No Fundamental Distinction Between Science and Religion

No fundamental distinction can be made between science and religion.

Science is constantly subject to change and improvements, and therefore the current scientific paradigm is always inherently flawed/inaccurate.
Science as a whole then is a body of inaccurate assumptions, and there is nothing about its structure distinguishing it from religion, superstition, or any other body of assumptions in terms of its validity.

The Scientific Method is not some fool-proof means of verifying ‘truths’, but is rather a strategy employed for a sort of first-line defense against agenda-driven skewing of conclusions. The act of forming a hypothesis, testing it, then reformulating the hypothesis, is something everyone does intuitively anyways when coming up with an explanation for anything; the actual appeal behind the scientific method is that it forces one to elaborate on how a conclusion has been reached, thereby helping to expose any agenda-driven misinformation.

A scientist is a monk wearing a lab coat in place of a robe, working in a monastery called a “research facility”, praying to enlightenment prophets and priests called “Theoreticians”, and answering to his serpent masters who use his formulated incantations and spells to manipulate and usurp power so as to gain more power, and more, and more. All in the service of their god, “Wealth”.

Yes, i agree that there is not much dfference between science and religion.

with love,
sanjay

I’ve got one word for you, baby:

reproducibility

:wink:

Surely science’s recognition of that would be a distinction between science and religion right there?

They’re not really the same category, though, are they? Science (in the context you’re talking about it) is a practice, a study, whereas religion is a phenomenon of organisation. There are certainly aspects of the scientific community that have a lot in common with religions - they’re communities organised with an aim to gather and spread information, but the science you describe in your second sentence is categorically more akin to theology. Theology doesn’t have an agreed method, for one thing, but rarely if ever takes the same open-ended approach as science.

Did you send this message by electronic communications systems, fibre-optics and/or satellite technology… or by prayer? Why?

As data arrives from the LHC to what philosophy department would scientists send it to enable them there philosophers to draw their conclusions? :laughing: :laughing:

“…you say you dicscoverd the Higgs? All I see is a scratch on a graph.” :open_mouth:

“Back to the nine billion dollar drawing board boys. The next time you approach us make sure you have the Higgs in hand.”

So sprach die Philosophen!

Yes, that may be true in some cases.

The reason is because philosophers, scientists and religious scholars as well have been forgotten the true purpose of their respective streams of knowledge.

The status of the philosophy and philosophers has been mitigated and scientists like Stephen Hawkins tries to be one. There are very few in the history who really mastered more than one of three streams.

with love,
sanjay

I put it to you this way. Science doesn’t need or require philosophy as much as a more powerful particle accelerator. Whereas it was once true that they walked hand in hand it is now science which is leading philosophy into newer untrodden areas especially in the way science enforces new thought patterns into human insight and behaviors.

 And soon this way of patterning will reach critical limits and science may once again find it's self in the position of being lead back into safer harbors.

Absolutely not true.

It is exactly like saying that the Army doesn’t need science, it just needs bigger guns.

Science seriously lacks metaphysics understanding with which it can resolve its paradoxes and much further advance its technologies. Scientists are like children playing with left over tools from 150 years ago, when the tools were just first being formed. Philosophers form the tools of the mind from which science builds its castle. People such as Ohm, Voltaire, and Lorentz were philosophers before scientists, else there would be no such thing as; “electric potential”, “electric resistance”, “forces”, and “speed of light” for scientists to be talking about or studying.

Philosophy formed the very foundation of the ontology that science currently uses. But it was in its infancy when the war on intelligence broke out (1950s). It now needs updating and reparations.

You are confusing theory with confirmation.

LHC is a merely scienctific tool to investigate the unlimate buliding block of the matter. The real issue is whether there is something such or not. And, that is not a new question but pending for answer since ages.

That question is philosophy and LHC is science.

The quest of the religions is also the same: finding the ultimate reality, the very cornerstone on which everything is built upon. So, what is the difference other than the means of investigation?

Science can never lead philosophy. And, science can never give any insights whatsoever.

Having said that, untamed scientific can influence mankind but that would lead to chaos. Because, science cannot decide on its own whether something is really required or not, to which extent it is required and in which way it should be used.

