science privilege — fork from acid epistemology
Locked
123
123
science privilege — fork from acid epistemology
 
|
Privileging "Science' — "Scientific Thinking" — "Scientific Method," even to the extent of deeming it the "best available" tool for acquiring knowledge and understanding, raises some, to me, interesting questions. The first and most obvious, is why certain questions and lines of investigation will axiomatically be excluded from consideration and therefore need not be raised. A lot, if not most, of the things that really interest me have been excluded from scientific consideration — by scientists. Other questions: Why does Science have this status when Science is not done scientifically? Feyerabend is my favorite critic, but there are many others, Kuhn and Knorr-Certina immediately come to mind, that document what appears to be a pretty "open secret" that Science is not scientific. Is Physics, or more specifically Quantum Physics and Quantum Cosmology, dead? The claim is made that physics espoused in String Theory or Quantum Loop Gravity and the various interpretations of Quantum physics are no longer Science but mere philosophy. Why is Science more demanding of orthodoxy than even the most rigid religion? Why does it seem there are no clear scientific, Peircian Consensus, answers to questions like, "Just how dangerous is Covid-19? (This is a softball question, I pretty much know the answer.) I have seen a lot of scientists on the list channeling, and paraphrasing, Giambattista Vico, "One truly understands only what one can create." (Who was a political philosopher.). Most recently, Marcus, who knows only what he can program. Using programming as a metaphor for science — without any criticism of Marcus — and using as an example what is often considered the very first computer program, Lady Lovelace's calculation of the Fibonacci Numbers. (What was published was not really a program, it was what we could call today a Stack Trace.) Most computers are embodied Turing Machines, including the "infinite tape" passing beneath the read-write head. This means there are, quite literally, an infinite number of programs that can calculate Fibonacci numbers. Most apparent argument for this statement: I could write the program in any of a thousand different programming languages and the compiled sequence — the string of ones and zeros — would not be identical across those programs. There is no way to determine if one program is "more correct" or "better" than any other except by positing arbitrary criteria; e.g. number of machine cycles consumed, memory 'footprint', time of execution, readability of the source code. Something analogous could be said about scientific theory (I think) in that, scientific theories are judged on the basis of extrinsic, arbitrary, criteria. And this raises my final question (at least for now), although philosophy may not be essential or integral to the conduct of science, why is it not central to questions about meta-science, i.e. the determination of the extrinsic criteria used to evaluate scientific theory and similar meta-questions about science? davew ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
|
In trying to infer an arc from your post, I reduced it to these bullets:
1) preclusion of some lines of investigation 2) science is not scientific 3) physics devolving into metaphysics 4) practical questions science can't answer ("dangerosity") 5) robustness and polyphenism in computing 6) extrinsic, arbitrary evaluations of scientific theories 7) philosophy in science vs. philosophy in meta-science I'm largely ignorant of how evolution and natural selection work. But it strikes me that everything you pose here can be viewed from an evolutionary stance. I don't want to throw words at them individually because when we do that, the bubble of words balloons out of control. So, I'll just take overly concise swipes. (1) Every investigation we actually take precludes investigations we *might* take because the investigation *modifies* reality. It's a matter of constrained resources (including time and space), serialization, and a generalization of the idea that the experiment modifies the experimental subject. So, preclusion will happen in science *and* any other behavior you choose. (If you consult Brigham Young, you preclude consulting Hui Neng, at least at that one time.) (2-5) Any collection of concrete things can be organized to form a predicate from which one extrapolates. From broken shells on the beach to words from dead people. Such assemblies, and the inferences they inspire, are a little bit analogous to bubble universes -- or alternate realities. If the collection "hangs together well", then some inferences are difficult to avoid. If the collection is sparse and divergent, then any given inference is just as "likely" as any other inference. Inversely, a motivated collector will selectively gather the starting collection so as to make her favorite inference more "likely" in the implied universe/bubble/reality. (6-7) This is really the complement to (1). The evaluations of scientific theories (or globs of knowledge in any other way of knowing) are endogenously defined by the evolving population of other theories. I doubt they are so much arbitrary as *wandering* and inertial, the scoring/eval of one generation has historical dependence on its lineage of predecessors. To establish the extent to which they are (or are not) arbitrary, we'd need to follow the evaluative methods, the scoring functions, across a statistically significant number of generations and develop quantitative ways of measuring their dependence on past scoring functions. That we have trouble doing that isn't because we can't or don't want to do it. It's because science is a *young* discipline. Rather than bemoan our limitations, we should be working to circumvent/overcome those limitations and make some progress. On 3/12/20 4:00 AM, Prof David West wrote: > > Privileging "Science' — "Scientific Thinking" — "Scientific Method," even to the extent of deeming it the "best available" tool for acquiring knowledge and understanding, raises some, to me, interesting questions. > > The first and most obvious, is why certain questions and lines of investigation will axiomatically be excluded from consideration and therefore need not be raised. A lot, if not most, of the things that really interest me have been excluded from scientific consideration — by scientists. > > Other questions: > > Why does Science have this status when Science is not done scientifically? Feyerabend is my favorite critic, but there are many others, Kuhn and Knorr-Certina immediately come to mind, that document what appears to be a pretty "open secret" that Science is not scientific. > > Is Physics, or more specifically Quantum Physics and Quantum Cosmology, dead? The claim is made that physics espoused in String Theory or Quantum Loop Gravity and the various interpretations of Quantum physics are no longer Science but mere philosophy. > > Why is Science more demanding of orthodoxy than even the most rigid religion? > > Why does it seem there are no clear scientific, Peircian Consensus, answers to questions like, "Just how dangerous is Covid-19? (This is a softball question, I pretty much know the answer.) > > I have seen a lot of scientists on the list channeling, and paraphrasing, Giambattista Vico, "One truly understands only what one can create." (Who was a political philosopher.). Most recently, Marcus, who knows only what he can program. > > Using programming as a metaphor for science — without any criticism of Marcus — and using as an example what is often considered the very first computer program, Lady Lovelace's calculation of the Fibonacci Numbers. (What was published was not really a program, it was what we could call today a Stack Trace.) > > Most computers are embodied Turing Machines, including the "infinite tape" passing beneath the read-write head. This means there are, quite literally, an infinite number of programs that can calculate Fibonacci numbers. Most apparent argument for this statement: I could write the program in any of a thousand different programming languages and the compiled sequence — the string of ones and zeros — would not be identical across those programs. > > There is no way to determine if one program is "more correct" or "better" than any other except by positing arbitrary criteria; e.g. number of machine cycles consumed, memory 'footprint', time of execution, readability of the source code. > > Something analogous could be said about scientific theory (I think) in that, scientific theories are judged on the basis of extrinsic, arbitrary, criteria. > > And this raises my final question (at least for now), although philosophy may not be essential or integral to the conduct of science, why is it not central to questions about meta-science, i.e. the determination of the extrinsic criteria used to evaluate scientific theory and similar meta-questions about science? -- ☣ uǝlƃ ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
uǝʃƃ ⊥ glen
|
Re: science privilege — fork from acid epistemology
|
|
In reply to this post by Prof David West
Dave,
Yes, and .... I am stewing about Glen's challenge to produce any EVIDENCE that philosophy has EVER helped science. I think part of the problem with that is that when a philosophical insight gets incorporated into science it begins to look like method, rather than like philosophy. Think how Peirce's philosophy seems to be embodied in statistics. But then, one could argue, it ws Poincare's (?) statistics that got embodied in Peirce's philosophy. Nick Nicholas Thompson Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology Clark University [hidden email] https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/ -----Original Message----- From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Prof David West Sent: Thursday, March 12, 2020 5:00 AM To: [hidden email] Subject: [FRIAM] science privilege — fork from acid epistemology Privileging "Science' — "Scientific Thinking" — "Scientific Method," even to the extent of deeming it the "best available" tool for acquiring knowledge and understanding, raises some, to me, interesting questions. The first and most obvious, is why certain questions and lines of investigation will axiomatically be excluded from consideration and therefore need not be raised. A lot, if not most, of the things that really interest me have been excluded from scientific consideration — by scientists. Other questions: Why does Science have this status when Science is not done scientifically? Feyerabend is my favorite critic, but there are many others, Kuhn and Knorr-Certina immediately come to mind, that document what appears to be a pretty "open secret" that Science is not scientific. Is Physics, or more specifically Quantum Physics and Quantum Cosmology, dead? The claim is made that physics espoused in String Theory or Quantum Loop Gravity and the various interpretations of Quantum physics are no longer Science but mere philosophy. Why is Science more demanding of orthodoxy than even the most rigid religion? Why does it seem there are no clear scientific, Peircian Consensus, answers to questions like, "Just how dangerous is Covid-19? (This is a softball question, I pretty much know the answer.) I have seen a lot of scientists on the list channeling, and paraphrasing, Giambattista Vico, "One truly understands only what one can create." (Who was a political philosopher.). Most recently, Marcus, who knows only what he can program. Using programming as a metaphor for science — without any criticism of Marcus — and using as an example what is often considered the very first computer program, Lady Lovelace's calculation of the Fibonacci Numbers. (What was published was not really a program, it was what we could call today a Stack Trace.) Most computers are embodied Turing Machines, including the "infinite tape" passing beneath the read-write head. This means there are, quite literally, an infinite number of programs that can calculate Fibonacci numbers. Most apparent argument for this statement: I could write the program in any of a thousand different programming languages and the compiled sequence — the string of ones and zeros — would not be identical across those programs. There is no way to determine if one program is "more correct" or "better" than any other except by positing arbitrary criteria; e.g. number of machine cycles consumed, memory 'footprint', time of execution, readability of the source code. Something analogous could be said about scientific theory (I think) in that, scientific theories are judged on the basis of extrinsic, arbitrary, criteria. And this raises my final question (at least for now), although philosophy may not be essential or integral to the conduct of science, why is it not central to questions about meta-science, i.e. the determination of the extrinsic criteria used to evaluate scientific theory and similar meta-questions about science? davew ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
|
|
That is confused. What I asked for was evidence that having philosophical conversations improves the science being produced by those having the conversations. The *history* project of showing the evolution of philosophical ideas into scientific ideas is straightforward. But that's not what needs to be demonstrated.
