| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Immortalist" |
| Date: |
21 Mar 2007 10:39:08 AM |
| Object: |
Did The Scientific-Method Colonize The 20th Century? |
"...the [20th] century may be understood as a period during which the
scientific method colonized all modes of thought and changed the way
thinking is done..."
Just as the 20th century dawned with an unparalleled optimism
regarding the moral, social and scientific progress of humanity, it
ended with an unshakeable confidence in the promises of technology and
the power of free-market economics to deliver a better life for all
humankind.
....the 20th century, ..."has been dominated by a coming to terms with
science."
"On 25 October 1900, only days after Max Planck sent his crucial
equations on a postcard to Heinrich Rubens, Pablo Picasso stepped off
the Barcelona train at the Gare d'Orsay in Paris." ...from Freud to
the Internet, from pragmatism and relativity to Brave New World and
Hiroshima, ...the impact[s] of the arts, existentialism, feminism,
sexuality, genetics, medicine, the Great Society, race, AIDS, and
more.
Modern Mind:
An Intellectual History of the 20th Century
by Peter Watson
http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Mind-Intellectual-History-Century/dp/0060084383
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method
http://physics.ucr.edu/~wudka/Physics7/Notes_www/node5.html
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| User: "Ghod" |
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| Title: Re: Did The Scientific-Method Colonize The 20th Century? |
21 Mar 2007 12:23:30 PM |
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"Immortalist" <reanimater_2000@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1174491547.939077.35650@l75g2000hse.googlegroups.com...
[off topic spam-looking crap snipped]
Was there some point to this? Or did you just feel that there weren't
enough posts on usenet?
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| User: "Bobby Bryant" |
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| Title: Re: Did The Scientific-Method Colonize The 20th Century? |
21 Mar 2007 04:58:53 PM |
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In article <etrpmi$tl2$1@news.ks.uiuc.edu>,
"Ghod" <ghod@ameritech.net> writes:
"Immortalist" <reanimater_2000@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1174491547.939077.35650@l75g2000hse.googlegroups.com...
[off topic spam-looking crap snipped]
Was there some point to this?
Or maybe a dozen?
--
Bobby Bryant
Reno, Nevada
Remove your hat to reply by e-mail.
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| User: "Immortalist" |
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| Title: Re: Did The Scientific-Method Colonize The 20th Century? |
21 Mar 2007 09:06:09 PM |
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On Mar 21, 10:23 am, "Ghod" <g...@ameritech.net> wrote:
"Immortalist" <reanimater_2...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1174491547.939077.35650@l75g2000hse.googlegroups.com...
[off topic spam-looking crap snipped]
Was there some point to this? Or did you just feel that there weren't
enough posts on usenet?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma
Let us look at arithmetic as taught in the public schools. What could
be more educational? By that I mean, what could be more pure,
objective, factual, and untainted by doctrine? Watch out. Do you
remember the examples used in your elementary-school arithmetic text?
Most of the examples dealt with buying, selling, renting, working for
wages, and computing interest. As Zimbardo, Ebbesen, and Maslach point
out, these examples do more than simply reflect the capitalistic
system in which the education is occurring: They systematically
endorse the system, legitimize it, and, by implication, suggest it is
the natural and normal way. As a way of illustrating multiplication
and percentages, the textbook might have Mr. Jones borrowing $15,000
at 12 percent interest from a bank in order to purchase a new car.
Would this example be used in a society that felt it was sinful to
charge interest, as early Christian societies believed? Would this
example be used in a society that believed people shouldn't seek
possessions they can't afford? I am not suggesting it is wrong or evil
to use these kinds of illustrations in arithmetic books; I am merely
pointing out that they are a form of propaganda and that it might be
useful to recognize them as such.
The Social Animal - Elliot Aronson - 8th Edition 1999
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0716733129/
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| User: "Joshua Aaron" |
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| Title: Re: Did The Scientific-Method Colonize The 20th Century? |
21 Mar 2007 04:54:59 PM |
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On Mar 21, 12:23 pm, "Ghod" <g...@ameritech.net> wrote:
"Immortalist" <reanimater_2...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1174491547.939077.35650@l75g2000hse.googlegroups.com...
[off topic spam-looking crap snipped]
Was there some point to this? Or did you just feel that there weren't
enough posts on usenet?
Nicely put. My guess is there are not enough posts on usenet.
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| User: "Luminoso" |
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| Title: Re: Did The Scientific-Method Colonize The 20th Century? |
21 Mar 2007 04:25:23 PM |
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On 21 Mar 2007 08:39:08 -0700, "Immortalist"
<reanimater_2000@yahoo.com> wrote:
"...the [20th] century may be understood as a period during which the
scientific method colonized all modes of thought and changed the way
thinking is done..."
Just as the 20th century dawned with an unparalleled optimism
regarding the moral, social and scientific progress of humanity, it
ended with an unshakeable confidence in the promises of technology and
the power of free-market economics to deliver a better life for all
humankind.
...the 20th century, ..."has been dominated by a coming to terms with
science."
"On 25 October 1900, only days after Max Planck sent his crucial
equations on a postcard to Heinrich Rubens, Pablo Picasso stepped off
the Barcelona train at the Gare d'Orsay in Paris." ...from Freud to
the Internet, from pragmatism and relativity to Brave New World and
Hiroshima, ...the impact[s] of the arts, existentialism, feminism,
sexuality, genetics, medicine, the Great Society, race, AIDS, and
more.
Modern Mind:
An Intellectual History of the 20th Century
by Peter Watson
http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Mind-Intellectual-History-Century/dp/0060084383
The "scientific" way of looking at things did indeed
"colonize" the world, much as the work of the old Greek
philosophers did (twice). However, it's also possible to
look at the "scientific method" as just an expected
outgrowth of those old philosophies, not so much something
new unto itself but a new wrinkle on some old ideas -
something we may have gotten if Aristotle had lived longer.
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| User: "Bob Casanova" |
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| Title: Re: Did The Scientific-Method Colonize The 20th Century? |
21 Mar 2007 06:54:52 PM |
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On Wed, 21 Mar 2007 21:25:23 GMT, the following appeared in
sci.skeptic, posted by (Luminoso):
<snip>
The "scientific" way of looking at things did indeed
"colonize" the world, much as the work of the old Greek
philosophers did (twice). However, it's also possible to
look at the "scientific method" as just an expected
outgrowth of those old philosophies, not so much something
new unto itself but a new wrinkle on some old ideas -
something we may have gotten if Aristotle had lived longer.
