Science predicts only the predictable, ignoring most of our chaotic universe. - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#14818058
http://nautil.us/issue/49/the-absurd/ch ... nnecessary

I don't like to make appeals to authority, but when a PhD in math from New York writes an article like this, it's really saying something.

Basically, the article states that due to the asymmetry of complex experiments where the results you retrieve become increasingly inaccurate over time, there comes a point where people have no choice but to become abstract and think about how the real world works instead of demanding an experience for everything. Experience becomes less and less reliable as more variables are introduced into what we're trying to measure, so the choice to be made isn't between being concrete and abstract, but about being stupid and smart. If you insist on learning from experience about everything, then you'll drastically restrict the area of knowledge you're capable of learning.
#14818062
Science is built from taking small observations and inferring a large abstract theory. Then you make predictions for other small observations you can make if the theory is true/false.

No scientific theory claims to absolute certainty, and no single experiment claims to prove anything by itself.

I think this guy has an odd view of how science works that doesn't really portray what is really going on.

Take biology for example.

Living organisms are so incredibly complex that it puts the rest of the universe to shame. We study biology on several levels but each experiment strives to measure an extremely simple component.

A single gene, protein, or situation is measured at a time and a complex model is developed. You don't do experiments to try and measure the whole system because you can't.

By this method we have made tremendous progress in understanding the most complex structures we know of. We've gone from thinking biology is some magical process to understand much of how it functions and how it developed.
#14818070
The critique he makes deals with experimental design itself, not replication of designed experiments.

That said, making many small observations is an incredibly inefficient usage of time, energy, attention, and material resources. It just reinforces the point that he's making. If you really want to learn as much as possible with the constraints you exist within, then you need to stretch them as far as possible which requires abstract thought.

The real problem scientists have is they're too conservative in wanting to experience everything for what it is.

This really isn't surprising though. Conservatism is about playing it safe by gradually learning from experience to maintain the status quo while appealing to institutional norms. It's like if you have a canyon you want to cross, scientists insist on building a bridge.

In reality, you can get across by launching off a ramp. Scientists are so obsessed with staying down to earth in order to keep their feet on the ground that they treat the ability to fly as if it automatically means your head's full of hot air and up in the clouds.
#14818073
The critique he makes deals with experimental design itself, not replication of designed experiments.


I didn't say anything about replication, though that is important of course. I was saying that his critique of experimental design is wrong.

That said, making many small observations is an incredibly inefficient usage of time, energy, attention, and material resources.


No it isn't, that's literally the only way they work. You have to control as many variables as possible and look at only one thing otherwise you can't draw any meaningful conclusions.

If you really want to learn as much as possible with the constraints you exist within, then you need to stretch them as far as possible which requires abstract thought.


All scientific theories are abstract expansions based on a number of small observations. The theory of gravity is an abstraction based on observed phenomenon. It's a very predictive and useful abstraction but it remains an abstraction.

The real problem scientists have is they're too conservative in wanting to experience everything for what it is.


What does this even mean? Best I can tell your fundamental complaint is that scientists are not credulous enough? Science is an extremely conservative and skeptical process. Stripping it of that would cripple it and make it useless.

This really isn't surprising though. Conservatism is about playing it safe by gradually learning from experience to maintain the status quo while appealing to institutional norms. It's like if you have a canyon you want to cross, scientists insist on building a bridge.

In reality, you can get across by launching off a ramp. Scientists are so obsessed with staying down to earth in order to keep their feet on the ground that they treat the ability to fly as if it automatically means your head's full of hot air and up in the clouds.


Scientists want proof that you can fly. Simply saying you can fly without backing it is obviously not sensible.

A more appropriate analogy for what you are saying scientists should do would be if you couldn't see the other side of the cliff and had no idea how far away it was and some guy walked up with cardboard wings and demanded the scientists respect his idea that he could flap to the other side.
#14818161
Scientists make intuitive leaps all the time. How do you think they come up with theories in the first place? That they are grounded in observation is a feature not a fault.

When did scientists not use math? Math has been used to create every model in physics for centuries.