A controlled experiment might be to take a standardized data set [†] from 2 labs, perhaps chemistry labs. One lab will be subjected to weekly "salons" and the other one won't. Then after the intervention, both labs will be measured again. If there's a significant difference in the measures, then the weekly discussions had an impact. Of course, you might have to control for social team building... so maybe there are 3 arms, one group holds salons, one group does nothing, and one group plays poker. I don't know. But *that* was my challenge... to demonstrate that conversations like yours and Dave's lead to better science. [†] Of course, which measures to choose is a hard problem. You'd have to define "better science". But a standard one might be publication targets' impact factor, ratio of rejections to acceptances, citations of the publications, etc. On 3/12/20 9:22 AM, [hidden email] wrote: > ... produce any EVIDENCE that philosophy has EVER helped science. I think part of the problem with that is that when a philosophical insight gets incorporated into science it begins to look like method, rather than like philosophy. Think how Peirce's philosophy seems to be embodied in statistics. But then, one could argue, it ws Poincare's (?) statistics that got embodied in Peirce's philosophy. -- ☣ uǝlƃ ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
uǝʃƃ ⊥ glen
|
Re: science privilege — fork from acid epistemology
|
|
G
Ah! When you say that the benefit of philosophy to science is "straightforward", what do you have in mind? N Nicholas Thompson Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology Clark University [hidden email] https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/ -----Original Message----- From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of u?l? ? Sent: Thursday, March 12, 2020 10:52 AM To: FriAM <[hidden email]> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] science privilege — fork from acid epistemology That is confused. What I asked for was evidence that having philosophical conversations improves the science being produced by those having the conversations. The *history* project of showing the evolution of philosophical ideas into scientific ideas is straightforward. But that's not what needs to be demonstrated. A controlled experiment might be to take a standardized data set [†] from 2 labs, perhaps chemistry labs. One lab will be subjected to weekly "salons" and the other one won't. Then after the intervention, both labs will be measured again. If there's a significant difference in the measures, then the weekly discussions had an impact. Of course, you might have to control for social team building... so maybe there are 3 arms, one group holds salons, one group does nothing, and one group plays poker. I don't know. But *that* was my challenge... to demonstrate that conversations like yours and Dave's lead to better science. [†] Of course, which measures to choose is a hard problem. You'd have to define "better science". But a standard one might be publication targets' impact factor, ratio of rejections to acceptances, citations of the publications, etc. On 3/12/20 9:22 AM, [hidden email] wrote: > ... produce any EVIDENCE that philosophy has EVER helped science. I think part of the problem with that is that when a philosophical insight gets incorporated into science it begins to look like method, rather than like philosophy. Think how Peirce's philosophy seems to be embodied in statistics. But then, one could argue, it ws Poincare's (?) statistics that got embodied in Peirce's philosophy. -- ☣ uǝlƃ ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
|
|
I'm not going to answer because that's irrelevant. The challenge is whether or not conversations like this impact the science done by those who have them.
On 3/12/20 9:56 AM, [hidden email] wrote: > Ah! When you say that the benefit of philosophy to science is "straightforward", what do you have in mind? -- ☣ uǝlƃ ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
uǝʃƃ ⊥ glen
|
Re: science privilege — fork from acid epistemology
|
|
Sorry, Glen. I didn't mean to imply any kind of argument in the matter. The comment just interested me, and I thought you might have information to share with me. It wasn't clear that I could even support the more general proposition, the one I thought you were making, let alone the more specific one that you actually made.
Nick Nicholas Thompson Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology Clark University [hidden email] https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/ -----Original Message----- From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of u?l? ? Sent: Thursday, March 12, 2020 10:58 AM To: FriAM <[hidden email]> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] science privilege — fork from acid epistemology I'm not going to answer because that's irrelevant. The challenge is whether or not conversations like this impact the science done by those who have them. On 3/12/20 9:56 AM, [hidden email] wrote: > Ah! When you say that the benefit of philosophy to science is "straightforward", what do you have in mind? -- ☣ uǝlƃ ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
Re: science privilege — fork from acid epistemology
|
|
I'll venture a comment. My last position at Carnegie Mellon was as a "Principal Scientist" in the Philosophy Department. My colleagues over the years had developed algorithms for inferring causal models based on observational data. Didn't someone here recently say that correlation is not causation? My job was to implement the algorithms and to develop online user interfaces to make them available to practicing scientists. My colleagues were bonafide philosophers of science. I think I've already mentioned their book "Causation, Prediction, and Search". See http://www.phil.cmu.edu/tetrad for details. Frank Frank C. Wimberly 505 670-9918 Santa Fe, NM On Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 11:06 AM <[hidden email]> wrote: Sorry, Glen. I didn't mean to imply any kind of argument in the matter. The comment just interested me, and I thought you might have information to share with me. It wasn't clear that I could even support the more general proposition, the one I thought you were making, let alone the more specific one that you actually made. ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
Re: science privilege — fork from acid epistemology
|
|
Not part of Tetrad but more philosophical see: Glymour, C., and Wimberly, F.
Actual Causes and Thought Experiments,
in Joseph Keim Campbell, Michael O'Rourke, Harry S. Silverstein (eds.),
Causation and Explanation, MIT Press, Cambridge, July 2007.--- Frank C. Wimberly 505 670-9918 Santa Fe, NM ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
|
|
How is this related to conversations about whether or not hallucinations are real?
On 3/12/20 10:53 AM, Frank Wimberly wrote: > Not part of Tetrad but more philosophical see: > > Glymour, C., and Wimberly, F. > Actual Causes and Thought Experiments, > in Joseph Keim Campbell, Michael O'Rourke, Harry S. Silverstein (eds.), > Causation and Explanation, MIT Press, Cambridge, July 2007. -- ☣ uǝlƃ ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
uǝʃƃ ⊥ glen
|
Re: science privilege — fork from acid epistemology
|
|
Not much I expect. The only hallucinations I've had are boring flashing lights and geometric patterns. --- Frank C. Wimberly 505 670-9918 Santa Fe, NM On Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 11:55 AM uǝlƃ ☣ <[hidden email]> wrote: How is this related to conversations about whether or not hallucinations are real? ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
Re: science privilege — fork from acid epistemology
|
|
In reply to this post by thompnickson2
The evolution of philosophy to science is ubiquitous. Charles Needham documented how essentially all of Chinese science evolved from, mostly, Taoist philosophy. Computational Science ala Leibniz derived from the Theistic Philosophy of Ramon Lull. Alchemy to Chemistry, etc. etc.
