Philosophy: the truth of science

[deadly7]

I was doing some random musing yesterday and I came up with a conjecture I had never thought of before yesterday.. What startled me was that, even though it was an internal debate, I didn't really have a good answer for it. With that said, I'm going to propose it to you guys and see what you have to think:

The very foundations of our life on earth involve knowledge. What if, contrary to what everyone thinks, mathematics (and by extension, science) is not true? Instead of being a way to describe the universe and all of its phenomena, what if mankind really just came up with an internally consistent system that explains very little?

[Sidoh]

You'd probably enjoy reading Hume.

Well.. you probably wouldn't enjoy the actual reading, because he's an unnecessarily verbose dead Scotsman, but the content is pretty interesting.

Anyway, the most hardcore philosophical skeptics (that's a "technical" term within philosophy) will say the only thing you know for sure is that you exist (and I think some even reject that...).

I tend to think the notion of knowledge you're referring to here is kind of useless, and I try not to deal with it unless I'm forced to. :)

[Newby]

Anyway, the most hardcore philosophical skeptics (that's a "technical" term within philosophy) will say the only thing you know for sure is that you exist (and I think some even reject that...).

I tend to think the notion of knowledge you're referring to here is kind of useless, and I try not to deal with it unless I'm forced to. :)

I was going to say, take an introduction to philosophy course and they cover this concept, deadly. It's called skepticism. =P

[iago]

Yeah, I did a minor in philosophy, and a lot of the old philosophers talked about this.

The most famous, I think, is Descartes. He said that if we eliminate everything we can't be 100% certain exists, what's left? He argued that the only thing you can be sure exists is yourself, because you're thinking ("cogito ergo sum" = "I think therefore (or implies) I am"). From there, he constructs a proof that other people exist, and that other objects exist, etc. The biggest critique, though, is he uses part of that argument to prove the existence of a god (not the Christian God, just a god-like figure). A lot of people disagree with his god proof.

But yeah, I'm always suspicious of science. Humans have a bad tendency to change facts to fit theories, and do a really awesome job of it. The fact that we require random constants for every physics formula is evidence that we're doing something wrong ;)

We also make an assumption that to exist, we have to be able to see/feel/detect it. I don't think that's true -- I think there are forces out there beyond what we can possibly hope to understand/comprehend, ever. Think of it like a computer program -- a computer program isn't aware of the operating system that's making everything tick. The OS gives the timeslices to the program, and the API, and everything else, but the program has no ability to understand or probe the operating system. The operating system is simply a harness. What if our universe is like that? Another idea is a virtual machine -- VMWare, for example, provides the framework to make another operating system run, but is invisible to the operating system. I strongly suspect our universe is something like that. Also, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention The Matrix right now.

And a final thought, I forget where I saw this quote but I love it => "If the human brain was simple enough that we could completely comprehend it, we'd be too simple to comprehend it"

[Sidoh]

Discarte's proof for God's existence is hilarious. (Ontological proof)

(1) God is defined as the most perfect being imaginable
(2) A thing that exists is more perfect than a thing that does not exist
Therefore, (3) God exists.

It's a shame that Discartes is the most famous epidemiologist.  I liked Hume so much more.

The fact that we require constants is evidence that our metrics are arbitrary, and nothing more... it would be absurd to expect everything to work out cleanly in the arbitrary metrics that we've decided to use.

Not to say some conclusions within science are a little bit off, but it's the best thing we have, and I think it's actually quite good.  Real science is designed to be falsifiable, and can be repeated by an unbiased (or oppositely biased) observer.  Science is beautiful.

Your computer analogies make me a little bit ill. :P
I think these are exactly the kinds of things Descartes considered in his meditations.  An incomprehensibly powerful force that controlled every aspect of our being.  He argued that the being, no matter how powerful, could not trick him into believing he existed when he didn't because existence is a prerequisite for being tricked.

[iago]

Discarte's proof for God's existence is hilarious. (Ontological proof)

(1) God is defined as the most perfect being imaginable
(2) A thing that exists is more perfect than a thing that does not exist
Therefore, (3) God exists.

It's a shame that Discartes is the most famous epidemiologist.  I liked Hume so much more.

Yeah, I'm not saying he's right or anything, just interesting because he discounts everything at the outset.

