Do you guys think science is the ultimate answer?
Is there anything we can’t prove with science?
Is religion more important?
Just some questions I’ve been pondering.
Science has a history of being constantly amended. If it has the possibility of procurring absolute truth, then it has never given such an indication in the past. I recommend Thomas Kuhn’s famous book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions for a basic breakdown of his concept of paradigms, and their role in the “progress” of human knowledge.
That sounds intereseting. I think I’ll check it out!
But do you think science will answer all the questions in the future?
I don’t believe the term “all the questions” is exactly meaningful. I don’t think the entirety of reality comes parcelled in questions. Logically, it would be hard to answer all the questions, because even if you knew all the facts in the world, you would still be missing the fact that they were all the facts in the world 
(ala Wittgenstein).
what? can someone explain this line from Wittgenstein. You are telling me that if I knew all the facts of the world, that I’ll be missing the fact that they are the facts of the world? Don’t seem to understand.
Its seems to be a reoccuring problem with science; its based on reasoning and logic but reasoning and logic is only half the story, if only little bits of the picture pieced together. Thats one of the main reasons why science still hasnt a whole unified theory, because it isnt looking on the whole such as in Newton’s times.
Smooth wrote:
I suppose only Wittgenstein could really explain Wittgenstein. All I can do is give you my interpretation. The physicist, Steven Weinberg, ended his book, Facing Up; Science and Its Cultural Adversaries, with these lines:
"…even when the physicists have gone as far as they can go, when we have a final theory…we will still be left with the question, ‘Why?’ "
"…if you believe in a God who is jealous, or loving, or intelligent, or whimsical, then you must confront the question, ‘Why?’
It’s one thing to know how things are, yet even children aren’t satisfied with how things are; they want to know why things are. No description I can have of the universe is complete unless it already includes my reaction to that description. John Myhill summed it up nicely:
“No non-poetic account of reality can be complete.”
Regards,
Michael
i like Nietzsche’s idea of “the gay science” myself. A better way of going about things is to specifically to NOT look for an Ultimate. i.e. The ultimate TRUTH does not exist because the world just doesn’t work that way, but there is “truth” as we use the term in everday life… and science doesn’t explain anything at all, it only describes. We as humans give meaning to things. Or to put it in other persepective, science is just a tool we use like any other. Also, keep in mind that to see religion/science as the only two possible approaches to life is a blatant either/or falacy. Among other things there is also Art.
when Nietzsche’s madman proclaimed “God is dead” in the marketplace of ideas, the athiests standing around mocking the madman represent those people who would belive that God was replaced by the “TRUTH” that science pretends to offer…
I’m not really sure whether you’re being purposefully naive here or not, but I’ll respond anyway.
An analogy is that when you count the number of people in a room you may forget to count yourself, in which case your knowledge is incomplete. The difference is when we deal with perception the perceiver himself cannot both be perceived and do the act of perceiving at the same time, therefore knowledge is always incomplete. That’s what The Tractatus is all about.
Then again, I happen to be self-aware…
That depends. What do you think is the ultimate question?
Personal beliefs. Morals and such. I understand the evolutionary reasons for many of my human drives and such. However, there remain ideals I hold which I consider actually counter to the ideals installed in us by evolution.
Religion is irrelevent. Emotion, feeling, interpersonal relationships, morals, hopes and dreams… these are all important, but I see no reason to include religion in the mix.
You can’t prove the sun will rise tomarrow with science.
Read your Hume or have someone nicer than me explain the arguement.
Science is nice tho. Shiny.
Note that Hume was no scientist.
Science works mostly in degrees of certainty/probability. When you get right down to it, I can’t prove that any of you exist. I may be dreaming this. But that’s another discussion.
For those not up on scientific principles, here’s a brief intro to how it works:
- Throughout all human experience and knowledge, the sun has “risen” each morning.
- Given what we know of the sun’s life cycle, we can be reasonably certain it will last another four billion years or so.
- Therefore, we can say the sun will rise tomorrow.
- Any assertion that the sun will not rise tomorrow is pure fiction until/unless supported by some evidence.
- We go with the one which has evidence, rather than the fictional story.
Funny thing is Adam, those “scientific” principles were loveingly crafted by other philosophers. The name Strawson comes to mind.
Science needs philosophy to define and justify it. This has created many Scientist/Philosophers who try to work out some version of epistomology. Science is a very concrete level tool in the discovery of truth and only works with a proper background epistomology and metaphysics.
Besides every piece of eveidence that says that “Stars will behave in X,Y, and Z ways” is evidence for the theory “Stars will behave in X,Y, and Z ways until the year 2050, after which they will behave in A, B, C ways.” So I have perfectly good evidence the sun will implode January 1st 2050- just as good eveidence as you have that it won’t.
Why?
That is 100% wrong. Evidence supporting the idea that the sun’s life cycle will enter a new, predicted phase at point X does not equal evidence that the sun will implode at point X. The “implosion at point X” theory requries evidence of its own, which must fit all known knowledge and models, to even be a theory.
Why? Simple. The domain of the things that Science studies does not include the definition or justification of science. There is no science of science.
All right. Looks like I’m going to have to make the full arguement. Lets take a simpiler example. All emeralds are green is an empirically justified statement based on looking at all the emeralds so far. (Just like the sun will rise tomarrow.)