I agree with Glen, that is irrelevant to the problem he posed. Can't provide a controlled experiment of the sort he suggested, but I can provide a supporting anecdote. The software apprenticeship program I did at Highlands mandated a whole lot of philosophy and history of computing and technology as well as some Taoism and other philosophical odds and ends. We also made them read poetry and study anthropology, so the philosophy may or may not have been the prime determinant of results. But, 22 students, 1 year in the program including freshmen who could not use a word processor to a couple of grad students with professional experience. (We had a one-room classroom.) 10 of the students published papers, that year, at one of the two refereed conferences with the highest rejection rates in the US at the time. The "no cut and paste" student was supervising other students working on a Java J2EE project for the State Engineer's Office after one semester. All of the students, including the freshmen with only that one year of apprenticeship, were placed in full-time developer jobs at the State of New Mexico or Los Alamos Labs (in admin area, not nuclear science area) when felon Aragon canceled the program. The work of the students won an award from the New Mexico Information, Software, and Technology Association. Definitely above average performance and due, at least in some small measure, to the philosophy — or so I think. davew On Thu, Mar 12, 2020, at 6:05 PM, [hidden email] wrote: > Sorry, Glen. I didn't mean to imply any kind of argument in the > matter. The comment just interested me, and I thought you might have > information to share with me. It wasn't clear that I could even > support the more general proposition, the one I thought you were > making, let alone the more specific one that you actually made. > > Nick > > Nicholas Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology > Clark University > [hidden email] > https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/ > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of u?l? ? > Sent: Thursday, March 12, 2020 10:58 AM > To: FriAM <[hidden email]> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] science privilege — fork from acid epistemology > > I'm not going to answer because that's irrelevant. The challenge is > whether or not conversations like this impact the science done by those > who have them. > > On 3/12/20 9:56 AM, [hidden email] wrote: > > Ah! When you say that the benefit of philosophy to science is "straightforward", what do you have in mind? > -- > ☣ uǝlƃ > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe > http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove > ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
Re: science privilege — fork from acid epistemology
|
|
the papers were papers in the main tracks of the conference — not student poster presentations.
davew On Thu, Mar 12, 2020, at 7:13 PM, Prof David West wrote: > The evolution of philosophy to science is ubiquitous. Charles Needham > documented how essentially all of Chinese science evolved from, mostly, > Taoist philosophy. Computational Science ala Leibniz derived from the > Theistic Philosophy of Ramon Lull. Alchemy to Chemistry, etc. etc. > > I agree with Glen, that is irrelevant to the problem he posed. > > Can't provide a controlled experiment of the sort he suggested, but I > can provide a supporting anecdote. > > The software apprenticeship program I did at Highlands mandated a whole > lot of philosophy and history of computing and technology as well as > some Taoism and other philosophical odds and ends. We also made them > read poetry and study anthropology, so the philosophy may or may not > have been the prime determinant of results. > > But, 22 students, 1 year in the program including freshmen who could > not use a word processor to a couple of grad students with professional > experience. (We had a one-room classroom.) > > 10 of the students published papers, that year, at one of the two > refereed conferences with the highest rejection rates in the US at the > time. > > The "no cut and paste" student was supervising other students working > on a Java J2EE project for the State Engineer's Office after one > semester. > > All of the students, including the freshmen with only that one year of > apprenticeship, were placed in full-time developer jobs at the State of > New Mexico or Los Alamos Labs (in admin area, not nuclear science area) > when felon Aragon canceled the program. > > The work of the students won an award from the New Mexico Information, > Software, and Technology Association. > > Definitely above average performance and due, at least in some small > measure, to the philosophy — or so I think. > > davew > > > On Thu, Mar 12, 2020, at 6:05 PM, [hidden email] wrote: > > Sorry, Glen. I didn't mean to imply any kind of argument in the > > matter. The comment just interested me, and I thought you might have > > information to share with me. It wasn't clear that I could even > > support the more general proposition, the one I thought you were > > making, let alone the more specific one that you actually made. > > > > Nick > > > > Nicholas Thompson > > Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology > > Clark University > > [hidden email] > > https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/ > > > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of u?l? ? > > Sent: Thursday, March 12, 2020 10:58 AM > > To: FriAM <[hidden email]> > > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] science privilege — fork from acid epistemology > > > > I'm not going to answer because that's irrelevant. The challenge is > > whether or not conversations like this impact the science done by those > > who have them. > > > > On 3/12/20 9:56 AM, [hidden email] wrote: > > > Ah! When you say that the benefit of philosophy to science is "straightforward", what do you have in mind? > > -- > > ☣ uǝlƃ > > > > ============================================================ > > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe > > http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > > archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ > > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove > > > > > > ============================================================ > > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > > archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ > > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove > > ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
Re: science privilege — fork from acid epistemology
|
|
In reply to this post by gepr
I didn't intend for it to address hallucinations but to give an example of philosophers aiding in the advance of science. --- Frank C. Wimberly 505 670-9918 Santa Fe, NM On Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 11:55 AM uǝlƃ ☣ <[hidden email]> wrote: How is this related to conversations about whether or not hallucinations are real? ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
Re: science privilege — fork from acid epistemology
|
|
In reply to this post by gepr
I will try to reduce it to three elements:
1) Once upon a time I had hoped that that Peirce in specific and Science in general might provide some "sense making" tools/insights that I could apply to fields of inquiry like alchemy, mysticism, and altered states. I am concluding that the hope is untenable as Science and Peirce have excluded them, deemed them "unworthy." They are not Real, by definition, hence can never be Scientific or addressed Scientifically. In parting ways, I imply, rather snidely, that Science is capable only of addressing the "easy problems." 2) If Science / the Scientific approach merits privilege should it not, at minimum, "eat its own dog food?" Should it not be Scientific? The empirical evidence suggests it is not. 3) At the fringes (e.g. quantum stuff) Science is necessarily Philosophical (metaphysical) and metaphorical. The Fringe exists as Science evolves into the future and as Science has evolved from the past. From philosophy you came and to philosophy you will return. :) Also, philosophy is, in some sense, meta to Science. You can have a philosophy of science but not a science of philosophy. Ignore for the moment the labored attempt to make an analogy between programming and scientific theory. I will restate that at another time in a clearer manner (if warranted by the discussion). davew On Thu, Mar 12, 2020, at 2:58 PM, uǝlƃ ☣ wrote: > In trying to infer an arc from your post, I reduced it to these bullets: > > 1) preclusion of some lines of investigation > 2) science is not scientific > 3) physics devolving into metaphysics > 4) practical questions science can't answer ("dangerosity") > 5) robustness and polyphenism in computing > 6) extrinsic, arbitrary evaluations of scientific theories > 7) philosophy in science vs. philosophy in meta-science > > I'm largely ignorant of how evolution and natural selection work. But > it strikes me that everything you pose here can be viewed from an > evolutionary stance. I don't want to throw words at them individually > because when we do that, the bubble of words balloons out of control. > So, I'll just take overly concise swipes. > > (1) Every investigation we actually take precludes investigations we > *might* take because the investigation *modifies* reality. It's a > matter of constrained resources (including time and space), > serialization, and a generalization of the idea that the experiment > modifies the experimental subject. So, preclusion will happen in > science *and* any other behavior you choose. (If you consult Brigham > Young, you preclude consulting Hui Neng, at least at that one time.) > > (2-5) Any collection of concrete things can be organized to form a > predicate from which one extrapolates. From broken shells on the beach > to words from dead people. Such assemblies, and the inferences they > inspire, are a little bit analogous to bubble universes -- or alternate > realities. If the collection "hangs together well", then some > inferences are difficult to avoid. If the collection is sparse and > divergent, then any given inference is just as "likely" as any other > inference. Inversely, a motivated collector will selectively gather the > starting collection so as to make her favorite inference more "likely" > in the implied universe/bubble/reality. > > (6-7) This is really the complement to (1). The evaluations of > scientific theories (or globs of knowledge in any other way of knowing) > are endogenously defined by the evolving population of other theories. > I doubt they are so much arbitrary as *wandering* and inertial, the > scoring/eval of one generation has historical dependence on its lineage > of predecessors. To establish the extent to which they are (or are not) > arbitrary, we'd need to follow the evaluative methods, the scoring > functions, across a statistically significant number of generations and > develop quantitative ways of measuring their dependence on past scoring > functions. That we have trouble doing that isn't because we can't or > don't want to do it. It's because science is a *young* discipline. > Rather than bemoan our limitations, we should be working to > circumvent/overcome those limitations and make some progress. > > On 3/12/20 4:00 AM, Prof David West wrote: > > > > Privileging "Science' — "Scientific Thinking" — "Scientific Method," even to the extent of deeming it the "best available" tool for acquiring knowledge and understanding, raises some, to me, interesting questions. > > > > The first and most obvious, is why certain questions and lines of investigation will axiomatically be excluded from consideration and therefore need not be raised. A lot, if not most, of the things that really interest me have been excluded from scientific consideration — by scientists. > > > > Other questions: > > > > Why does Science have this status when Science is not done scientifically? Feyerabend is my favorite critic, but there are many others, Kuhn and Knorr-Certina immediately come to mind, that document what appears to be a pretty "open secret" that Science is not scientific. > > > > Is Physics, or more specifically Quantum Physics and Quantum Cosmology, dead? The claim is made that physics espoused in String Theory or Quantum Loop Gravity and the various interpretations of Quantum physics are no longer Science but mere philosophy. > > > > Why is Science more demanding of orthodoxy than even the most rigid religion? > > > > Why does it seem there are no clear scientific, Peircian Consensus, answers to questions like, "Just how dangerous is Covid-19? (This is a softball question, I pretty much know the answer.) > > > > I have seen a lot of scientists on the list channeling, and paraphrasing, Giambattista Vico, "One truly understands only what one can create." (Who was a political philosopher.). Most recently, Marcus, who knows only what he can program. > > > > Using programming as a metaphor for science — without any criticism of Marcus — and using as an example what is often considered the very first computer program, Lady Lovelace's calculation of the Fibonacci Numbers. (What was published was not really a program, it was what we could call today a Stack Trace.) > > > > Most computers are embodied Turing Machines, including the "infinite tape" passing beneath the read-write head. This means there are, quite literally, an infinite number of programs that can calculate Fibonacci numbers. Most apparent argument for this statement: I could write the program in any of a thousand different programming languages and the compiled sequence — the string of ones and zeros — would not be identical across those programs. > > > > There is no way to determine if one program is "more correct" or "better" than any other except by positing arbitrary criteria; e.g. number of machine cycles consumed, memory 'footprint', time of execution, readability of the source code. > > > > Something analogous could be said about scientific theory (I think) in that, scientific theories are judged on the basis of extrinsic, arbitrary, criteria. > > > > And this raises my final question (at least for now), although philosophy may not be essential or integral to the conduct of science, why is it not central to questions about meta-science, i.e. the determination of the extrinsic criteria used to evaluate scientific theory and similar meta-questions about science? > > -- > ☣ uǝlƃ > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove > ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
|
|
Excellent! Thanks for making the arc more clear.
