cladking

 

You don't know that.

 

 

That is almost certainly not true.

 

 

Again, you don't know that.

 

 

Is that true in non-Euclidean space? (That is a genuine question, I don't know the answer...)

 

You don't know that.

 

 

That is almost certainly not true.

 

 

Again, you don't know that.

 

 

Is that true in non-Euclidean space? (That is a genuine question, I don't know the answer...)

Of course I don't know any of that. I don't know you're real or that some consciousness isn't intentionally trying to make me mispercieve reality. I don't even know that the communicative "property of math (ab=ba) applies in every single case. Maybe it only applies when I check it and that consciousness makes it that way. Maybe sometime I'll check it when He's not looking and find out it's all a fraud.

Science may never be able to answer the questions. In 500 years so far we still don't know even the tiniest fraction of 1% of everything that is. If there were such a thing as infinity, our knowledge hardly adds up to its reciprocle.

In the meantime I will posit that reality is exactly what it appears to be. I will make a conscious effort to see that reality rather than the models created by science. This is much like ancirent science except that it is augmented by modern science and modern math.

Maths being misapplied is not a problem of Maths themselves. That's our problem. I can express my point of view in another way with an example: Pythagoras Theorem will hold for any possible Universe that contain a single triangle in any possible sense (a physical triangle made of wood, a triangle of forces, etc). We express that relation with our human symbols but the pattern itself is eternal and necessary. All of reality must be like that. Explaining a Universe half mathematical and half not would suppose a bigger problem (how maths interacts with non-maths?).

 

Again, I'm going to have a tough time disagreeing with you because we are in general agreement.

However there is only one universe, one possible universe, and a single reality that applies everywhere. In this reality there is a 3: 4: 5 triangle and these proportions can be described mathematically or by other means. The beauty of using math is that physical displacements or distances can be easily and "precisely" communicated.

But the triangle doesn't conform or bend to math but rather they both answer to the exact same logic and this logic is everywhere a part of reality. This logic guides a bird's flight and every planet. Nature doesn't perform infinite calculations to keep the stars in orbit but rather the universe can be described by logic.

 

But modern politics has made an amazing leap forward when it was realised that individual citizens no longer have to work hard wasting resources. Their government can do this much more efficiently for them, whilst the citizens take their ease, if they can still afford it.

 

Indeed. Government can waste more in a second than a village can waste in a lifetime.

Even if you are a hardware guy, you could spend 3 years trying to understand how a computer works, but if you don't know the LOGIC behind circuit design, how the parts interact, etc you won't be able to. Actually a good analogy for this is modern biology. Biologists were those hardware guys that dealt with all the experiments and field research, but until the fields of Mathematical Biology, Complex Networks, Bioinformatics took off Biologists couldn't make sense of the data and fully explain the experiments. In my honest opinion this will happen with the rest of sciences but in a more profound level. Even if we keep following the empirical approach, our models will be closer and closer to pure maths until we realise that reality consists of maths (or let's say numbers and their interactions) instead of matter, dark energy, spacetime or whatever. I would say that the reality we perceive is the output of the software, the software and indeed the hardware itself would be maths.

This just isn't true. I believe it seems true because of two fundamental misunderstandings. First is the nature of math and second is the nature of reality. We have simply defined nature through experimental results and these seem to be mathematical because math is logical and reality is logical. Math is quantified logic so it's a quantification of reality. In a sense you're exactly right probably because eventually we just might know the equation of reality itself but for now all we have are bits and pieces of math that can be used to solve problems when they are applied properly to the real world.

I don't know that all knowledge will ever be simplified to an equation or a mathematical construct so for now all that's left is to examine the hardware and the "owner's manual" (metaphysics). I believe a great deal of math is being misapplied and this gets more apparent every day as the world wastes ever more resources and human talent and human life. We're doing ever more work to waste ever more of everything. Need I even mention this is unsustainable? When people start worrying about all the consumption they want to decrease efficiency even more to combat it. We close efficient (relatively) factories in the US and open inefficient ones with even lower quality in China and ship the products from the other side of the world. Products that once lasted for decades now last for weeks or months. So they just shrink the package, pump it up with water, and put it on sale for double what it used to cost. We even ship all this garbage great distances to put it back into the earth.