All emeralds are Grue, is aslo such a statement.
The property Grue applies to all objects that are green and observed before the year 3000, or blue and not observed before the year 3000.
Because it is only 2004 all Green emeralds are also Grue emeralds. So one is equally justified in claiming either at this moment.
Actually my textbooks do provide definitions of science and the scientific method, and discuss the reasons for them.
Science is the “science of science”.
I asked for your reasons why science needs philosophy. All you’ve given so far is that philosophy students sometimes feel the need to discuss science and justify it.
Science is an activity, like running or jumping. It is not a purpose. It needs no justification. What people do with science involves purpose, and may require justification.
Yes, it’s true. But it has nothing to do with science. I thought you were discussing science. My mistake.
Adam, the philosophy of science is very often carried out by thinkers who are both philosophers and scientists. For instance, two of the 20th century’s most influential philosophers of science, Pierre Duhem and Thomas Kuhn, were trained as physicists and later became concerned with second-order questions about method. Why did they find these questions important? Because philosophy and science overlap in a number of important ways. No, a scientist does not need philosophy in order to simply carry out observations and do the related math; however, when we begin to ask questions like, what constitutes a good theory? In what way can we be said to have explained certain empirical facts? What do we mean when we say our inductive inferences are true? What are the scope and limitations of our scientific inquiries? Those are all second-order questions–meaning they are less concerned with matters of empirical fact and more concerned with how our methods can lead us to a correct understanding of the world; this is traditionally the domain of philosophy. All scientists think about these things in their more reflective moments, but in those momets even they will tell you they are doing philosophy–the philosophy of science.
…which simply shows how indespensible the philosophy of science is. Simply because these topics appear in a science text book doesn’t mean it can’t be considered philosophy. After all, science used to fall under the heading “natural philosophy.”
This has everything to do with science. Science is, in broad strokes, the practice of making inductive inferences. The “green-grue” problem has been one of the most hotly discussed second-order problems in the philosophy of science for the last 50 years because it threatens to undermine the validity of induction. If induction is no longer valid, science is no longer valid. And this is a problem only philosophy can solve.
As was mentioned before, I think philosophy plays a role in science, but science in my opinion is structured well enough and lays a foundation that is efficient for obtaining more and more knowledge regarding the universe.
I relate philosophy to just theorizing, but science is theory in action. They both work together. However science brings results. Philosophy considers what to do with them.
Well, that’s what science is. Implying that science needs people to sit around thinking about meaning and purpose for individuals is a passtime for arts students. Science gathers facts. Meaning is for coffee shops after Politics B.
For a good theory, you simply follow the scientific method. Note that this, too, has nothing to do with meaning, purpose, god, creationism, or anything else discussed in the cafe after arts classes.
If the cause for gained data is known, the explanation is a description of the cause. If the cause is not known, then only a description of the data is given. That’s all. All must fit the scientific method.
Generally we look in the dictionary for a definition of “true”. Vaguely infering and implying is bad practice. Something is true or it is not. You have evidence or you don’t. Yes, determining what “true” means is the business of those who write the dictionaries. But since we already have the meanings of the words, we can quite happily use the terms: right, wrong, true, false…
The scope of any inquiry depends on the inquiry. If I’m researching the behaviour of a Germanium diode while immersed in liquid nitrogen, the scope of my inquiry is basically any application of Germanium diodes at very low temperatures. The applications are anything with electronics. How do I arrive at the scope and limitations? I look at the experiment: a diode and low temperature. I look at the implications: electronics at low temperatures. I look at what is right there in front of me. In short, the scope and limitations are all directly, intrsinsically related to the empirical facts.
Now, if you’re getting at “How did we arrive at the scientific method?”, the answer is basically trial and error, and logic. Lots of people tried lots of things which simply didn’t work, and produced no worthwhile results. Eventually the scientific method was developed because it works. The development was due to people who thought about logic, and its application. These people could indeed be considered philosophers. However, science remains something apart from philosophy. Just as fishing remains apart from debate about whether or not we should eat meat.
Personally, I spend more time thinking about facts, and finding more of them. I leave “meaning” to those who can’t find facts themselves. Simple observation has shown me that most people who discuss the meanings of facts don’t even slightly comprehend those facts. All I need to know is that “meaning” is different for everyone; if they’d just accept that and move on, the matter would be settled. But no, they’re too stupid, and keep chattering on about things they don’t understand. It is far more productive, a far better use of my time, to simply pursue facts.
However, I’m on vacation, so I have the time to talk crap about crap on internet message boards. Lucky for everyone, eh? 
And some people used to think the world was flat. Luckily we’re beyond that now.
The problem is the grue thing has nothing to do with science or induction or anything else. It’s equivalent to saying “The sun has come up every other day, and according to everything we know, it should come up tomorrow too. But it might not, so I’m going with the theory that at 6 AM tomorrow the sun will turn into a gerbil and steal my cheese”. There is no induction there. Nor is there science involved in the grue thing.
I would like to remind you that pot heads, yuppies, and philosophers are disticnt catagories that only occasionally overlap.
In fact, I think most professional philosophers are neither pot heads nor yuppies.