If I try various keys from a set of keys and the round headed one always opens the door, I have learned empirically that that key fits that door and opens and also locks it. In the jungle we learned all sorts of things like this empirically with natural artifacts and patterns.
Was this off, an ism, where did the problem arise?
Science includes models. Is this where the problems arise`?
Do they arise in all cases of science or scientific investigation or scientific models?
Do the problems arise from developing ontology from methodology?
From saying this methodology works and no other works?
I can’t really see saying science, in general, is religion? Not because I share WWWs sense that this is besmirtching religion, I mean science, well something is being besmirched or is it, but because they seem like different sets of processes,w ith some overlaps.
I have already backed it up in other threads, for example in your thread called “Is knowledge also a belief?”. The core is what we can call “information” - in order to be “in form” (to survive). This leads at last, namely when it comes to higher culture, to the question: „How can I be sure that the information is true?“ All understanding has to do with information, but not all information has to do with understanding. A stone that gives information to a geologist does not need to understand the information that it gives. And all knowledge is information, but not all information is knowledge. Belief is also based on information, but not all information leads to belief. Information is the superordination of belief and knowledge.
I would put information in the outer circle, belief as the next circle with knowledge as the innermost circle completely contained in belief. To me knowledge is a subset of beliefs, those beliefs that have passed some specific, more rigorous criteria the rest of beliefs have not.
Information isn’t a matter of being true or false. Understanding it is. I don’t know how you backed it up at all, other than a vague easily discredit statements such as this that you state above. Science uses rigorous methods to generate understanding of things, far different from religion which just takes it on basic acceptance that its true.
Information is in the outer circle - as the superset of belief and knowledge -, and it is also an intersection of belief and knowledge. Both belief and knowledge have their origin in information (their intersection) and lead to information (their superset). The intersection and the outer circle had been one circle (without belief and knowledge) before belief and knowledge were “born”. A stone (for example) does not have belief or knowledge but does nevertheless give information.
I would not see it as such, for good reason already outlined in my other thread. This is just some subjective categorization that really doesn’t mean much to me. Belief and knowledge have their origin in information, absolutely, but that isn’t saying much about the nature of belief and the nature of knowledge. Everything about us has our origin in information. Our consciousness, our feelings, our sight, our touch, all of our senses. All of our thoughts. All of what we perceive, all has its origins in information. Information can be said to be the origin of everything. Everything is information. Thus, it doesn’t really say much.
All understanding has to do with information, but not all information has to do with understanding. So Information is also a matter of being true or false.
You are trying to be rhetorical. Give up! Surrender!
Firstly: Science gets information. And science consists of scientists, thus humans. Humans are fallible. In addition: Most humans are corrupt. Most humans can easily be bought.
Your platitudes do not convince.
How many humans are scientists? How many humans were religious priests in the past 6000 years? It was and is always the same percental number, and that was and is no accident. Most of the other humans (mostly 99%) do not distinguish scientistic priest from religious priests. These priests have always been called “experts” and “specialists” and in reality always been functionaries of the rulers.
Understanding is the only means of what is true or false. Information simply “is” What it “is”, is a matter of understanding. If it’s true, is a matter of understanding what it “is”. This is not a matter of rhetoric. I think you need to look deeper into the matter.
It does not matter how many times you say a falsehood: it does not get more true by repeating it.
Information is the whole process, whereas understanding is merely a part of it. You do not need to know or to understand the informations you give. For example: I have got Information about you, but you do not know and possibly not understand this information. Another example: trees do not know and not understand the information they give and get. Many many other examples can be given. Most living beings are without understanding but with information. And these most living beings do what is true or false, although or, better, because they are not capable of understanding, knowing, thinking - but capable of giving and getting information. They do not need to know and to understand what true or false is - they just do it (and mostly with more success than those “higher” living beings with with knowing and understanding).
You, WW III Angry, are the one who needs to look deeper into the matter.
Arminius, you are using a sense of the word “information” that to me loses cogency upon deep reflection of it. I don’t accept how “information is the whole process and understanding is merely a part of it”. What does that mean exactly, when information gets relayed to you and you don’t understand it? How is it information if it doesn’t inform you, but it informs me, or vice versa? The problem with this definition is the problem of human variances in capability and understanding, which is essentially a problematic - it also depends on subjective understanding of aspects of the information - in so much that we don’t really ever understand everything about any single bit of information. We simply do not have that capability.
For example, light reflected off of a pen provides us the image of a the pen in our minds- The light is information we are receiving. We are perceiving this light under our limited capabilities which only is capable of interpreting the light, or information, in a certain spectrum of the light reflecting from us. That being, we are missing much more information about the actual object the light is reflecting off. Does that light (or rather, information) really tell us much about the pen considering how we must interpret it? For us, it might be acceptable, to simply identify it as a pen. But what if it doesn’t look like a pen to us. What if it looks like a pencil, or a crayon. But it is indeed a pen. Then you proceed to make a life or death decision based on your decision that it was a pen because you were “informed” from the light that it was a pen, but you failed miserably in your interpretation of that information because you’re a stupid, lowly human being who has no idea what is going on and only can perceive things to the best of their puny little weak abilities that causes us all to die in a wasteland of hell, where there will be much weeping and gnashing of teeth. Now I jest - but I hope you can receive my point.
Now, SEP defines information this way. “The term ‘information’ in colloquial speech is currently predominantly used as an abstract mass-noun used to denote any amount of data, code or text that is stored, sent, received or manipulated in any medium.” plato.stanford.edu/entries/information/
Now there was something I assure you was brilliant on information that I read years ago - but it is now lost on me, that would back up in a very eloquent and cogent way, the ontological nature of the concept of information, how it is used broadly, in a manner defined rather well by the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. I can’t quite remember who was involved. But as you can read in the link - information is much more than what you described, and of course there is philosophy about the nature of information that is in contention. Of course, this is the nature of philosophy - and ironically is the nature of receiving information. Not everyone will accept or understand certain philosophies, nor will they accept or understand certain information. I will continue to think about what exactly I read about information that I do want to share, but can not remember how to find it…
Now, with that, hopefully we have a better understanding of each other.
I am an atheist who places scientific knowledge above religious belief and who thinks the scientific method the most reliable methodology for determining
objective truth. I am drawn to Feyerabend as he challenges my thinking on this even if I ultimately think him wrong. Science should not be a discipline like
religion that is dogmatic but actually the total opposite. If it has become dogmatic it is because of the scientific community rather than science itself. This
is a subtle but important distinction. The dogmatism may be because of the rise of atheism in the West and the correlation between it and science but this
is false. Since science has nothing to say about the existence of God for this is an untestable hypothesis. And it is not necessary to be an atheist in order to
be a scientist too. Now of course these two positions are not mutually incompatible but neither are they absolutely connected. Science does not have to be
dogmatic for it is fundamentally concerned with making testable hypotheses about observable phenomenon. Which has nothing at all to do with dogmatism
yes, we agree about information being the outer circle. It’s where you have parts of knowledge outside belief I find a less useful model. I went into why in the belief knowledge thread.
I suppose your image might be trying to bring in true and false, showing that some part of information is knowledge (this being considered true) and some beliefs are true.