The scientific method is qualitatively different. I doubt if
Aristotle, brilliant as he was, would have ever come up with
it, given that his brilliance was in the fields of logical
deduction and "thought experiments". Real-world controlled
testing of ideas, which is what the scientific method is
based on, wasn't his forte.
--
Bob C.
"Evidence confirming an observation is
evidence that the observation is wrong."
- McNameless
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| User: "Lawson English" |
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| Title: Re: Did The Scientific-Method Colonize The 20th Century? |
21 Mar 2007 09:33:04 PM |
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Bob Casanova wrote:
On Wed, 21 Mar 2007 21:25:23 GMT, the following appeared in
sci.skeptic, posted by (Luminoso):
<snip>
The "scientific" way of looking at things did indeed
"colonize" the world, much as the work of the old Greek
philosophers did (twice). However, it's also possible to
look at the "scientific method" as just an expected
outgrowth of those old philosophies, not so much something
new unto itself but a new wrinkle on some old ideas -
something we may have gotten if Aristotle had lived longer.
The scientific method is qualitatively different. I doubt if
Aristotle, brilliant as he was, would have ever come up with
it, given that his brilliance was in the fields of logical
deduction and "thought experiments". Real-world controlled
testing of ideas, which is what the scientific method is
based on, wasn't his forte.
The scientific method has its roots in belief in an aloof God that
doesn't actively control the universe. No sense in trying to discern the
laws of nature of they are based on Someone's divine whim.
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| User: "Immortalist" |
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| Title: Re: Did The Scientific-Method Colonize The 20th Century? |
23 Mar 2007 01:11:47 PM |
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On Mar 21, 7:33 pm, Lawson English <Laws...@nowhere.none> wrote:
Bob Casanova wrote:
On Wed, 21 Mar 2007 21:25:23 GMT, the following appeared in
sci.skeptic, posted by (Luminoso):
<snip>
The "scientific" way of looking at things did indeed
"colonize" the world, much as the work of the old Greek
philosophers did (twice). However, it's also possible to
look at the "scientific method" as just an expected
outgrowth of those old philosophies, not so much something
new unto itself but a new wrinkle on some old ideas -
something we may have gotten if Aristotle had lived longer.
The scientific method is qualitatively different. I doubt if
Aristotle, brilliant as he was, would have ever come up with
it, given that his brilliance was in the fields of logical
deduction and "thought experiments". Real-world controlled
testing of ideas, which is what the scientific method is
based on, wasn't his forte.
The scientific method has its roots in belief in an aloof God that
doesn't actively control the universe. No sense in trying to discern the
laws of nature of they are based on Someone's divine whim.-
When humans were under adaptive pressure to change the basic mammilian
"inference instincts" the scientific method was born. Below are two
approches to understanding the neural structures that allow the
mediation of inferencial warrant to highly probable outcomes which
were remembered, to transfer the similarity between the remembered
past and the imagined future, in relation to the present
circumstances..
THE PROBABILITY INSTINCT
It looks as if Kant, who thought our minds structure our perceptions,
was right. Probability was built into our minds. Our minds, the
electrochemical symphony that our narrowly evolved neural ganglia
play, impose an infrastructure on our thinking. The mind imposes a
background of time and space and causal connectedness. Scientists have
never seen a "causality" in the wild. They have seen, and they
predict, only space-time events that follow space-time events. Apples
on the tree, then apples in the air, then apples on the ground.
Equations and correlations have replaced causes, just as science has
largely replaced philosophy and religion as a theory of things. No
causal germ in one event unfolds into another event. But the mind, as
eighteenth-century philosopher David Hume observed, makes it seem so
and inserts the causal links in the event chain.
Probability seems to be part of the same mental infrastructure. It
forms part of our mental background or viewing screen along with time
and space and causality and similarity and the topological notions of
continuity and connectedness. We see probability everywhere because it
lies in our glasses.
I believe that probability or "randomness" is a psychic instinct or
Jungian archetype or mental trend that helps us organize our
perceptions and memories and most of all our expectations. Probability
gives structure to our competing causal predictions about how the
future will unfold in the next instant or day or season or millennium.
Probability ranks or weights the future alternatives. Our expectations
then blend or average these future alternatives into a single
probability-weighted average. The probability weights do not exist
outside our minds. They have no physical reality but have a powerful
psychological reality rooted in our neural mi-crostructure. Hume also
thought that we make up probability as we go and use it to fill in
gaps in our mind schemes or world views: "Though there be no such
thing as chance in the world, our ignorance of the real cause of any
event has the same influence on the understanding and begets a like
species of belief."
This probability instinct seems to cut across cultures and may cut
across species. Besides the probability-laden psychology of scientists
and most nonscientists, the widespread gambling and games of chance in
primitive and modern cultures suggest that probability "reasoning" may
be a cultural constant like hero worship or fertility rituals or
incest and adultery taboos. A cultural constant suggests a biological
substrate, and that requires an evolutionary history.
Ranking future alternatives can help pass on genes. Those who could so
rank may have eaten those who could not. It allows us to bet before we
act and improve the outcome of acting. That forward-looking ability
has supreme survival value in biological evolution, the genetic
variation and selection in the last few million years that has finely
sculpted our brains and minds, and in the prior evolution that
sculpted the brains and minds of our mammalian ancestors in the last
220 million years. Natural selection filters out organisms as they
cross the fuzzy line from the present to the future. Natural selection
favors brain mechanisms that help an organism make its next move in a
changing and dangerous world. These forward-looking brain mechanisms
may run deep in the structure of mammalian and even reptilian brains.
Future studies may find that the brains of chimps and apes and lesser-
brained mammals house a forward-looking probability instinct. At the
other extreme we should not be surprised that scientists have exalted
probability ranking into their grand organizing principle of maximum
probability. Scientists follow their probability instincts as their
hominid forefathers followed theirs. Scientists just know more math.
Fuzzy Thinking - The New Science of Fuzzy Logic
Bart Kosko
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/078688021X/
A new theory of cognitive biases, called error management theory
(EMT), proposes that psychological mechanisms are designed to be
predictably biased when the costs of false-positive and false-negative
errors were asymmetrical over evolutionary history. This theory
explains known phenomena such as men's overperception of women's
sexual intent, and it predicts new biases in social inference such as
women's underestimation of men's commitment.