Hume was good too. I studied Locke, Berkeley, and Hume at the same time, and that was long enough ago that I mix them all up. Ohwell. :)

The fact that we require constants is evidence that our metrics are arbitrary, and nothing more... it would be absurd to expect everything to work out cleanly in the arbitrary metrics that we've decided to use.

Yeah, I agree. But I like to think that if we were "right", everything would work out nicely.

Not to say some conclusions within science are a little bit off, but it's the best thing we have, and I think it's actually quite good.  Real science is designed to be falsifiable, and can be repeated by an unbiased (or oppositely biased) observer.  Science is beautiful.

It reminds me of engineers I know who base everything on Newton's physics, which are known to be a) wrong, but b) good enough. Funny how well approximations work.

Your computer analogies make me a little bit ill. :P
I think these are exactly the kinds of things Descartes considered in his meditations.  An incomprehensibly powerful force that controlled every aspect of our being.  He argued that the being, no matter how powerful, could not trick him into believing he existed when he didn't because existence is a prerequisite for being tricked.

I don't know if you mean ill "that idea is stupid" or ill "that idea is scary", but I'm going to assume the former. :)

I'm not talking about a god or a deceiver or anything like that. More like a framework, harness, operating system, etc. Stuff that makes everything else work but that we have no ability to observe (except for, potentially, side effects). It's like trying to understand a computer system from inside it -- you can poke around at the bits and bytes, but you're going to miss the big picture.

Who knows, though?

[Sidoh]

Yeah, I'm not saying he's right or anything, just interesting because he discounts everything at the outset.

Hume was good too. I studied Locke, Berkeley, and Hume at the same time, and that was long enough ago that I mix them all up. Ohwell. :)

I know you weren't.  I just gave the argument because it's hilarious that Discartes, famous philosopher and mathematician, gave this argument so much credence.

Yeah, I agree. But I like to think that if we were "right", everything would work out nicely.

That makes absolutely no sense.  Expecting the physical world to align with the arbitrary metrics that we've chosen is silly, and it there would be something incredibly creepy going on if they did.

Not to say some conclusions within science are a little bit off, but it's the best thing we have, and I think it's actually quite good.  Real science is designed to be falsifiable, and can be repeated by an unbiased (or oppositely biased) observer.  Science is beautiful.

It reminds me of engineers I know who base everything on Newton's physics, which are known to be a) wrong, but b) good enough. Funny how well approximations work.

You do scientists an injustice by discrediting the amazing things they've done by saying something like this.  Science has given us an understanding of the universe that we couldn't have had otherwise, and can't really have without.

Your computer analogies make me a little bit ill. :P
I think these are exactly the kinds of things Descartes considered in his meditations.  An incomprehensibly powerful force that controlled every aspect of our being.  He argued that the being, no matter how powerful, could not trick him into believing he existed when he didn't because existence is a prerequisite for being tricked.

I don't know if you mean ill "that idea is stupid" or ill "that idea is scary", but I'm going to assume the former. :)

No, I didn't mean either of those.  I think they were reasonable analogies, but computer analogies for things like this tend to make me go like *BARRRFF*. :)

I'm not talking about a god or a deceiver or anything like that. More like a framework, harness, operating system, etc. Stuff that makes everything else work but that we have no ability to observe (except for, potentially, side effects). It's like trying to understand a computer system from inside it -- you can poke around at the bits and bytes, but you're going to miss the big picture.

Who knows, though?

Your analogy was fine.  I knew what you were getting at.  However, those are precisely the things that Discartes addressed in his meditations.  A program aware of the possibility of being tricked has to exist because possessing the ability to be tricked is a necessary and sufficient prerequisite for existence.

[Towelie]

I remember studying Descartes and being able to completely disprove his arguments on existence. I think it had something to do with him saying that if there is a god, he is benevolent, and therefore he isn't being fooled by what he sees. I'd bust out my philosophy book and re-read his meditations if I had them with me right now haha

[iago]

Yeah, I agree. But I like to think that if we were "right", everything would work out nicely.

That makes absolutely no sense.  Expecting the physical world to align with the arbitrary metrics that we've chosen is silly, and it there would be something incredibly creepy going on if they did.