That is why philosophy has to bridle science always. And, when this does not happen, the research in atomic field would lead to the tragedy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki everytime.

with love,
sanjay

The stage is yours. There is hardly a single statement I agree with. None of it makes any sense to me but I’m sure there are many who agree with you!

Hey! c’est la vie!

Yes. My guess is also the same.

Obe, as i see it now, there is too much social and scientific chaos. As most of intelligentsia has been migrated towards science for various reasons, the speed of innovation is far more than the mankind can digest. Furthermore, all innovations are not in proper direction. It cannot go on forever.

Sooner or later, the system would collapse under its own burden and mankind would have to think once again about its direction.

with love,
sanjay

Your list here is thoroughly incongruous. Voltaire is conventionally not classified as a philosopher and though he dabbled in science like many others in that age, he discovered absolutely nothing. Neither did he produce any philosophical works which proclaim him a “philosopher”. You seem to imply that he had something to do with voltage (electric potential) because of his pseudonym VOLTaire. Why else would you have mentioned his name? He definitely does NOT belong in your list based on any of the criteria you mentioned.

Also please indicate where Lorentz (I assume you mean Hendrik, a dutch physicist) was a philosopher before he was a scientist! In fact I recall nothing about him which even relates to him being a philosopher let alone being a philosopher before he was a scientist. Where do you get your information from I think is a fair question.

The same goes for Georg Ohm. Everything that’s mentioned about him relates to physics and mathematics.

This list is extremely faulty. None of these people apply to what you’re trying to prove and if I’m wrong show me where.

Another incongruity! If as you say science uses ontology - a branch of metaphysics - instead of method, how can you claim that science seriously lacks metaphysics? Even without that contradiction, this statement shows absolute ignorance as to how science actually proceeds. What has metaphysics got to do with resolving science problems or paradox? I’m sure scientists from all over would be extremely interested to know how that could even be accomplished through metaphysics??

I’m sorry! but nothing you’ve written here makes the least amount of sense. For one thing, among others, the terminology of philosophy is seldom applicable to science. The other way around invokes an almost complete separation. When it’s used in that manner as here is screws up both philosophy and science. Amazingly, there is not a single statement or inference which is correct in your post.

Sorry, it was Volta, not Voltaire (been a while, grade school stuff for me).

A philosopher is required to figure out what is to be figured out. In Votla’s case, it was an issue of measuring the strength of specific movement that seemed relevant. Thus he had to metaphysically define a unit of measure, the “volt” without any scientist trying to tell him what it was.

Scientists then try to figure out if he was observably false.

The same situation with Ohm and Lorentz (his aether theory).

They were the philosophers who began the thing you now call science. It was a philosopher who stated Nullius in Verba. The prior name for “Science” was “Natural philosophy”.

It helps to be a philosopher (preferably an ontologist) if you are trying to figure out what a philosopher actual does and what science actually is. Scientists are technicians, nothing more. Although today’s “scientists” are more like monks working for the Secular Church.

Philosophy is about reasoning, Logic, Mathematics, understanding (ontologies), and epistemology (defining words). Philosophers have created all religions, sciences, and governing methodologies. Unfortunately there is an insidious lot as well as an altruistic lot, some as serpents and some tasked to catch the snakes in a pit. Everything involved in societies, both good and bad, has been derived from philosophers.

Religion is merely metaphysical philosophy being applied to sociology.
Science is merely one particular philosophy being applied as the art of observational confirmation.

Natural observations even during the time of Volta are not defined by metaphysics. If a volt had to be metaphysically defined as compared to simply not being understood what caused it we still wouldn’t know what it is.

What this implies is that anything not understood scientifically must be metaphysically defined in philosophy…a non sequitur. Newton wrote the Laws of Gravity but had no idea what made it work. He did not proceed to define this gap metaphysically if he could not explain it scientifically. Instead “his philosophy” on the subject of not knowing was Hypotheses non fingo whereas your described methodology would give it a metaphysical resolution.