Buss comments on Error Management Theory. In an uncertain world, two
potential errors in thinking: a. partner having affair (but isn't) b.
partner isn't having affair (but is) The cost of making those two
errors are very different. Those making the first error have less cost
(from a reproductive success standpoint) than those who make the
second. Theoretically we evolved toward vigilance and are more likely
to make adaptive error. Explains why men and women sometimes have
delusions that a partner is unfaithful or might be. "It's not paranoia
if they're really out to get you!"
http://www.psychologicalscience.org/media/releases/2002/pr020103.cfm
Error Management Theory
Humans live in an uncertain world. We rely on our senses to pick up
information from the world, and then use our information processing
capacities to make inferences about the true state of the world. Real
threats to our survival and relationships are not always readily
apparent, given the ambiguity and uncertainty of the information.
Consider a relatively simple problem of walking through the woods and
fleetingly sensing a slithering object scurry underneath some leaves
in the path directly in front of you. There are two possible states of
reality: either there is a dangerous snake in your path or there is
not a dangerous snake in your path. Given the incomplete and uncertain
information that you have percieved, there are also two inferences you
could make. There is indeed a dangerous snake, and you act to avoid
it. Or you could conclude that there is no snake and continue walking
down the path.
There are also two possible ways that you could be wrong. You could
believe that there is a snake when in fact no snake exists. Or you
could believe that no snake when in fact a venomous rattler is lurking
right in your path. The costs of these two types of errors, however,
are vastly different. In the first case, your belief causes you to
incur the trivial metabolic cost of taking an unnecessary evasive
action. By giving a wide birth to the area that you believe harbors a
snake, you have merely gone out of your way a little, incurring a
minor delay in your walk. In the second case, however, failing to
detect a snake that is in fact lurking in your path can cost you your
life. THe two ways of being wrong carry substantially different costs.
Now imagine that this scenario not only repeats itself thousands and
thousands of times in your liftime, but billions and billions of times
over human evolutionary history. Those who made the first kind of
mistake tended to survive, whereas those who made the second kind of
mistake tended to die. As a result, modern humans have descended from
a line of ancestors whose inferences about the uncertain world erred
in the direction of believing that snakes existed more than they do.
These can be called adaptive errors.
Consider uncertainty about whether your romantic partner is having an
affair or is likely to have an affair.... Continued on page 76 The
Dangerous Passion - Why jealousy is necessary as love and sex - David
M Buss
The Dangerous Passion:
Why Jealousy Is As Necessary As Love and Sex
by David M. Buss
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0684850818/
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| User: "Bob Casanova" |
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| Title: Re: Did The Scientific-Method Colonize The 20th Century? |
22 Mar 2007 03:32:03 PM |
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On Wed, 21 Mar 2007 19:33:04 -0700, the following appeared
in sci.skeptic, posted by Lawson English
<LawsonE@nowhere.none>:
Bob Casanova wrote:
On Wed, 21 Mar 2007 21:25:23 GMT, the following appeared in
sci.skeptic, posted by (Luminoso):
<snip>
The "scientific" way of looking at things did indeed
"colonize" the world, much as the work of the old Greek
philosophers did (twice). However, it's also possible to
look at the "scientific method" as just an expected
outgrowth of those old philosophies, not so much something
new unto itself but a new wrinkle on some old ideas -
something we may have gotten if Aristotle had lived longer.
The scientific method is qualitatively different. I doubt if
Aristotle, brilliant as he was, would have ever come up with
it, given that his brilliance was in the fields of logical
deduction and "thought experiments". Real-world controlled
testing of ideas, which is what the scientific method is
based on, wasn't his forte.
The scientific method has its roots in belief in an aloof God that
doesn't actively control the universe. No sense in trying to discern the
laws of nature of they are based on Someone's divine whim.
True; the scientific method is based on naturalism, and one
of the basic tenets is that the supernatural is *by
definition* outside the purview of science. But that's
essentially what my comment about the real-world testing of
ideas means.
--
Bob C.
"Evidence confirming an observation is
evidence that the observation is wrong."
- McNameless
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| User: "Robert Grumbine" |
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| Title: Re: Did The Scientific-Method Colonize The 20th Century? |
22 Mar 2007 07:44:05 AM |
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In article <c6h303p9623ruhst9vanpg6ss3nc8bsjns@4ax.com>,
Bob Casanova <nospam@buzz.off> wrote:
On Wed, 21 Mar 2007 21:25:23 GMT, the following appeared in
sci.skeptic, posted by (Luminoso):
<snip>
The "scientific" way of looking at things did indeed
"colonize" the world, much as the work of the old Greek
philosophers did (twice). However, it's also possible to
look at the "scientific method" as just an expected
outgrowth of those old philosophies, not so much something
new unto itself but a new wrinkle on some old ideas -
something we may have gotten if Aristotle had lived longer.
The scientific method is qualitatively different. I doubt if
Aristotle, brilliant as he was, would have ever come up with
it, given that his brilliance was in the fields of logical
deduction and "thought experiments". Real-world controlled
testing of ideas, which is what the scientific method is
based on, wasn't his forte.
Considering that Aristotle did live to a pretty good age
(approx 62) I'll agree that it wasn't something he was going
to come up with even if he'd lived longer.
On the other hand, if you read his work, you'll find that
he was not nearly as abstracted from real world examination
as the common portrayals of him are. I've read his Meteorologica
myself and it is fairly close to real-world observation. A
friend who is interested in philosophy in biology has read the
biological works, which are much more extensive, and says that
they are very much real-world focussed. So, although he
wasn't going, in his near future, to invent science in a
modern sense, it is plausible that a student could have
within a generation or two -- had the circumstances permitted
and/or supported. Instead ...
Followup set to sci.skeptic, where I saw this, and alt.philosophy,
which seems relevant.
--
Robert Grumbine http://www.radix.net/~bobg/ Science faqs and amateur activities notes and links.