Saying scientists don't make inferences with mathmatical models isn't a criticism, it's nearly willful ignorance of what scientists do.
#14818852
I don't know that this is entirely science's fault, but I do think the scientific method often gives us a skewed concept of causality. In a scientific experiment, they try to control for all sorts of variables in order to isolate some causal factor. This is enormously useful for making new discoveries, but it's very easy for us to forget that the real world doesn't work that way. There are an enormous number of causal factors interacting at any moment to create a cosmos characterized by emergence and novelty much more than predictability and certainty.
#14832094
Paradigm wrote:I don't know that this is entirely science's fault, but I do think the scientific method often gives us a skewed concept of causality. In a scientific experiment, they try to control for all sorts of variables in order to isolate some causal factor. This is enormously useful for making new discoveries, but it's very easy for us to forget that the real world doesn't work that way. There are an enormous number of causal factors interacting at any moment to create a cosmos characterized by emergence and novelty much more than predictability and certainty.


Yea, we need to understand the difference between proving causality and causality's actual existence.

This isn't to say there's some sort of magical chaos behind everything, but just that perspective is different from reality. Just because a process takes place in reality does not mean that process is identifiable or has been identified.

That's one of the reasons I've always supported math more before science. Math allows us to conceive of the many ways things can happen. We don't get stuck in what's proven and get stuck in naivete. Merely having concrete evidence of one or a few ways that an event that has taken place doesn't mean we have a thorough understanding of every way an event is feasible.

Obviously, I'm not saying anything is possible either. That's just foolhardy and utopian. I'm just saying there are many ways for reality to develop.
#14832097
Great thread. We only find what we seek. We can not find what we are not looking for.
That said, math is not the answer. It has it's own limitations. It is just one of many views we can choose. Perhaps the universe does change based upon who is viewing it, and how they are viewing it. Or, maybe it is so complex it allows many different truths.

I know, this is the utopian view you exempted, but it still had to be mentioned. :lol:
#14832134
If you read my work, I explain why this is.

Living organisms are so incredibly complex that it puts the rest of the universe to shame. We study biology on several levels but each experiment strives to measure an extremely simple component.
Yep, you're using an archaic model of science to explore the external expression of living phenomena as you piece together components of a single happening. Each organism is a side-effect of something else, and individuality is an abstraction. In other words, living organisms are incredibly interconnected pieces of the universe. Science as an investigation tool must consider the relativity of 'being,' because the human experience is an enfolded body of knowledge being limited by its existential perspective. Pragmatism/functionality follow perspective (how,when,where, you observe/experience). As Schrödinger said: A careful analysis of the process of observation in atomic physics has shown that the subatomic particles have no meaning as isolated entities, but can only be understood as interconnections between the preparation of an experiment and the subsequent measurement.

biology on several levels

Yes, but those levels correspond with each other, the environment (ground) is in an information loop with the organism (figure) and the organism is in an information loop with the environment. If you change the environment you change the organism and if you change the organism you change the environment. For instance, invasive organisms will change the ecology of a biological system once they interact or interface with the environment. Beaver dams change the overall eco-system. Now think about that...