Math is not the solution to our problems nor to understanding reality. Math is a tool and a very useful one at that. But, it must be appropriate for each of its uses and it obviously is not. This is simply the nature of math as quantified logic and the nature of man to use creative accounting, double billing and double books, lying figures, and cheating prosperous. It can occur even in real science (of which less and less seems to exist every year).

If you really want to understand a computer software do you study only the output of the program or also the language in which is written?

I'm a hardware guy.

In my honest opinion is the other way round. Maths describe reality = eternal truths. Science describes what our senses/devices perceive = contingent truths = empirical truths = mutable truths (and it does it with maths by the way, if we remove maths from science we get Alchemy or divination). As we refine our experiments and experimental devices, our models and results will get closer and closer to pure math (as we are seeing with quantum mechanics, mathematical biology, computational neuroscience, countless fields that seemed detached to maths in the past are almost 100% mathematical today, and the fields that were already mathematical became even more mathematical). We'll probably get to a point where we can unify all of the scientific knowledge under the banner of Maths and then remove the extra layer of Physics and the rest of sciences. I propose we'll just call Physics the Maths of particles, Black Holes and such, Biology the Maths of life, Chemistry we can call it the Maths of bigger particles and its interactions, Psychology Maths of the mind, etc. Sorry for the lack of originality I'm a scientist not a marketing expert ok?

I don't so much disagree as I see it from another perspective. Math is quantified logic and reality is most probably completely logical.

But it's not math we need to come to understand, it's reality.

I don't know if there is any water to be released, that it ever was, or that it was reabsorbed. However, I believe a relatively long term very slow release or a very short term large release could both give rise to the flood stories.

 

Which is very much not the scenario (natural disaster) described in the OP.

If the mantle really has a lot of water in it as has been suggested its sudden release could inundate the planet to more than 5,000'.

 

We have much, much, much milder floods that cause a lot of damage here in the actual world. I don't see how you can hypothesize no damage from an event that is described as being orders of magnitude more severe.

I merely meant that if the mantle were slowly releasing water there would not necessarily be any damage to speak of. Most of the damage from such a protracted event would be when it started (before humans?) and when changes occurred.

The biggest change might have been its cessation and the story (of that cessation) was confused as the time of the flood.

Not really.

However one can hypothesize that the water in the earths mantle could be triggered to release and water poured up from the depths. Of course water in the earth's mantle isn't established scientific fact but there are some who believe it could contain as much as .05%.

Perhaps it's chiefly to try to legitimize the Bible story which says the water sprang from the earth as it rained.

For what it's worth I sometimes toy with the idea that there actually was such a release of water but that it was very slow and had relatively little effect on sea level in the short term. After the last ice age it began subsiding and completely ended by about 2750 BC. The flood story is merely a confusion of the ancient belief that the earth had once had water coming up out of the ground.

 

Is there any situation/natural disaster that could cause this kind of situation and if there is what kind of damages would that disaster make when it would happen.

There wouldn't necessarily be any damage whatsoever. Just as the hydraulic cycle and gravity assure all water runs to the sea the water from these springs would simply form the headwater of rivers. If they had been flowing for a protracted time then people would simply live along these waterways and then been displaced when they stopped. Naturtal forces like collapses and sinkholes could also stop the water flow locally and the water might arise in other places and create a new river. Anyone in its course would have to move. Some could be killed because of the nature of water to pool until it's deep enough to breakthrough.

The ancient Egyptians said the Nile arose from two springs but this is widely discounted today.

 

Well, it places a limit on those goals. No point in science hoping to solve a metpahysical problem.