Sagredo (Galileo Galilei) "You present these recondite matters with too much
evidence and ease; this great facility makes them less appreciated than they
would be had they been presented in a more abstruse manner." Two New Sciences
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| User: "Immortalist" |
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| Title: Re: Did The Scientific-Method Colonize The 20th Century? |
21 Mar 2007 09:16:20 PM |
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On Mar 21, 4:54 pm, Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off> wrote:
On Wed, 21 Mar 2007 21:25:23 GMT, the following appeared in
sci.skeptic, posted by (Luminoso):
<snip>
The "scientific" way of looking at things did indeed
"colonize" the world, much as the work of the old Greek
philosophers did (twice). However, it's also possible to
look at the "scientific method" as just an expected
outgrowth of those old philosophies, not so much something
new unto itself but a new wrinkle on some old ideas -
something we may have gotten if Aristotle had lived longer.
The scientific method is qualitatively different. I doubt if
Aristotle, brilliant as he was, would have ever come up with
it, given that his brilliance was in the fields of logical
deduction and "thought experiments". Real-world controlled
testing of ideas, which is what the scientific method is
based on, wasn't his forte.
--
Although he studied under Plato, Aristotle fundamentally disagreed
with his teacher on just about everything. He could not bring himself
to think of the world in abstract terms the way Plato did; above all
else, Aristotle believed that the world could be understood at a
fundamental level through the detailed observation and cataloging of
phenomenon. That is, knowledge (which is what the word science means)
is fundamentally empirical. As a result of this belief, Aristotle
literally wrote about everything: poetics, rhetoric, ethics, politics,
meteorology, embryology, physics, mathematics, metaphysics, anatomy,
physiology, logic, dreams, and so forth. We aren't certain if he wrote
these works directly or if they represent his or somebody else's notes
on his classes; what we can say for certain is that the words, "I
don't know," never came out of his mouth. In addition to studying
everything, Aristotle was the first person to really think out the
problem of evidence. When he approached a problem, he would examine
a.) what people had previously written or said on the subject, b.) the
general consensus of opinion on the subject, c.) and a systematic
study of everything else that is part of or related to the subject. In
his treatise on animals, he studied over five hundred species; in
studying government, he collected and read 158 individual
constitutions of Greek states as his fundamental data. This is called
inductive reasoning:observing as many examples as possible and then
working out the underlying principles. Inductive reasoning is the
foundation of the Western scientific method.
http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/GREECE/ARIST.HTM
But I think Sherlock Holmes, or detectives long before him, show how
sometimes there were scientific methods as good as the present.
Discovering philosophy / Thomas I. White. --Brief ed.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0135080037/
[2] - Trying to Explain Reality
A) Putting Yourself in the Right Frame of Mind
B) Explaining Your New World
- An Anthropomorphic Explanation
- A Natural Explanation
C) Before Philosophy, Mythic Explanations
- "Reality" in Myth
- Modern Mythic, or Anthropomorphic, Explanations
D) Reality Versus Appearance
-----------------------
[2] - TRYING TO EXPLAIN REALITY
A) Putting Yourself in the Right Frame of Mind
One good way to approach the concept of reality is to look at how the
first people who wondered about it tried to explain it. To understand
what these thinkers say, however, you should be in the same frame of
mind they were in. So be patient and try to imagine the following
scenario; it's all for a good purpose.
You are on a tropical cruise and you're having a terrific time. The
people are friendly and the weather is great. On the last night of the
cruise, however, you have too good a time and drink too much champagne
at the captain's farewell party. You decide to take a walk around the
deck to clear your head. As you stagger along, the ship unexpectedly
runs into heavy winds and rough seas. The ship lurches, and you fly
across the deck. As you try to get up, a huge wave crashes over the
ship. The ship pitches again, and you are washed overboard.
Unfortunately, no one realizes you're gone until the ship returns to
port. Your disappearance is a mystery.
The good news is that when you were thrown overboard, you grabbe hold
of a log in the water, and the winds and currents carried you to a
small island nearby. You are safe. The bad news is that you don't have
the faintest idea where you are. In fact, your head hit a stanchion
before you went overboard, and you have a ferocious headache and
complete amnesia. You do not know who you are, where you came from, or
anything about your past. Worse than that, you remember almost nothing
of what you learned through your years of schooling. You know you need
food and water, but beyond that, your mind is blank. It works, but
it's empty. Really empty!
So here you are, a sentient, intelligent creature surrounded by a
complex world. Light turns into darkness as a disc in the sky that is
too bright to look at moves across the sky and sinks into the waves.
When this happens, the sky sometimes changes into different colors.
Then countless smaller lights appear that move very slowly. After what
seems like a set period, the darkness goes away and the bright circle
returns-but from the other side of the island. The sky is usually
blue, the breeze warm and comfortable. But sometimes for no reason
dark gray objects cover the blue, and drops of water, loud noises,
hard winds, and lines of light come from the sky. Then the blue
returns. Food grows on the trees, and even replaces itself. You also
see other living beings, but they are different from you. Some live in
the water, others fly through the air. What does it all mean?
If you can imagine this situation, you can imagine your confusion and
fear. You are in an exceedingly complicated place. And because you
have a human mind, you also wonder about everything that is happening.
Your fear is mixed with curiosity.
B) Explaining Your New World
Having come this far, now try to imagine how you would understand this
world you know nothing about. First, you would probably attempt to
find some order in what you see. You would distinguish between the
things around you that move (animals, birds) and those that stay put
(plants, rocks). You would distinguish patterns-light (day) followed
by dark (night). You would also see that much about what happens is
unpredictable-the weather, for instance. Eventually you would develop
some sense of what your world consists of.
But describing things would not be enough for you. You would want to
understand what goes on, and why. How would you do that? How would you
explain, for example, the fruit on the trees, the passing storms in
the sky, and the coming and going of the bright disk? Think about that
for a minute.
- An Anthropomorphic Explanation
[anthropomorphic] An anthropomorphic account of something explains it
in human terms. For example, an anthropomorphic interpretation of
reality explains things in terms of who is responsible for them, not
simply what happened. Such an account regularly appeals to the notion
of divine beings.
Chances are your first explanation would be neither philosophical nor
scientific. The human animal is by nature very nervous, and you would
probably feel fear and awe at the great powers you witness in action
around you. Feeling pressed to calm yourself and to make some sense of
what you see, you Would start interpreting your world in the only
terms you know-your own human ones. You would probably believe that
other living beings cause what happens. You would personify things,
imagining that everything you see is alive like you, with a will and a
personality of its own. You would come to think that the winds blow,
the clouds move, and the plants grow because they want to. You might
even conclude that these natural occurrences express the will of one
or more superior, incomprehensible being whose actions may be benign,
or hostile, or completely arbitrary and indifferent.