All things are in an information loop with time-space, and each living organism has the potential to influence the evolution of an entire system of genetic information. When I say potential, think about quantum potentiality. The formal cause, or emanation of living phenomena is constantly consuming itself, and humans attempt to intellectually suspend themselves above the biological happening as everything collides with everything and shapes the experience humans experience. Ultimately, if you want to study biology on several levels, you must include human technologies as an extension of our biological flesh shell. When we discover (invent purpose) a new pattern (mode of perception involved in the 5-fold sensory inception) of time-space organization through the intelligent manipulation of chemical elements, we're essentially creating new 'organisms' that change the whole structure of our biological environment. The epi-genetic consequence of technology is one field of study that biologists tend to ignore/neglect. Nonetheless, it would seem self-evident (to me anyway) that when you study history and trace social-biological evolution, technologies play a major role in guiding our evolutionary trajectory. In the past, if we had the ability to scientifically predict the side-effects or diversification of the motor-vehicle (the good, the bad, and ugly), do you think we would consciously implement such an invasive extension of the human organism in our eco-system- likewise, what does a computer do to the evolution of our biological genetic information? Perhaps we need Kaleidoscopic awareness so we can predict the outcome of any scientific discovery before it becomes an invasive extension of the human organism. Alas, each extension will produce its own extensions, as you find out the car will need fuel- roads-fast-food-obese-family-more-better-stronger to infinity and beyond bliss blood borne bid thoughts driving identity flesh wounds deep in the void! Snap out of it and focus, unEARTH tomorrow-today before the next thought-fades and you're 98-old&gray-mayday-mayday-mayday this astral-ship is slowly sinking... The sea-change vortex spinning, a new beginning for the set sail songs filling the time-space continuum they have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts. :eek: Fuck, an extension of Shakespearean technology invaded my left parietal lobe. This is a goddamn genetic word-pile, CURSE YOU HUMANITY!

Kaleidoscopic awareness is the art of intentionally giving attention to all levels of dimensional entanglement through our mind/matter interface. Kaleidoscopic awareness is a state of mind/perception which tries to grasp and give definition to the simultaneity of every-thing occurring right NOW so mankind can develop a systems theory of consciousness/being as it unfolds through time-space. Theoretically, quantum computers (remember, technology=biological extension of the organism) and true artificial intelligence may help us construct a mathematical systems theory for consciousness/being, because quantum computers simulate the one and zero simultaneously, and therefore quantum computers can build cognitive dialectics and map out the ecology of 'being.' Hopefully, the hidden 'potential' within each thing-in-itself (as energy, hidden variable theory, past-present-future) will be extracted from time-space, giving us direct access to the wave function and its properties (everything above and below it)... wherever it may be, on its journey as it unfolds all ways/always. Classic science embraced 'decoherence' in a mechanical/physical/linear sense, because it wanted to understand the localized dialectic of 1 and 0 as one form of sequential causality. New science will embrace the nonlocal process of 1 and 0 as it happens to be present simultaneously (and that's a convoluted understatement). Telepathy, superluminal transportation, time travel, etc come after the quantum (r)evolution, because its the next side-effect of the electric/information age.

Mike likes to study individual ripples(figures) in the water(ground), ignoring the water (medium) and the 'thing' (formal cause) that caused the ripples. That's classic/textbook science. Mike is a professionally trained sleepwalker. :lol: Hate is a strong word, but I strongly dislike your ignorance, Mike. Stop fragmenting phenomena, the time-space movement is a singularity of information. You can study the symptoms of the universe through scientific compartmentalization, but you'll never understand the formal cause or process behind manifestation.

Consciousness is the essence and truth (scientific probability/fact) is a side-effect of who, what, where, why, when, and how you live, therefore any definition of truth must be a coping strategy developed by a human for a human. Lost tribes in the Amazon are in an information loop with the jungle and the jungle appears before them as the truth, the jungle is a medium channeling their energy and conscious activity, and humans abstract a meaningful message from living phenomena in order to survive.

The surface symptom(s) or any observable/measurable quality or quantity must be a side-effect of 'being' created by the multi-faceted undivided whole of reality. In other words, each system is a symptom of THE ENTIRE SYSTEM, creating an information singularity, and the human perspective must be enfolded inside of the colliding field of all 'things' in existence. Once you understand that last sentence, you realize how limited our human perspective can be, and you may also realize that your perspective is an accepted side-effect of a limited view of reality.

"Thoughts transform chaos into habitable cosmos."
"The medium is the message and each message is a medium."

The future of science: It's time to create 'consciousness mechanics,' all other fields of research shall be inter-connected disciplines operating under the new 'consciousness mechanics.' No worries, Mike, you'll still have a job. After-all quantum mechanics is heading in that direction, thus we need to study the movement/process of existence/being, not just the working parts or the physical expression of abstracted entities.

Every explanation/insight above had been considered in my work, this thread is boring.

/end thread

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