 

Frasch asks - "What is it that our scientific models aim to do? Do our scientific models tell us what reality is like, or are they tools to make predictions and to allow us to understand reality? Explain what you think and why."

 

The answer to the second two questions would be no. This would be why we have metaphysics, so we can extrapolate from the scientific data to deep truths. Making predictions requires little or no understanding of reality. just a few facts about some phenomenon. . .

Extrapolating reality from models is equivalent to a poet learning poetry from his own poem.

It's even more ridiculous since a human being can exceed his potential, his totality, and a model can't because a model must adhere to the reality expressed through experiment.

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The improvement of models over time is through interpolation and cross referencing with other models with experiment as its guide. But no model that lies outside the metaphysics, the rules of model building, will serve to strenghten understanding or the ability to predict. Theory becomes a frankenstein's monster of unrelated bits and parts that seem to fit together but bear little relationship to reality and fail at the basic goal of science; prediction.

Just as with language there is no certainty we'd even notice when communication between models and reality fails.

Sigh! Confusion continues to reign. This video might be helpful. It's the first in a series of three, just in case anyone gets past the first 5 minutes, or bothers watching at all.

 

Interesting.

I disagree in a few key areas and believe the presentation is incomplete but he appears to be a good metaphysician. There's a lot of overlooked common sense in it. I've always tried to maintain a future perspective to help remember we're all always wrong and this will forever be true.

just a general question to the philosophers here, if truth is real, what is it's referrant?

you are telling us truth is like porno, you know it when you see it,even though you can not define what you mean by that word truth (or reality for that matter).

 

 

 

I personally don't believe anyone can see reality directly. Even people who look through the lens of religion or voodoo will catch glimpses of it once in a while just as do those of us who try to see it thrpough science or logic. We can't know what we've seen but when it agrees with experience and knowledge we can be reasonably confident we've caught a little peek at it.

But seeing it laid bare is everyone's objective though no opne seems to know that and far worse almost everyone thinks their estimation of reality; their models or religious beliefs, is all that exists of reality.

Nature is so fantastically complex we might never get a good look at her. But in time it should forever improve. While progress has probably not been at all straight line it still exists and we're still allinterested in the big picture which is reality or nature.

 

 

And yet we still seem to be able to do the science. (not to mention that many of these muddles are your own fault)

And science doesn't even have the existence of reality as a given! How can any sort of "truth" exist outside reality?

Science isn't about truth at all in any of its definitions. Science is about learning about reality through the effects of reality on experiment. People choose to act as though there's only one truth, one language, and one science while scientists are building models of experiment and calling it "theory". We always only see our beliefs whether these beliefs involve God or models.

Add in the simple fact that models are becoming increasingly reflections of math rather than experiment and you can see that science is losing its ties to reality, especially on the cutting edge.

 

Maybe you need to explain what this "different perspective" is. You haven't done a good job of that so far.

In a nutshell it is what the world looks like from a scientific perspective without the models.

This will prove quite difficult for most individuals because most people don't know what they know.

For some a first step might be reading "The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science".

There are others but they might be considered off topic here and I'm considering starting a more apt thread; "Metascience".

 

If math is not applicable in the real world, then how is it we can identify the location of orbiting objects in space? Or know when a comet will show up? Or how to get to the moon?

 

Copernicus was correct assuming the earth orbits the sun, but his math was incomplete. It was Kepler who discovered orbital patterns as "elliptical", not circular.

ISS (ZARYA)             1 25544U 98067A   15280.87785174  .00007073  00000-0  11371-3 0  99962 25544  51.6449 241.5603 0006347  12.7972  82.0158 15.54191378965570

Anyone with a PC and these two lines of data can accurately calculate the position of the International Space Station.

 

1. Epoch
2. Orbital Inclination
3. Right Ascension of Ascending Node (R.A.A.N.)
4. Argument of Perigee
5. Eccentricity
6. Mean Motion
7. Mean Anomaly
8. Drag

 

It's the same thing I spoke of earlier. If you stand on the track in front of a speeding freight train your life is in extreme danger. It doesn't matter if the exact outcome is predictable or not to the individual standing on the track. Of course if the train is still a mile away then perhaps it will be switched to another track or will derail before it gets to you. If it hasn't even left the Omaha station yet then many things might prevent it from killing you.

