of insanity being repeating the same thing and expecting a different outcome, are those who follow the scientific method in good faith using falsifiable hypotheses therefore insane?

Building on this... logic, is it then more logical to eschew empiricism for something else in the epistemological soup? Magic, perhaps? (Magic defined as "empiricism +" as opposed to something entirely separate from empiricism). Maybe that God guy or something.

Challenge: Make this thread interesting without derailing.

Can one identify himself as insane?

The Religion of Nothing
Believe nothing, and you will have no anxiety.
There is no heaven nor hell.
There is nothing.

 

[Ex-User (5841)]

Can one identify himself as insane?

The Religion of Nothing
Believe nothing, and you will have no anxiety.
There is no heaven nor hell.
There is nothing.

Sure they can. I pretty much just did.

And that nothing stuff is small potatoes. Everything. Believe in everything and make it work in a best fit model where all is true.

 

[TimeAsylums]

So if they're both insane, then they're on equal ground; both being ways of knowing predicated on the impossibility of achieving omniscience?

This I'd actually deem pretty a pretty valid statement or three.

Internal vs external control will inevitably devolve back into free will vs determinism, which ends in being determined to believe in free will vs a single choice being made that determines all else through reciprocal causality.

aristotle v plato again?

 

[Ex-User (5841)]

aristotle v plato again?

That... that v thing implies there's no happy place union between the spoons.

This is sort of a certain reaffirmation of mine (that extends beyond ego-stroking, despite what it may appear with my newly discovered phraseological barb of conceptual literary warfare).

 

[TimeAsylums]

That... that v thing implies there's no happy place union between the spoons.

aristotle u plato

This is sort of a certain reaffirmation of mine (that extends beyond ego-stroking, despite what it may appear with my newly discovered phraseological barb of conceptual literary warfare).

didactic/pedantic/syntax is of utmost importance indeed

 

[The Void]

Feynman does a pretty good job of explaining this:

Spoiler

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MO0r930Sn_8

Same goes for how.

Spoiler

Why did both Feynman and the transparent man used ice to explain it?

 

[Amagi82]

Science is the closest thing to sanity that humans have ever envisioned. No other concept, belief, or mindset has resulted in a millionth of the successful, reliable, provably correct understanding and ability to create that science has gifted us.

 

[RaBind]

Science gives us the most accurate image of reality possible. I'm using the reliability of predictions based on the models of reality to judge their accuracy.

 

[Microtonalist]

There is an entire discipline of the philosophy of science which has grown up in the last one hundred years and which attempts to answer (or at the very least) to explore this very problem. I doubt that the work done in this area could be neatly summarized in an online forum. Perhaps someone with a background in epistemology could do so.
For my part, I am avowedly pro-science, but I express a great deal of skepticism about the claims that the entire universe is somehow potentially comprehensible to the human mind. I think that knowledge is always contingent and provisional. The scientific method has proven to be a vastly powerful tool, but I believe that there are definite limits to human understanding.

 

[RaBind]

potentially comprehensible to the human mind.

Depends on the semantics you're using when you say "human mind". Do you mean one person? the human race in it's entirety or all systems capable of data collection ever made by humans? The last definition makes it so that if some super intelligent sentient being made by humans ever succeeded in understanding everything, it would be the same as if humans had done so, which isn't illogical as humanity(not just humans) will come to merge themselves with machines.

 

[Cherry Cola]

Science is a method yet is compared to philosophy and religion as if though it were like them, hence why it appears insane. That's it basically imo.

 

[Microtonalist]

Depends on the semantics you're using when you say "human mind". Do you mean one person? the human race in it's entirety or all systems capable of data collection ever made by humans? The last definition makes it so that if some super intelligent sentient being made by humans ever succeeded in understanding everything, it would be the same as if humans had done so, which isn't illogical as humanity(not just humans) will come to merge themselves with machines.

I understand your point, but I think there are a few issues. I was originally referring to homo sapiens of the organic sort, collectively. I don't doubt that some kind of trans-human machine hybrid intelligence is coming, although whether that is a utopia or dystopia remains to be seen. Science fiction certainly has plenty of examples of both, and I, for one do not necessarily welcome our new cyborg overlords.
However, even assuming a vastly superior intelligence that has somehow evolved from humanity (organic or otherwise), epistemological issues remain. Vastly superior intelligence will no doubt be capable of processing and understanding data on an order not currently comprehensible. However, inductive reasoning is not without its own paradoxes and problematics. The so-called "next emerald" problem was a favorite example from my undergrad philosophy class.

 

[Analyzer]

When the word science is mentioned most people think of the natural sciences such as chemistry or physics. What about the "softer" sciences that study human beings as an actor? Is it justifiable or epistemologicaly viable, to employ the means of understanding to them in the same way we would to structures isolated in a laboratory?

 

[BigApplePi]

Building on this... logic, is it then more logical to eschew empiricism for something else in the epistemological soup? Magic, perhaps?

Yes. We operate on false assumptions and unverified rules derived from operating on unverified assumptions and false rules. That is, we pull ourselves up by our bootstraps.

BAP could you elaborate on that?

Why should I? I am insane.

 

[Reluctantly]

Just ask the almighty Temple Of The Screaming Electron.

That sounds like an awesome religion, lol.