I think the advent of studies of the psychedelics as therapeutic interventions *do* apply to fields like alchemy, mysticism, and altered states. So, your (1) is either wrong or overstated. In particular, the attempt to show correlations between "bad trips" and neuroticism is a step in the right direction. Other examples might be the instances where meditation can correlate with *anxiety* as opposed to calm. I know these disambiguations of "good trips" vs. "bad trips" is waaay too coarse for you. What you want is very fine-grained parsing of the difference between one conversation with Hui Neng and another or answers to questions like the dangerosity of covid-19, sample-size-one questions, black swan questions, etc. Those people who claim science will *never* answer such questions or provide fine-grained experience parsing tools *might* be wrong. I believe they are. Science is simply too young for what you want. If humans survive long enough, we'll see science mature to a point where it can address such. And what you're doing right now *might* be part of that maturing. I don't know. Re: (2) - Science is (a little bit) and will be (more and more) scientific over time. When you say the empirical evidence suggests science is not scientific, what about reflective studies assessing scientific literacy among the population? Or the recent studies of the replication crisis? Are these not science evaluating itself? I also lump into this rhetoric those studies of religious belief, game theoretic studies of altruism, susceptibility to "fake news", etc. Sure, such studies are "soft". But I believe they'll get "harder" over time, as science matures. And re: (3), I believe you *can* have a science of philosophy. Classifications like "the big 5" (introversion, openness to new experience, ...), correlations between politics and psychological traits, so-called political ethics, etc., however flawed, target the fuzzy boundary between these domains. All that would be required for a science of philosophy would be to think up and execute experiments on philosophical people and artifacts. Again, your attempts to map 4 sources of knowledge across different philosophical traditions *could* be made scientific if you incorporated some *methodical* experimentation. It seems to me that you're simply impatient and overly restrictive in what you call "science" (as I think Nick tried to point out). On 3/13/20 4:21 AM, Prof David West wrote: > I will try to reduce it to three elements: > > 1) Once upon a time I had hoped that that Peirce in specific and Science in general might provide some "sense making" tools/insights that I could apply to fields of inquiry like alchemy, mysticism, and altered states. I am concluding that the hope is untenable as Science and Peirce have excluded them, deemed them "unworthy." They are not Real, by definition, hence can never be Scientific or addressed Scientifically. In parting ways, I imply, rather snidely, that Science is capable only of addressing the "easy problems." > > 2) If Science / the Scientific approach merits privilege should it not, at minimum, "eat its own dog food?" Should it not be Scientific? The empirical evidence suggests it is not. > > 3) At the fringes (e.g. quantum stuff) Science is necessarily Philosophical (metaphysical) and metaphorical. The Fringe exists as Science evolves into the future and as Science has evolved from the past. From philosophy you came and to philosophy you will return. :) Also, philosophy is, in some sense, meta to Science. You can have a philosophy of science but not a science of philosophy. > > Ignore for the moment the labored attempt to make an analogy between programming and scientific theory. I will restate that at another time in a clearer manner (if warranted by the discussion). -- ☣ uǝlƃ ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
uǝʃƃ ⊥ glen
|
|
|
One thing that might get in the way, here, is that *my* own concept of science values *negative results* as much or more than positive results. When someone says something like "science can't answer X", I look simply for whether interventionist experiments have been done on X. I care very little about whether the results are positive or negative, just that the experiments are being designed and executed. And if they're being done, then the statement "science can't answer X" is false, because the experiments are the science. If experiments are being designed and executed, then science is providing answers ... despite any individual's inability to understand what those answers might mean.
For example: Politics and Personality: Most of What You Read Is Malarkey https://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/politics-and-personality-most-of-what-you-read-is-malarkey From the article: > At least in the U.S., the party you believe in plays a big role in how you conceive of yourself. It feels good to think that your party is smarter, and that the smarts are what drive people to your party. It also feels good to say that the other guys are psychos. “ ‘It’s spurious, there’s no causal relationship,’ ” Verhulst says. “That could be pretty depressing for people who’ve invested a lot of time in this.” Here’s what won’t make a good headline: “Small and Spurious Correlation Shown to Have Been Backward, but It Doesn’t Matter That Much, Because the Point of the Paper Was That There Is No Underlying Causation After All.” This does *not* imply, to me, that science can't answer questions about politics and (genetic) traits. It says to me that it *can* and will answer them. If the answer is "there is none", then that's an answer from which we can develop different experiments that help refine that answer. We learn through failure, not through success. On 3/13/20 7:21 AM, uǝlƃ ☣ wrote: > [...] And re: (3), I believe you *can* have a science of philosophy. Classifications like "the big 5" (introversion, openness to new experience, ...), correlations between politics and psychological traits, so-called political ethics, etc., however flawed, target the fuzzy boundary between these domains. [...] -- ☣ uǝlƃ ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
uǝʃƃ ⊥ glen
|
Re: science privilege — fork from acid epistemology
|
|
In reply to this post by gepr
Glen, I really appreciate your response and insights.