This same thing applies to the ISS. In twenty seconds it would be impossible to notice any deviation from its computed location and speed. But how about tomorrow or next year. This is one of the things that can be plotted in exquisite detail since it is large scale and brief duration but extend the time frame and no one knows. The forces that will affect it aren't even known yet and the events that will shape its future and its future trajectory aren't yet known. If it were simply abandoned and its orbit allowed to decay we couldn't begin to predict where it would crash or the shape of the debris. This would be affected by more subtle things like weather patterns and the myriad situations where the variables can't be identified and quantified.

If you open a pair of pliers you can predict exactly how much the handle must be opened to grip a three quarter inch bolt but you can't predict how much it must be opened to to grip a cherry that only exists in the form of a blossom.

Of course we apply math to nature all the time. But our understanding and our models are highly incomplete so math is of necessity always misapplied to a greater or lesser extent. With the ISS it's about 99.99999% properly applied in the short term. But even here if the people in the ISS all were to suddenly start off in the same direction the numbers would be thrown off. Obviously, in docking and maneuvering operation the orbit would change. In the real world there are always unknowns.

I think people are missing my points here. I'm hardly calling for an abandonment of math, science, and the ISS. Indeed, I'm not really asking anything here except that people try to see a different perspective. From this perspective the world looks far different than it does from the models. From this perspective the things that can be seen are just as real and some might be more important than even the models themselves.

I understand what he is saying and it is in fact true that mathematical models do not reflect reality in an obscure philosophical sense.

 

It's not in a philosophical sense but in reality.

Obviously models are tied to reality but the tie is indirect. Reality affects experiment and the models reflect experiment. The problem is that people are mistaking the model for the reality. There is no such thing as an "electron" but rather there are extensive experiments of many types which all say something similar to our "electron" must exist. This is no fine distinction when fundamental knowledge about the nature of electrons is lacking. Our understanding of models fools us into thinking we understand the reason so many experimnents say "electrons" exist.

When Plato says everything in this world is an imperfect representation of its perfect Form he captured the idea perfectly. Abstract ideas to Plato existed outside the mind and for many people it is a hard concept to grasp.

 

Yes. This is the nature of language. Words represent concepts rather than the thing itself.

To illustrate the point think of things that are not real in the sense that they have no physical existence such as money, home runs, equality or mathematics. These things everyone would agree are real but are some how more perfect because they are not physical. When we think of a chair or a table we call them real objects but we also recognize that our senses do not give us a perfect estimation of the thing itself. In a similar way our mathematical model, and other thinking tools in sciences are more perfect than the image they provide of the thing being studied. Ideas can be perfect because they are abstract and not bound by physical laws. Everything else is an estimation of reality.

 

Essentially true but not quite what I'm trying to convey.

Words represent concepts because there is no ideal for "chair" or "table" and there are many definitions and connotations for both words.

We see what we know and when we have a model for everything we tend to believe we know everything when in point of fact our ignorance is virtually complete.

I'm afraid though that I fall in the camp of those who think metaphysics has done more harm than good.

 

I'm using the definition of "metaphysics" as "the axioms and definitions upon which a science is founded". I never use another definition of this word.

 

There may not be any rules. But nature behaves in predictable ways as if there were such rules. As I say, we can't know what nature is "really" like, only what we observe. And what we observe appears to follow rules we can model.

 

Perhaps it's the belief that rules exist that is confounding things and holding up progress.

Nature behaves in predictable ways only in the short term and the large scale. In the long term and on the tiny scale nature is notoriously unpredictable. Man is part of nature yet in the affairs of man the future is also notoriously unpredictable. Indeed, nature is quite unpredictable all the time when all the variables can't be identified and quantified and this is almost all the time. For instance it's nearly impossible to predict what will happen in a power failure. Sure you can use statistics to estimate the number of fatalities but you certainly can't identify any of the victims before the fact.