To repeat, Ohm and Lorentz were scientists not philosophers. They proceeded by theory combined with experimentation. This is not within the purview of philosophy and almost certainly philosophy was not on their chalk board when writing down the math.

Galileo, Kepler and Newton were the true beginnings of science. That was the point of no return. In your context of applying metaphysics to science, Kepler was an outstanding case. He was addicted to the idea of the five Platonic solids in describing planetary orbits. But this Platonic perfection didn’t correspond to observation. Instead he had to completely rearrange the math and forgo the philosophy of perfection into something more elliptical. In short, he had to renounce metaphysics regardless of how perfect it seemed to describe the actual movements of planets around a centre. This wasn’t easy for him being much more influenced by philosophy than either Galileo or Newton.

Philosophy “no-longer” decides anything relating to science. Though it may have created it, philosophy can no longer expound it. The kids, the grand kids and the great great grand kids moved on to become more genetically remote defined by their own specific objectives. As once with religion when priests were the intermediaries to God so with philosophy when method, the scientific kind, came into being the core principle of which is if you really want to understand something you have to yield to it and NOT to your preconceptions which philosophy then as now - though not quite to the same extent - is subject to.

A naive statement, and false.

And people like yourself and also scientists do not.
It takes a metaphysicist, much like myself, to actually understand what it is.

No. What it implies is that until something is philosophically defined, you can’t measure it. How can you measure it or even make any claim about it at all, if you don’t even know what it is?

He made no attempt to "explain it “scientifically”. He took and older idea (for which he was sued for stealing) and applied measurements to it. His claim for the “laws” (later to be found flawed) were all about “how much”, not about “what”. He didn’t even come up with the names involved like “gravity”. He merely measured the effects, giving them consistency in numbers, quantified and thus much more usable. The theory prior to that time had been merely a rational explanation concerning a magical “force”, but with no way to be more certain, no way to verify the theory of “gravitational force”.

In reality, there actually is no such “force”, but that is something scientists are simply not qualified to consider. They don’t know what they are measuring. They simply know that they can consistently predict an effect and it is called “gravity”. They have no idea at all as to what is really happening that makes it work. They will tell you that themselves.

That is what I just said.

To repeat, they were “natural philosophers” who helped to begin the confirmation philosophy of falsification, or “Scientific Methodology”.

Math is merely another example of philosophical thought being applied to quantities. Like myself, they were “polymaths”.

Your argument is that because Plato didn’t get it perfect, it doesn’t count?
I’m afraid that would disqualify ALL “scientists” to date, whether natural philosophers or not.

I have found that such isn’t true with the exception that “science” has become a egocentric religion now, and thus doesn’t allow anything that embarrasses it. Science is in desperate need for philosophical update by a real metaphysicist rather than their amateur pseudo-science fantasizers (such as Higgs or Feynman).

Consider taking your own advice. I see you as the one exercising preconceived superficial notions.

 Actually, the non sequitur You are speaking about, is not the product of some philosophical fault, it was the outcome of a different way of arguing things.  The way the hypothetical was verified was no longer a deductive, but an inductive process, but still, it is the hypothesis which precedes the verification.  Right or wrong, it is always some idea in the Platonic sense, that is followed by various trials and errors of substantiating an inductive argument.

True.

Although even the thought of “I can see it, therefore it is real” is still deductive (and a bit presumptuous).

According to the question whether it is more science or more philosophy, you both are right, because it depends on the lingusitics, especially on the semantics of both words. In former times it was the linguistic convention to Interpret many phenomenons more scientifically than philosophically, in former former ( :slight_smile: ) times, for example in the ancient Greece, it was the linguistic convention to Interpret many phenomenons philosophically. The conclusion is: You have to come to an agreement when it comes to define and value the words “philosophy” and “science”.

In modern times of the Western culture the word “philosophy” has not as much good reputation as the word “science” (and as in pre-modern times of the Western culture); so we have to consider this as well when it comes to define and value the words “philosophy” and “science”.

Currently most people are wrong when they say this or that is more scientifical than philosophical - because of the fact that the word “science” is more “chic” and the word “philosophy” is more “antiquated”. That’s the linguistic convention - fortunately or unfortunately.