You are certainly correct that much, or most, of my pique is simply impatience. But, I am here now, with these questions, and with a limited window within which to be patient. Should my great grandchildren have my interests, Science might serve them well, but is is frustrating right now. Science is far more reflective that I generally give it credit for. Your examples, save one, illustrate that. The one that I object to is "assessing scientific literacy" which, based on limited exposure, seems to be more of "checking to see if you are bright enough to agree with us" than evaluating what it would mean to be scientifically literate. A closely related, I think, topic is the push by computer science to have "computational thinking" embedded in elementary and secondary education as "essential." Computational thinking is exactly the wrong kind of thinking as most of the critical things we need to think about are not algorithmic in nature. The scientific and computational part of the climate crisis is the easy part. figuring out the complex social-cultural-economic-politcal answers to the problem is the hard part and I doubt it is reducible to scientific thinking and absolutely positive it is not amenable to computational thinking. Maybe when Hari Seldon has his psychohistory all worked out it will be different. :) It may very well be possible to develop a science of philosophy, but it will require relinquishing what, again to me, appears to be a double standard. Scientists are willing to wax philosophical about quantum interpretations but would, 99 times out of a hundred, reject out of hand any discussion of the cosmological philosophy in the Vaisesika Sutras — despite the fact that that Schrodinger says the idea for superposition came from the Upanishads. George Everest (the mountain is named after him) introduced Vedic teachings on math and logic to George Boole, Augustus de Morgan, and Charles Babbage; shaping the evolution of Vector Analysis, Boolean Logic, and a whole lot of math behind computer science. One could make a very strong argument that most of the Science that emerged in England in the 1800-2000, including Newton, was derived from Vedic and some Buddhist philosophies. But try to get a Ph.D. in any science today with a dissertation proposal that incorporated Akasa. [The Vedas posited five elements as the constituents of the universe — Aristotle's four, earth, air, fire, water, plus Akasa, which is consciousness.] Swami Vivekananda once explained Vedic philosophical ideas about the relationship between energy and matter to Nicholas Tesla. Tesla tried for years to find the equation that Einstein came up with much later. Try to get a research grant for something like that. A practical question: how would one go about developing a "science" of the philosophy of Hermetic Alchemy and its 2500 years of philosophical investigation. Information, perhaps deep insights, that was tossed out the window simply because some pseudo-alchemists tried to con people into thinking that lead could be turned into gold. Of course the proposal for developing such a science would have to be at least eligible for grants and gaining tenure, or it is not, in a practicial (take note Nick) sense. davew On Fri, Mar 13, 2020, at 3:21 PM, uǝlƃ ☣ wrote: > Excellent! Thanks for making the arc more clear. > > I think the advent of studies of the psychedelics as therapeutic > interventions *do* apply to fields like alchemy, mysticism, and altered > states. So, your (1) is either wrong or overstated. In particular, the > attempt to show correlations between "bad trips" and neuroticism is a > step in the right direction. Other examples might be the instances > where meditation can correlate with *anxiety* as opposed to calm. I > know these disambiguations of "good trips" vs. "bad trips" is waaay too > coarse for you. What you want is very fine-grained parsing of the > difference between one conversation with Hui Neng and another or > answers to questions like the dangerosity of covid-19, sample-size-one > questions, black swan questions, etc. Those people who claim science > will *never* answer such questions or provide fine-grained experience > parsing tools *might* be wrong. I believe they are. Science is simply > too young for what you want. If humans survive long enough, we'll see > science mature to a point where it can address such. And what you're > doing right now *might* be part of that maturing. I don't know. > > Re: (2) - Science is (a little bit) and will be (more and more) > scientific over time. When you say the empirical evidence suggests > science is not scientific, what about reflective studies assessing > scientific literacy among the population? Or the recent studies of the > replication crisis? Are these not science evaluating itself? I also > lump into this rhetoric those studies of religious belief, game > theoretic studies of altruism, susceptibility to "fake news", etc. > Sure, such studies are "soft". But I believe they'll get "harder" over > time, as science matures. > > And re: (3), I believe you *can* have a science of philosophy. > Classifications like "the big 5" (introversion, openness to new > experience, ...), correlations between politics and psychological > traits, so-called political ethics, etc., however flawed, target the > fuzzy boundary between these domains. All that would be required for a > science of philosophy would be to think up and execute experiments on > philosophical people and artifacts. Again, your attempts to map 4 > sources of knowledge across different philosophical traditions *could* > be made scientific if you incorporated some *methodical* > experimentation. > > It seems to me that you're simply impatient and overly restrictive in > what you call "science" (as I think Nick tried to point out). > > On 3/13/20 4:21 AM, Prof David West wrote: > > I will try to reduce it to three elements: > > > > 1) Once upon a time I had hoped that that Peirce in specific and Science in general might provide some "sense making" tools/insights that I could apply to fields of inquiry like alchemy, mysticism, and altered states. I am concluding that the hope is untenable as Science and Peirce have excluded them, deemed them "unworthy." They are not Real, by definition, hence can never be Scientific or addressed Scientifically. In parting ways, I imply, rather snidely, that Science is capable only of addressing the "easy problems." > > > > 2) If Science / the Scientific approach merits privilege should it not, at minimum, "eat its own dog food?" Should it not be Scientific? The empirical evidence suggests it is not. > > > > 3) At the fringes (e.g. quantum stuff) Science is necessarily Philosophical (metaphysical) and metaphorical. The Fringe exists as Science evolves into the future and as Science has evolved from the past. From philosophy you came and to philosophy you will return. :) Also, philosophy is, in some sense, meta to Science. You can have a philosophy of science but not a science of philosophy. > > > > Ignore for the moment the labored attempt to make an analogy between programming and scientific theory. I will restate that at another time in a clearer manner (if warranted by the discussion). > > -- > ☣ uǝlƃ > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove > ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
Re: science privilege — fork from acid epistemology
|
|
In reply to this post by gepr
BTW the ICPR conference on the science of psychedelics was just postponed till September because of Covid.