Whichever explanation you come up with, your account of reality could
be called anthropomorphic-that is, your account would be given in
human form. ("Anthropomorphic" comes from two Greek words: anthropos,
"human," and morphe, "form.") Such an interpretation of reality
explains things in terms of who is responsible for them, not simply
what happened. And to the extent that your explanations consist of
stories about divine beings, this kind of thinking is also called
mythic. (Mythos is the Greek word for "story.") The anthropomorphic,
mythic mode of explaining reality obviously leads more in the
direction of religion than science, and this was essentially the
direction taken by the earliest human societies.
Notice what all this means for your understanding reality on your
island. I come to you and say, "Tell me, what exists, what is real?"
Your answer would not be that of twentieth-century Westerners-"what is
real is what I perceive with my senses." It would probably be more
like, "First, there is what I can see-the trees, the water, the
animals, and the sky. Then there is what I cannot see-the powers that
bring the storms and make the light come and go." Your conception of
reality would include material and nonmaterial things, you may very
well project human characteristics onto either, and you might even
imagine some of them as the equivalent of gods.
- A Natural Explanation
You'd probably start with an anthropomorphic, mythic account of
reality. But eventually some questions occur to you. You attempt to
test the wind, the sea, and the trees on your island, you try some
"experiments" to see if particular actions anger or please the gods
that rule them. Eventually, you conclude that what you do doesn't
affect things, that you cannot communicate with them, or at least that
they do not respond. Perhaps you decide these gods do not exist. Now
your thinking might go in a different direction. You might consider
the possibility that you and the events around you are all part of the
same system of natural, impersonal forces. You hypothesize that
everything that happens has a cause, and that these causes somehow lie
within the events themselves. Exactly how isn't immediately apparent,
but, you think, if you looked long and hard enough, you could figure
it out. You assume that the nature of the world around you can be
grasped by your mind. In essence, you opt to explain your world in
terms of some concept of nature. When you take this path, you are
following the steps of the first philosophers.
C) Before Philosophy, Mythic Explanations
The earliest human beings found themselves barraged by experiences
they did not know the meaning of, much as you were on the island. Some
of what happened was wonderful; some was terrifying. Along with their
fear and confusion, however, these people also had a basic impulse to
try to make sense of the world around them. We are curious creatures,
and we naturally want to understand what is happening around us.
That's why we're called Homo sapiens-"thinking man."
The first explanations we came up with about the world were
anthropomorphic and mythic, just like yours on the island. For about
2000 years before the Greeks tried their hands at explaining the
world, a number of major cultures in Egypt and Mesopotamia had
invented their own elaborate, but decidedly unphilosophical,
explanations of reality. These ancient cultures wove their myths into
highly organized religions. Every event was the product of actions
taken by a variety of gods and goddesses.
The ancient Egyptians personified and deified the world of nature
itself. The sun is one expression of Ra, king of the gods; the air is
the god Shu; the sky is the goddess Nut. The Nile is not a river that
ebbs and flows according to natural forces, but a being in its own
right that causes its own actions. Every year about the time the river
rose to flood crest, the pharaoh, who was also a god, offered it gifts
of thanks.
We find a similar phenomenon in Mesopotamia. The sky is Anu, the chief
god, and the storm is Enlil, another divinity. Items we think of as
ordinary and lifeless are even thought to have personalities and wills
of their own. Salt, for example, although not a god, is personified as
an agent that might help a victim of witchcraft. There was even a
proper way to ask its help:
"O Salt, created in a dean place, For food of gods did Enlil destine
thee. Without thee no meal is set out in Ekur, Without thee god, king,
lord, and prince do not smell incense. I am [fill in the blank], the
son of [fill in the blank], Held captive by enchantment, Held in fever
by bewitchment. O Salt, break my enchantmentl Loose my spelll Take
from me the
bewitchment] And as my Creator I shall extol thee.
- "Reality" in Myth
The first human attempts to explain the world see reality as having
both tangible and intangible forms. Trees, rivers, houses, and palaces
exist. But so do divinities. In fact, the invisible reality
of .immaterial gods and goddesses is superior to the visible reality
of the material world. Crops grow in the field and are harvested. Men
and women are born, and they die. But the gods are immortal.
The deities are also in charge. Humans are inferior creatures subject
to their will-or whim. Not even the world of nature moves by its own
power. Everything is under the sway of the gods. The Mesopotamian god
of the earth, Enki, controls whether crops grow, pastures flourish,
and orchards bear fruit. The world of nature is simply an expression
of the desires of gods and goddesses.
- Modern Mythic, or Anthropomorphic, Explanations
Mythic explanations of the world characterize all ancient,
prephilosophical civilizations. But that does not mean that myth
disappears with the advent of philosophy. Indeed, mythic and
anthropomorphic accounts of reality are a consistent part of human
history, persisting to the present day. Most contemporary religions,
like those of Egypt and Mesopotamia, offer essentially anthropomorphic
and mythic explanations of reality. In addition to the physical world
of our senses, religions tell of a spiritual dimension which is unseen
and superior to anything material. This is true of Judaism,
Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism.*
*It is important to tealize that when we label a certain kind of
thinking as "mythic," we are not saymS that it is "false" or
"imaginary." Mythic thinking is essentially "story-like," so it may
express "truth" in a different way than science or philosophy-more
figuratively than literally.
Once again, notice that this thinking presupposes that reality is both
material and nonmaterial, and that the latter is in every important
way superior to the former. So if you believe that something cannot
exist if it can't be examined with our senses, think again. To
billions of people on this planet, the things we cannot see are more
real than the things we can see.
D) Reality Versus Appearance
Although we will probe the anthropomorphic, mythic understanding of
reality no further, you should by now see that mythic, or religious,
interpretations of existence underscore clearly and dramatically a
very important point about the nature of reality, that is, the
distinction between reality and appearance.