No, nature has numerous characteristics and processes that are repeatable. You can compute how far a rock will move if you know the forces applied to it with great accuracy. This does not mean the rock is behaving laws nor that nature does. It merely means that we can identify gross and subtle ways that nature operates. It doesn't mean we know all the rules nor that nature must operate in some given way.

If you find the models confusing, that is your problem. It doesn't stop them being useful.

Reality cannot be known. Science is about what we observe. Whether that is "reality" is a philosophical argument and therefore undecidable and meaningless

 

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I know nothing about the other thread.

But science is merely the scientifiuc process, its results, and its axioms and definitions. Nature is reality and until we understand nature there are only scientific models which will become ever more encompassing unless this tool is already played out. Need I remind you we've been stuck on the unified field theory for nearly a century.

Real world referents of infinity exist if the universe is infinite. As you cannot prove it is not infinite, this is a baseless assertion.

 

And it probably can never be proved to be infinite and this assumes that cartesian geometry has any meaning in reality.

A real number can dwarf infinity. Numbers extend to infinity in two directions and if you can add more dimensions. How much is infinity squared? etc etc.

How many billions of vigintillion atoms exist? A few million? Each one of these may affect every other so in every collision there are a virtually infinite number of possible outcomes yet there are countless such collisions in even the briefest lenght of time. These collisions always determine the course of events yet the number of possible outcomes is staggering. If you convert these possibilities to ones ands zeros and the entire known universe with them (ones and zeros) you can still hold all this information for only the tiniest lenght of time. Infinity is child's play in comparison to the actual complexity of reality.

If the butterfly in China causes a hurricane here next week will the first water molecule that was exhaled by Ghengis Khan be the one that causes a leaf to fall that plugs a drain and floods a home? This comnplexity is boundless but we can't see it because we see our models and the understanding they generate. We are blind to what we don't understand.

 

I'd just like to add a word of support for Cladking: I'm enjoying reading your thoughts. And a word of sympathy too: I see you're struggling against the same jawdropping silliness that I've been dealing with myself in another thread.

 

Thanks.

People are so set in their beliefs they can only see a single perspective most of the time so they run out in front of a semi never seeing the car hidden behind it before they are hit. They check to make sure there's no car coming never realizing that if you don't look at the entire lane there might be a motorcycle in it. Despite the fact that riding a motorcycle is tantamount to suicide they won't put light extending away from the machine so it can be seen.

People live in a narrow world created not by human nature but by language.

 

These are models, based on what we observe.

 

As as been painfully explained to you dozens of times: science builds models of what we observe.

It builds models of experiment.

Observation merely drives experiment (and about everything else in science).

But that's not the same as claiming math is never applicable to the real world.

 

If you add one penny plus one penny you get two pennies and it doesn't matter if one is shiny and the other is corroded. Of course if a baby swallows the corroded one it might dissolve and be fatal and there's nothing you can buy for 2c any longer. It's painfully obvious as I've stated several times that we usually get away with applying math to the real world and this is because we recognize the limitations of math and the complexity of reality. We simply don't compute how much gas we'll need to drive to Hawaii.

But we do compute how long it will take to get home and whether we need to stop for gas even though we later learn the bridge is out or the car gets a flat. We can count our rabbits but if they share cages we can grossly underestimate the cost of rabbit food because 1 + 1 = 2 never applies perfectly to the real world. Nature doesn't hold still for our math and it doesn't do what we tell it to or does it obey laws.

 

 

 

The nature of reality is unknowable. Which is why metaphysics is pointless. You can just make up anything.

 

This statement looks absurd tome but that's just because we don't share the same perspective. You care about modelling the laws of nature and I don't believe there are any laws of nature and that models are confusing. You think metaphysics is magic and I think it's the rules of both ancient and modern science.