What I mean is, arbitrary metrics are arbitrary. Proper metrics wouldn't be arbitrary, but they're beyond the realm of our understanding now, and for the foreseeable future.

It reminds me of engineers I know who base everything on Newton's physics, which are known to be a) wrong, but b) good enough. Funny how well approximations work.

You do scientists an injustice by discrediting the amazing things they've done by saying something like this.  Science has given us an understanding of the universe that we couldn't have had otherwise, and can't really have without.

That isn't my intention. Describing the universe is arbitrary, and is always an approximation (even using the simplest things, like pi, are approximations). They just happen to be very, very good approximations. Even Newtonian physics, which relativity and quantum theory disagree with, works in 99%+ of all cases and is good enough for the majority of engineering.

I have a friend who does aeronautic engineering (or some such), and we've talked about that in the past. Everything is based on Newtonian physics, which are good enough.

Your analogy was fine.  I knew what you were getting at.  However, those are precisely the things that Discartes addressed in his meditations.  A program aware of the possibility of being tricked has to exist because possessing the ability to be tricked is a necessary and sufficient prerequisite for existence.

True. I don't think there's any way of knowing, proving, or disproving, though. If there is indeed some scaffolding behind the scenes that makes things work, we have no way of telling. iirc, Descartes thought it was provable, I think?

[Sidoh]

What I mean is, arbitrary metrics are arbitrary. Proper metrics wouldn't be arbitrary, but they're beyond the realm of our understanding now, and for the foreseeable future.

No, they're not... it's just not worth changing our metrics because it's easier to put a constant on the front of an equation.

That isn't my intention. Describing the universe is arbitrary, and is always an approximation (even using the simplest things, like pi, are approximations). They just happen to be very, very good approximations. Even Newtonian physics, which relativity and quantum theory disagree with, works in 99%+ of all cases and is good enough for the majority of engineering.

What?  That's not correct... pi is not an approximation...

I have a friend who does aeronautic engineering (or some such), and we've talked about that in the past. Everything is based on Newtonian physics, which are good enough.

Good enough for aeronautic engineering.  Not good enough for rocket science or nanotechnology.

True. I don't think there's any way of knowing, proving, or disproving, though. If there is indeed some scaffolding behind the scenes that makes things work, we have no way of telling. iirc, Descartes thought it was provable, I think?

Huh?  Proving what?  things in general?  Both Discartes and Hume thought there were non-trivial sets of things we could know.

[iago]

No, they're not... it's just not worth changing our metrics because it's easier to put a constant on the front of an equation.

No, but it demonstrates the arbitrariness. :)

What?  That's not correct... pi is not an approximation...

I sort of said that wrong. I meant, every time we use pi, we use an approximation of it. I realize that pi is a proven value.

Good enough for aeronautic engineering.  Not good enough for rocket science or nanotechnology.

True, but that doesn't change the point that good enough is often good enough.

[deadly7]

Oh, I realized what spawned my initial thought. I'm currently reading Cryptonomicon, and it had this series of statements in it in the beginning.

[Sidoh]

No, they're not... it's just not worth changing our metrics because it's easier to put a constant on the front of an equation.

No, but it demonstrates the arbitrariness. :)

It demonstrates the unenlightened becoming enlightened; it's not really consistent with your accusations given the rest of human knowledge...

I sort of said that wrong. I meant, every time we use pi, we use an approximation of it. I realize that pi is a proven value.

That's patently untrue.

True, but that doesn't change the point that good enough is often good enough.

It's irrelevant that it's often good enough.  Engineering is not on the frontier of science; in fact, it can't really do what it aims to do if it is.  Engineering, almost out of necessity, applies knowledge acquired by scientists where approximations are almost never "close enough."

Please don't equate science and engineering.  They're closely related, but they are not interchangeable.

Also, lol @ "good enough is often good enough" ;)

[rabbit]

Oh, I realized what spawned my initial thought. I'm currently reading Cryptonomicon, and it had this series of statements in it in the beginning.

Such an amazing book.  I wish I knew where my copy was :(

[deadly7]

Such an amazing book.  I wish I knew where my copy was :(

The first 50 pages almost had me burning the book for warmth. Talk about dry reading. I'm still confused as to wtf is going on in the story, but I'm only ~200 pages in.