In essence, a mythic, or religious, explanation explicitly holds that
the world is not at all what it seems to be. Things appear one way,
but in reality they are something else entirely. When we look around,
it appears that all that exists are the physical, material objects we
can sense. Myth tells us that in reality other unseen beings and
forces not only exist but also exert powers far greater than anything
we can experience with our senses-or, perhaps, even imagine. To us it
appears that the natural world operates according to inherent and
predictable cycles. Mythic, or anthropomorphic, thinking tells us that
in reality these events are controlled by invisible powers.
The question of whether things are as they seem to be lies at the
heart of every discussion about the nature of reality. We may start
with the world we observe with our senses. But in one way or another,
accounts of the nature of existence usually claim that behind the
appearance is a different reality. Myth and religion make this claim.
And so do philosophy and science-only in a different way.
Discovering philosophy / Thomas I. White. --Brief ed.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0135080037/
Bob C.
"Evidence confirming an observation is
evidence that the observation is wrong."
- McNameless
Would Mills
Many of Mill's Methods exposes confirmations which agree with the
observation at the same time that it provides a degree of
confirmation.
Mill's methods are some methods used to formulate hypotheses of
certain phenomena. It is clearly a species of inductive arguments as
we shall see. More precisely the methods, first proposed by British
philosopher and logician John Stuart Mill, are used to find causes of
the phenomena to be explained. All of Mill's methods share the same
characteristics in that they separate the phenomena into two parts,
namely the parts to be explained, or the effects, and the antecedent
phenomena which include the likely causes of the effects. The method
is conducted by observing the effects and then reason to the likely
causes by observing common features, different features, features that
vary with each other, and so on. According to Mill, there are five of
his methods:
1. Method of Agreement
2. Method of Difference
3. Method of Agreement and Difference (Joint Method)
4. Method of Residue
5. Method of Concomittant Variation
Here is what the first method, Method of Agreement, does. First you
have a phenomenon you would like explained, for example a group of
students in a certain school all having diarrhea and vomiting. You
want to know what caused the symptom. You know that the symptom could
only be caused by food. So you list all the food eated by the affected
student up to the time when they were attacked, and suppose this is
the result:
A B C D ==> j h l k
E F A G ==> k o m n
H I J A ==> q r s k
The capital letters on the left hand side represent the antecedent
conditions, and the small letters on the right show the phenomena on
the effects side. Thus, in case of the students having diarrhea, the
left hand side represents the food eated by the students, and the
right hand side show the symptoms that they have. Suppose that each
capital letter represents a kind of food, and the small letters on the
right hand side represent a symptom. Then we can see that the
phenomena on the left hand side have one thing in common, A. And
similarly for the phenomena on the right hand side, the symptom k.
Thus we can conclude, using the First Method, that A is the likely
cause of k.
Here is the diagram for the second method:
A B C D ==> j k l m
B C D ==> m l j
Suppose we have only two events which are alike in all aspects but
one. Then it is likely that the part that is the difference on the
left had side is the cause of the part that is missing on the right
hand side.
The third method has nothing but a joint consideration of the first
two methods in finding likely causes. Let's look at this diagram
A B C D ==> k l m o
A E F G ==> l p n r
A H I J ==> q u r l
H I M N ==> q r z y
O P Q R ==> x w n r
Here is the diagram for the fourth method:
A B C D ==> o p q r
We know already that
A ==> p
B ==> q
C ==> r
Thus, we can conclude that D is the likely cause of o, because the
pair is the only one left from the matching of causes and effects
which we know already. That is why this method is called the Method of
Residue.
Here is the diagram for the last method:
A B C D1 ==> w x y z1
A B C D2 ==> w x y z2
A B C D3 ==> w x y z3
A B C D4 ==> w x y z4
A B C D5 ==> w x y z5
The phenomena are alike except only that there is a variation in the
degree of D on the left hand (causes) side, and the same for z on the
right hand side. Since everything else is equal we conclude that here
D is the likely cause of z.
http://pioneer.netserv.chula.ac.th/~hsoraj/PhilandLogic/WeekFive.html#Mill
http://philosophy.hku.hk/think/sci/mill.php
http://www.thelogician.net/4_logic_of_causation/4_mills_methods.htm
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| User: "Luminoso" |
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| Title: Re: Did The Scientific-Method Colonize The 20th Century? |
22 Mar 2007 06:06:14 PM |
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On Wed, 21 Mar 2007 16:54:52 -0700, Bob Casanova <nospam@buzz.off>
wrote:
On Wed, 21 Mar 2007 21:25:23 GMT, the following appeared in
sci.skeptic, posted by (Luminoso):
<snip>
The "scientific" way of looking at things did indeed
"colonize" the world, much as the work of the old Greek
philosophers did (twice). However, it's also possible to
look at the "scientific method" as just an expected
outgrowth of those old philosophies, not so much something
new unto itself but a new wrinkle on some old ideas -
something we may have gotten if Aristotle had lived longer.
The scientific method is qualitatively different. I doubt if
Aristotle, brilliant as he was, would have ever come up with
it, given that his brilliance was in the fields of logical
deduction and "thought experiments". Real-world controlled
testing of ideas, which is what the scientific method is
based on, wasn't his forte.
He thought he could deduce the entire structure of the
natural world by logical process alone. The real world,
well, makes your hands dirty. This explains why he got
certain things so seriously wrong. However he's still
impressive for what he got right.
Now IF he'd lived 200 years, I wonder if he would have
had time to notice that logic and reality weren't always
yeilding the same answers ... and adjusted his thinking.
Logic only works as well as the quality of facts you
can feed into the process. Aristotle would surely have
noticed, eventually, that the only way to get quality
facts was to actually study the natural world systematically
in great detail.
But he didn't ... such a shame.
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| User: "Robert Grumbine" |
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| Title: Re: Did The Scientific-Method Colonize The 20th Century? |
23 Mar 2007 08:13:23 AM |
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In article <46030a77.44122156@news.east.earthlink.net>,
Luminoso <> wrote:
On Wed, 21 Mar 2007 16:54:52 -0700, Bob Casanova <nospam@buzz.off>
wrote:
On Wed, 21 Mar 2007 21:25:23 GMT, the following appeared in
sci.skeptic, posted by (Luminoso):
<snip>
The "scientific" way of looking at things did indeed
"colonize" the world, much as the work of the old Greek
philosophers did (twice). However, it's also possible to
look at the "scientific method" as just an expected
outgrowth of those old philosophies, not so much something
new unto itself but a new wrinkle on some old ideas -
something we may have gotten if Aristotle had lived longer.