Reality is the object of all science because understanding reality is how predictions are made.

Only if you don't know what infinity is. (In other words, are ignorant of mathematics.)

 

Infinity is a mathematical construct just like the number "2". Neither exist though "2" does have real world referents. "Infinity" does not.

Unsupported assertion. Unless you can prove that the universe is finite?

 

Imagine a rocket that can accelerate to infinite speed. The pilot can withstand only a couple g's on a cointinuing basis so trying to reach the ends of the universe and report back is going to take a long time. Replace the pilot with instrumentation that can withstand 100 g's but again if the universe is immense there's no way of predicting how long is required to return with the data. Now imagine the rocket can by some means accelerate to infinite speed instantaneously. If it instantaneously returns with data from the edge of the universe then you know that the universe is finite. If it doesn't return immediately then what have you learned? Are we to believe its still traveling at infinite speed seeking the edge but just can't find it? How can infinite distance trump infinte speed. By definition it must go "all the way" immediately.

I repeat, for all real world applications there is no such thing as infinity. Reality creates staggeringly large numbers that dwarf "infinity" for all practical purposes anyway.

Mathematics is a construct that works only because it reflects the logic of nature.

You may not have noticed, but there are more than two things out there. (Apart from the fact that your claim is bogus.)

You may not have noticed, but there are more than two things out there. (Apart from the fact that your claim is bogus.)

 

But there may be no two identical things. Even if there were two identical thing time exists to keep them from occupying the same place and hence they can't be completely identical.

I'm with Strange here. Overall, I think that the post is finally moving in the right direction. But is there any evidence that you can cite that improved knowledge of metaphysics leads to reduction in errors? Or is this just your opinion? Just being your opinion is fine, it just shouldn't be presented as fact.

It is merely an opinion based on logic and my own (limited) experience.

We see what we believe and in the case of educated scientists we see what we know as derived from models of experiments. If we better understand the nature of these experiments and how our models are constructed we should simply see this as well. We'll better observe the reality if we understand we can't really look at reality directly.

We need to recognize that we aren't so much seeking reality but rather its effects on experiment. This is all metaphysics so better understanding of metaphysics should directly translate to a better understanding of the nature of models and of reality itself.

This is why I believe metaphysics should be taught from infancy and drilled into them by six or seven. Scientific observation should begin about this time as well. History of science should be taught from 6th grade on and a 7th step should be added to the scientific method; Metaphysical Implications.

Perhaps even more importantly we need to better define words and language and create a special language for philosophy where words have but a single meaning. This would be a scientific language at least to the degree it's "repeatable".

Everyone won't agree but we also need to train some in generalism as a sort of specialty.

We are each a product of our beliefs but we are open to input in these beliefs through education (especially at a young age). We are also a product of language and unfortunately that language is confused. We don't exist because we think but rather we think because we exist. I believe with greater attention to the nature of science most of the world's problems will begin correcting themselves in a few generations.

Probably because it lacked math

Mebbe it was because you can't divide by zero.

Language defines words and math uses language to phrase the axioms, postulates, and definitions by which it operates. Math is constrained by these definitions before it even begins.

Take the concept of "infinity" for example. In the real world the odds against of every event makes the concept of "infinity" seem like a fraction rather than being infinite. In the real world infinity can't be expressed except as a construct or in mathematics. In the real world infinity doesn't even exist. The concept can not be accurately applied to anything at all. There is a finite chance that all the air could "suddenly" be gone in a given area and the larger the area the lower the statistical probability but it will never reach zero even if every molecule is stacked on top of one another all the way to Alpha Centari.

In the real world even numbers don't exist because you have to have two things to count. Numbers are constructs used in math and are not real.

Such concepts can not be expressed in math we use everyday. They fly in the face of the very definitions and axioms of math so reminding me that 1 + 1 = 2 is simply irrelevant.

I'm simply trying to define a perspective from which something different can be seen.

I now fear this is getting off topic so won't respond to these points further either.