On Fri, Mar 13, 2020, at 3:21 PM, uǝlƃ ☣ wrote: > Excellent! Thanks for making the arc more clear. > > I think the advent of studies of the psychedelics as therapeutic > interventions *do* apply to fields like alchemy, mysticism, and altered > states. So, your (1) is either wrong or overstated. In particular, the > attempt to show correlations between "bad trips" and neuroticism is a > step in the right direction. Other examples might be the instances > where meditation can correlate with *anxiety* as opposed to calm. I > know these disambiguations of "good trips" vs. "bad trips" is waaay too > coarse for you. What you want is very fine-grained parsing of the > difference between one conversation with Hui Neng and another or > answers to questions like the dangerosity of covid-19, sample-size-one > questions, black swan questions, etc. Those people who claim science > will *never* answer such questions or provide fine-grained experience > parsing tools *might* be wrong. I believe they are. Science is simply > too young for what you want. If humans survive long enough, we'll see > science mature to a point where it can address such. And what you're > doing right now *might* be part of that maturing. I don't know. > > Re: (2) - Science is (a little bit) and will be (more and more) > scientific over time. When you say the empirical evidence suggests > science is not scientific, what about reflective studies assessing > scientific literacy among the population? Or the recent studies of the > replication crisis? Are these not science evaluating itself? I also > lump into this rhetoric those studies of religious belief, game > theoretic studies of altruism, susceptibility to "fake news", etc. > Sure, such studies are "soft". But I believe they'll get "harder" over > time, as science matures. > > And re: (3), I believe you *can* have a science of philosophy. > Classifications like "the big 5" (introversion, openness to new > experience, ...), correlations between politics and psychological > traits, so-called political ethics, etc., however flawed, target the > fuzzy boundary between these domains. All that would be required for a > science of philosophy would be to think up and execute experiments on > philosophical people and artifacts. Again, your attempts to map 4 > sources of knowledge across different philosophical traditions *could* > be made scientific if you incorporated some *methodical* > experimentation. > > It seems to me that you're simply impatient and overly restrictive in > what you call "science" (as I think Nick tried to point out). > > On 3/13/20 4:21 AM, Prof David West wrote: > > I will try to reduce it to three elements: > > > > 1) Once upon a time I had hoped that that Peirce in specific and Science in general might provide some "sense making" tools/insights that I could apply to fields of inquiry like alchemy, mysticism, and altered states. I am concluding that the hope is untenable as Science and Peirce have excluded them, deemed them "unworthy." They are not Real, by definition, hence can never be Scientific or addressed Scientifically. In parting ways, I imply, rather snidely, that Science is capable only of addressing the "easy problems." > > > > 2) If Science / the Scientific approach merits privilege should it not, at minimum, "eat its own dog food?" Should it not be Scientific? The empirical evidence suggests it is not. > > > > 3) At the fringes (e.g. quantum stuff) Science is necessarily Philosophical (metaphysical) and metaphorical. The Fringe exists as Science evolves into the future and as Science has evolved from the past. From philosophy you came and to philosophy you will return. :) Also, philosophy is, in some sense, meta to Science. You can have a philosophy of science but not a science of philosophy. > > > > Ignore for the moment the labored attempt to make an analogy between programming and scientific theory. I will restate that at another time in a clearer manner (if warranted by the discussion). > > -- > ☣ uǝlƃ > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove > ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
|
|
In reply to this post by Prof David West
FWIW, I agree completely with your gist, if not with your pique. The lost opportunity is implicit in the ebb and flow of collective enterprises. Similar opportunity costs color the efforts of any large scale enterprise. I can't blame science or scientists for their lost opportunities because triage is necessary [†]. But there is plenty of kinship for you out there. I saw this the other day: Your Mind is an Excellent Servant, but a Terrible Master - David Foster Wallace https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsAd4HGJS4o I'm tempted to dive into particulars on your examples (Vedic, Buddhist, Hermetics). But my contributions would be laughable. I'll learn from any contributions I hope others make. I've spent far too little of my life in those domains. [†] Both for the individual trying to decide what to spend their life researching and the whole (as Wolpert points out <https://ti.arc.nasa.gov/m/pub-archive/1476h/1476%20(Wolpert).pdf>). Most of the prejudice I encounter doesn't seem mean-spirited, though. Even virulent scientismists seem to be victims of their own, personally felt, opportunity costs. On 3/14/20 3:21 AM, Prof David West wrote: > Glen, I really appreciate your response and insights. > > You are certainly correct that much, or most, of my pique is simply impatience. But, I am here now, with these questions, and with a limited window within which to be patient. Should my great grandchildren have my interests, Science might serve them well, but is is frustrating right now. > > Science is far more reflective that I generally give it credit for. Your examples, save one, illustrate that. The one that I object to is "assessing scientific literacy" which, based on limited exposure, seems to be more of "checking to see if you are bright enough to agree with us" than evaluating what it would mean to be scientifically literate. > > A closely related, I think, topic is the push by computer science to have "computational thinking" embedded in elementary and secondary education as "essential." Computational thinking is exactly the wrong kind of thinking as most of the critical things we need to think about are not algorithmic in nature. The scientific and computational part of the climate crisis is the easy part. figuring out the complex social-cultural-economic-politcal answers to the problem is the hard part and I doubt it is reducible to scientific thinking and absolutely positive it is not amenable to computational thinking. > > Maybe when Hari Seldon has his psychohistory all worked out it will be different. :) > > It may very well be possible to develop a science of philosophy, but it will require relinquishing what, again to me, appears to be a double standard. Scientists are willing to wax philosophical about quantum interpretations but would, 99 times out of a hundred, reject out of hand any discussion of the cosmological philosophy in the Vaisesika Sutras — despite the fact that that Schrodinger says the idea for superposition came from the Upanishads. > > George Everest (the mountain is named after him) introduced Vedic teachings on math and logic to George Boole, Augustus de Morgan, and Charles Babbage; shaping the evolution of Vector Analysis, Boolean Logic, and a whole lot of math behind computer science. > > One could make a very strong argument that most of the Science that emerged in England in the 1800-2000, including Newton, was derived from Vedic and some Buddhist philosophies. But try to get a Ph.D. in any science today with a dissertation proposal that incorporated Akasa. [The Vedas posited five elements as the constituents of the universe — Aristotle's four, earth, air, fire, water, plus Akasa, which is consciousness.] > > Swami Vivekananda once explained Vedic philosophical ideas about the relationship between energy and matter to Nicholas Tesla. Tesla tried for years to find the equation that Einstein came up with much later. Try to get a research grant for something like that. > > A practical question: how would one go about developing a "science" of the philosophy of Hermetic Alchemy and its 2500 years of philosophical investigation. Information, perhaps deep insights, that was tossed out the window simply because some pseudo-alchemists tried to con people into thinking that lead could be turned into gold. > > Of course the proposal for developing such a science would have to be at least eligible for grants and gaining tenure, or it is not, in a practicial (take note Nick) sense. -- ☣ uǝlƃ ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
uǝʃƃ ⊥ glen
|
«
Return to Friam
|
1 view|%1 views
| Free forum by Nabble | Edit this page |