The scientific method is qualitatively different. I doubt if
Aristotle, brilliant as he was, would have ever come up with
it, given that his brilliance was in the fields of logical
deduction and "thought experiments". Real-world controlled
testing of ideas, which is what the scientific method is
based on, wasn't his forte.
He thought he could deduce the entire structure of the
natural world by logical process alone.
That's Plato, not Aristotle.
--
Robert Grumbine http://www.radix.net/~bobg/ Science faqs and amateur activities notes and links.
Sagredo (Galileo Galilei) "You present these recondite matters with too much
evidence and ease; this great facility makes them less appreciated than they
would be had they been presented in a more abstruse manner." Two New Sciences
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| User: "Luminoso" |
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| Title: Re: Did The Scientific-Method Colonize The 20th Century? |
25 Mar 2007 12:47:43 PM |
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On Fri, 23 Mar 2007 13:13:23 -0000, (Robert Grumbine)
wrote:
In article <46030a77.44122156@news.east.earthlink.net>,
Luminoso < > wrote:
On Wed, 21 Mar 2007 16:54:52 -0700, Bob Casanova <nospam@buzz.off>
wrote:
On Wed, 21 Mar 2007 21:25:23 GMT, the following appeared in
sci.skeptic, posted by (Luminoso):
<snip>
The "scientific" way of looking at things did indeed
"colonize" the world, much as the work of the old Greek
philosophers did (twice). However, it's also possible to
look at the "scientific method" as just an expected
outgrowth of those old philosophies, not so much something
new unto itself but a new wrinkle on some old ideas -
something we may have gotten if Aristotle had lived longer.
The scientific method is qualitatively different. I doubt if
Aristotle, brilliant as he was, would have ever come up with
it, given that his brilliance was in the fields of logical
deduction and "thought experiments". Real-world controlled
testing of ideas, which is what the scientific method is
based on, wasn't his forte.
He thought he could deduce the entire structure of the
natural world by logical process alone.
That's Plato, not Aristotle.
Robes, beards ... easy to get 'em mixed up :-)
.
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| User: "socratus" |
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| Title: Re: Did The Scientific-Method Colonize The 20th Century? |
21 Mar 2007 10:57:44 AM |
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Physicists do not dictate to Nature their laws.
Laws of nature are reality, which exists independently from the
researcher,
and the person only perceives them. The nature develops from simple
to difficult;
the evolution of the world goes from the lowest condition to the
highest one.
Therefore, initial conditions of the origin of Genesis cannot be
complex.
They should be elementary and simple, as a multiplication table:
2.2=4, 2.3=6 etc.
Such simple laws of nature can and should be realized by each person
from a school bench.
==================
Abstraction and logic .
The tree is covered with a lot of leaves.
The leaves rustle, speak, argue among themselves.
But shouldn't they know that the roots feed them?
Physicists behave as leaves.
They rustle, speak, argue among themselves.
But they forget the roots of science, namely that we build the base
of a science on abstract ideas.
The base of the classical mechanics is constructed on abstract
separate absolute space and abstract separate absolute time of
Newton.
The base of thermodynamics is constructed on the abstract
ideal gas theory.
The base of the theory of radiation is constructed on
the abstract black body theory.
The base of SRT is constructed on the abstract theory
of four-dimensional space theory.
On this abstract base, physicists build a concrete building of
science and are surprised when they discover paradoxes in it.
But in nature there are no paradoxes observed.
Something is not in order with logical thinking.
It is necessary to stop, look back and
to reconsider the abstract base of science.
Maybe the abstract ideas are not abstract ones.
But everyone is in a hurry to try to understand reality,
and they create new abstraction. It is a way to "mad infinity".
Therefore we live in the world of abstraction, of paradoxes,
in the Orwell,s world.
How to break off this circuit of abstraction?
How we can understand the Existence logically?
=========================
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| User: "Luminoso" |
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| Title: Re: Did The Scientific-Method Colonize The 20th Century? |
21 Mar 2007 04:17:48 PM |
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On 21 Mar 2007 08:57:44 -0700, "socratus" <israelsad@bezeqint.net>
wrote:
Physicists do not dictate to Nature their laws.
Laws of nature are reality, which exists independently from the
researcher,
and the person only perceives them. The nature develops from simple
to difficult;
the evolution of the world goes from the lowest condition to the
highest one.
Therefore, initial conditions of the origin of Genesis cannot be
complex.
They should be elementary and simple, as a multiplication table:
2.2=4, 2.3=6 etc.
Such simple laws of nature can and should be realized by each person
from a school bench.
==================
Abstraction and logic .
The tree is covered with a lot of leaves.
The leaves rustle, speak, argue among themselves.
But shouldn't they know that the roots feed them?
Physicists behave as leaves.
They rustle, speak, argue among themselves.
But they forget the roots of science, namely that we build the base
of a science on abstract ideas.
The base of the classical mechanics is constructed on abstract
separate absolute space and abstract separate absolute time of
Newton.
The base of thermodynamics is constructed on the abstract
ideal gas theory.
The base of the theory of radiation is constructed on
the abstract black body theory.
The base of SRT is constructed on the abstract theory
of four-dimensional space theory.
On this abstract base, physicists build a concrete building of
science and are surprised when they discover paradoxes in it.
But in nature there are no paradoxes observed.
Something is not in order with logical thinking.
It is necessary to stop, look back and
to reconsider the abstract base of science.
Maybe the abstract ideas are not abstract ones.
But everyone is in a hurry to try to understand reality,
and they create new abstraction. It is a way to "mad infinity".
Therefore we live in the world of abstraction, of paradoxes,
in the Orwell,s world.
How to break off this circuit of abstraction?
How we can understand the Existence logically?
You don't try to "understand" existence. It just IS, like
the laws of thermodynamics or gravity. Looking for some
reason for it is an excercise in hubris ... believing the
universe somehow paused to chart out YOUR conscious
existence and a plan for you to follow.
You don't "understand" existence, you just LIVE it and
see how it interfaces with everything else that "just is".
Hmmm ... now if WE build bona-fide electronic intelligences
with similar capabilities to our own, can THEY, a 2nd-
generation product, understand THEIR existence in terms
of OUR wants, needs and desires - or should they just
push past this proxy and simply not bother since WE have
no larger plan or meaning ? :-)
.