 

He has had an entire thread dedicated to that subject. He never did manage to make a convincing case, oddly.

http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/87618-math-is-never-applicable-to-the-real-world-split-from-is-current-day-math-flawed/?hl=misapplied#entry851246

I disagree. That's why we have math.

 

Interestingly, it's a lack of math that generally causes many of these "new" ideas and speculations to be disregarded or quickly rejected.

Lol.

Math is always wrong as well. More accurately math is always misapplied.

More importantly and more relevantly to your point "math" is not language hence a "statement" can't be formulated at all. ie- Math can't even be wrong when viewed from the perspective of communication.

How do you add one red apple eaten last night and one apple that spoiled the bushel? How do you communicate the question, or any question, in math?

 

And yet that does not mean that the person speaking has committed a logical fallacy. The fallacy depends upon the context and on the "expert" being referenced.

 

 

It's impossible in modern language to express any complex thought and to be entirely correct in every aspect. Even the simplest thoughts expressed in modern language are open to deconstruction and misinterpretation. "I have one red apple" can have a virtually infinite number of meanings and it's worse if you consider homonyms. The point at which a green apple becomes a red apple during its life is not defined and, of course, all apples never become "red" in anyone's perception. The color "red" is a specific spectra of visible light but we take it as a given from language that all individuals percieve the same "red". Never mind that some people due to genetic or "traumatic" reasons hear the color red or smell it. Calling it an "apple" at all is a sort of appeal to authority since no apples are identical. One can own an apple (and access the net) or one can merely be holding an apple. Every means of having an apple has degrees. If you had an apple after dinner last night it becomes almost impossible to have it taken. No red apple is red on the inside nor are the stems and seeds red. The tree it grew (groes) on is probably never very red. Its roots are not red. The apple probably began its life as a white flower. The apple might be used to begin an apple orchard which would make it a very different apple than the one which rotted and spoiled a bushel.

Since we're all wrong all the time and so very little is known we should be seeking the ideas which hold reality together in our minds but the concept of "reality" is excluded from modern science's metaphysics. The idea that reality was determined by perception resulted in an intentional exclusion of perceptions and reality. "Reality" affects science only through its effect on experiment. We build models as a mnemonic to remember these experiments and then tend to accept the models as reality itself. We see and understand the world as these models and see only what we expect and are blind to what we don't expect. We speak and understand in such terms. Effectively we can't speak without appealing to authority and we are necessarily misunderstood as the thoughts we try to express become more complicated.

Experts are simply on the cutting edge of the state of the art. They always try to use the same language whether the subject is cosmology or art history. If you are outside this circle or use words that are not current you are marked as being wrong and being a crackpot from the moment you speak.

Human knowledge has been divided into countless thousands of specialties but reality is never divided at all. We try to isolate variable for experiment but the real world simply doesn't work this way. Each specialist usually has extensive training in some small aspect of human knowledge and we believe this training reflects reality while, in fact it really just represents an aspect of our model of experiment. Nature has repeating processes that extend throughout its range. Math and its logic is merely an example of an aspect of reality. Since this repetition repeats it's only natural that someone treained in chemistry might have an insight that applies to factory construction or cosmology. A factory sweeper might have an insight that applies to all human existence or the nature of language.

Dividing knowledge into specialties is unnatural so it's hardly surprising that it might be noticed.

Specialization is necessary due to the huge extent of human knowledge but this specialization has teamed with technology, modelling, and language to cause people to believe they know almost everything. It has caused people to believe that nature behaves laws and that we understand some of these laws.

It has caused people to see only what they know and to be blind to everything else. Since we each see only what we know we mistakingly believe we know far far more than we actually do. We each look and see a red apple but we don't realize that a red apple means something very different to different people.

I'll probably abandon this thread due to its new location. I do tend to try to support points already made however, so will probably be back iff challenged.

 

By the way, am I allowed to smoke in this section?

No one will know you're smoking if you just blow the smoke out the windows.

Virtual smoke doesn't cause cancer so few will care if they notice.

Coffee and doughnuts are only served early though.

 

Using expert opinion in place of evidence is the fallacy of argument from authority. Anyone trying that is likely to be called on it.

 

Most of what we believe is actually based on opinion. Science is based on axioms but these are expressed in language and most people have lost sight of the metaphysics anyway. Much of what we believe is passed down on our parents' knees while the language comes from our aunts and uncles. We learn a veritable wall of beliefs from teachers.

Persective is everything and we are wed to things like cartesian geometry as the foundation of reality itself or that in the beginning God created light. Many of the concepts that are so difficult to understand rewrite the axioms, definitions, or even language itself but few will respond in kind. They simply reiterate their axioms, definitions, and use the same language to say what is the prevailing opinion of the day; the opinion of experts. There is a knee jerk reaction to reject even the simplest concepts if they don't agree with the widely held belief that everything is already known, or at least, that the outline of reality is at our fingertips and is known as theory. Meanwhile people still don't notice that the simplest ideas like "gravity" are still not supported empircally. Measuring something is not the same as understanding it. We measure time but then experts tell us that one moment doesn't even follow another or that it isn't "linear".

Everytime anyone speaks he is referencing expert opinion.

Science doesn't maintain the status quo.

 

It's called theory and is (ideally) derived from experiment.

Obviously every scientist doesn't support the status quo but "science" does.

Ideally, those challenging established science would understand the theories they are challenging. And, of course, for scientists it is the case. Unfortunately, it seems that the vast majority of people who post on science forums have no real understanding of the theories they challenge. They might have read a few news stories and watched some youtoob, but that's about it.

 

I'm not competent to judge all these hypotheses bandied about here. Some seem to be obviously crackpots and the individual proposing them has little training or understanding of the subject. Many seem uninterested in learning.

The problem is that all are treated the same.

I'm beginning to believe that there is little chance of physics or cosmology discovering a unified field theory and that it will arise from philosophy or another branch of science. Perhaps it will look much different than anyone realizes. If it were posted here on this forum tonight I have little doubt it would be ripped to shreds. I've seen several ingenius attempts at it and for all I know maybe one is right.

There are several things we all believe that future scientists will probably find remarkably humorous about current science. Some things can't be seen because you're too close and some because you're too far away. And others are merely hidden to your view. I may not see reality but from my vantage is obvious others might not as well.

While this is technically true, is it rather astounding the number of people who show up, tell us their idea is right, but cannot answer simple inquiries like "can you please show us how your idea makes better predictions than the currently accepted idea?"

 

If someone truly believes in an idea, I will never understand why they aren't trying to voraciously take in as much knowledge about that idea as possible. In this taking in of knowledge, they should learn a great deal of why the mainstream is different from their idea and be able to answer direct inquiries therein.

I very much agree.

 

If they understood the current paradigm, why can't they explain where they think it fails, or where their new idea is better? It's almost always the same, they cling to ideas they can't support, while hollering about how right they know they are, despite a lack of any supportive evidence.

 

We provide a section where you can challenge mainstream science if you can show why your idea might have any merit. It's separate from the mainstream so as not to get students in trouble with teachers. You're supposed to show some rigor and provide some predictions your idea makes that can be tested against reality, but most people just post guesswork with no substance. This is a discussion site for science, we like our talks to be grounded in reality, and we prefer our speculations to at least be tethered somewhere in the vicinity, so they don't float away from us and get stuck in the crazy.

I sympathize with your viewpoint but from personal experience I know that in some fields expert opinion can be formed with virtually no data at all. How does one challenge expert opinion when that opinion is mere assumption? Not every field of science is as cut and dried as the behavior of a diode or how a geode is formed. Some areas are more about assumption and deconstruction.

I guess I must stop here or go off topic.

I'm always "cladking" and I read many of your posts. Oddly enough we seem to usually be on the same page yet we don't often fully agree.

I hope to see you around.