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| User: "Immortalist" |
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| Title: Re: Did The Scientific-Method Colonize The 20th Century? |
21 Mar 2007 09:04:16 PM |
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On Mar 21, 2:17 pm, (Luminoso) wrote:
On 21 Mar 2007 08:57:44 -0700, "socratus" <israel...@bezeqint.net>
wrote:
Physicists do not dictate to Nature their laws.
Laws of nature are reality, which exists independently from the
researcher,
and the person only perceives them. The nature develops from simple
to difficult;
the evolution of the world goes from the lowest condition to the
highest one.
Therefore, initial conditions of the origin of Genesis cannot be
complex.
They should be elementary and simple, as a multiplication table:
2.2=4, 2.3=6 etc.
Such simple laws of nature can and should be realized by each person
from a school bench.
==================
Abstraction and logic .
The tree is covered with a lot of leaves.
The leaves rustle, speak, argue among themselves.
But shouldn't they know that the roots feed them?
Physicists behave as leaves.
They rustle, speak, argue among themselves.
But they forget the roots of science, namely that we build the base
of a science on abstract ideas.
The base of the classical mechanics is constructed on abstract
separate absolute space and abstract separate absolute time of
Newton.
The base of thermodynamics is constructed on the abstract
ideal gas theory.
The base of the theory of radiation is constructed on
the abstract black body theory.
The base of SRT is constructed on the abstract theory
of four-dimensional space theory.
On this abstract base, physicists build a concrete building of
science and are surprised when they discover paradoxes in it.
But in nature there are no paradoxes observed.
Something is not in order with logical thinking.
It is necessary to stop, look back and
to reconsider the abstract base of science.
Maybe the abstract ideas are not abstract ones.
But everyone is in a hurry to try to understand reality,
and they create new abstraction. It is a way to "mad infinity".
Therefore we live in the world of abstraction, of paradoxes,
in the Orwell,s world.
How to break off this circuit of abstraction?
How we can understand the Existence logically?
You don't try to "understand" existence. It just IS, like
the laws of thermodynamics or gravity. Looking for some
reason for it is an excercise in hubris ... believing the
universe somehow paused to chart out YOUR conscious
existence and a plan for you to follow.
You don't "understand" existence, you just LIVE it and
see how it interfaces with everything else that "just is".
What if just living it is understanding it?
Hmmm ... now if WE build bona-fide electronic intelligences
with similar capabilities to our own, can THEY, a 2nd-
generation product, understand THEIR existence in terms
of OUR wants, needs and desires - or should they just
push past this proxy and simply not bother since WE have
no larger plan or meaning ? :-)-
Well, if they are concerned with their history they probably would
have an incentive to remember us and possibly even resurrect us, if
possible, to reside in some sort of vast museum. They would probably
pass up our limitations, like death and solipsism.
.
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| User: "Luminoso" |
|
| Title: Re: Did The Scientific-Method Colonize The 20th Century? |
22 Mar 2007 05:59:01 PM |
|
|
On 21 Mar 2007 19:04:16 -0700, "Immortalist"
<reanimater_2000@yahoo.com> wrote:
On Mar 21, 2:17 pm, (Luminoso) wrote:
On 21 Mar 2007 08:57:44 -0700, "socratus" <israel...@bezeqint.net>
wrote:
Physicists do not dictate to Nature their laws.
Laws of nature are reality, which exists independently from the
researcher,
and the person only perceives them. The nature develops from simple
to difficult;
the evolution of the world goes from the lowest condition to the
highest one.
Therefore, initial conditions of the origin of Genesis cannot be
complex.
They should be elementary and simple, as a multiplication table:
2.2=4, 2.3=6 etc.
Such simple laws of nature can and should be realized by each person
from a school bench.
==================
Abstraction and logic .
The tree is covered with a lot of leaves.
The leaves rustle, speak, argue among themselves.
But shouldn't they know that the roots feed them?
Physicists behave as leaves.
They rustle, speak, argue among themselves.
But they forget the roots of science, namely that we build the base
of a science on abstract ideas.
The base of the classical mechanics is constructed on abstract
separate absolute space and abstract separate absolute time of
Newton.
The base of thermodynamics is constructed on the abstract
ideal gas theory.
The base of the theory of radiation is constructed on
the abstract black body theory.
The base of SRT is constructed on the abstract theory
of four-dimensional space theory.
On this abstract base, physicists build a concrete building of
science and are surprised when they discover paradoxes in it.
But in nature there are no paradoxes observed.
Something is not in order with logical thinking.
It is necessary to stop, look back and
to reconsider the abstract base of science.
Maybe the abstract ideas are not abstract ones.
But everyone is in a hurry to try to understand reality,
and they create new abstraction. It is a way to "mad infinity".
Therefore we live in the world of abstraction, of paradoxes,
in the Orwell,s world.
How to break off this circuit of abstraction?
How we can understand the Existence logically?
You don't try to "understand" existence. It just IS, like
the laws of thermodynamics or gravity. Looking for some
reason for it is an excercise in hubris ... believing the
universe somehow paused to chart out YOUR conscious
existence and a plan for you to follow.
You don't "understand" existence, you just LIVE it and
see how it interfaces with everything else that "just is".
What if just living it is understanding it?
Unless you can live every possible variation then
your "understanding" will be rather limited. Even
then, it's more an emotive "understanding" than
anything you can put under a microscope.
Hmmm ... now if WE build bona-fide electronic intelligences
with similar capabilities to our own, can THEY, a 2nd-
generation product, understand THEIR existence in terms
of OUR wants, needs and desires - or should they just
push past this proxy and simply not bother since WE have
no larger plan or meaning ? :-)-
Well, if they are concerned with their history they probably would
have an incentive to remember us and possibly even resurrect us,
Pets ?
if possible, to reside in some sort of vast museum. They would probably
pass up our limitations, like death and solipsism.
EIs could probably get around the "death" thing, but
if they're based on our species then they'll be subject
to reproducing many of our bizzare habits. As their
raw intellectual and real-world capabilities will be
capable of self-evolution at an impressive speed, what
we will see are "superbeings", but with many of the
common human foilables. Think Zeus and his little
family ...
Our best hope is that they'll evolve so far so fast
that they won't even notice us anymore.
.
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