cladking

In a nutshell it is what the world looks like from a scientific perspective without the models. This will prove quite difficult for most individuals because most people don't know what they know. For some a first step might be reading "The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science". There are others but they might be considered off topic here and I'm considering starting a more apt thread; "Metascience".

It's the same thing I spoke of earlier. If you stand on the track in front of a speeding freight train your life is in extreme danger. It doesn't matter if the exact outcome is predictable or not to the individual standing on the track. Of course if the train is still a mile away then perhaps it will be switched to another track or will derail before it gets to you. If it hasn't even left the Omaha station yet then many things might prevent it from killing you. This same thing applies to the ISS. In twenty seconds it would be impossible to notice any deviation from its computed location and speed. But how about tomorrow or next year. This is one of the things that can be plotted in exquisite detail since it is large scale and brief duration but extend the time frame and no one knows. The forces that will affect it aren't even known yet and the events that will shape its future and its future trajectory aren't yet known. If it were simply abandoned and its orbit allowed to decay we couldn't begin to predict where it would crash or the shape of the debris. This would be affected by more subtle things like weather patterns and the myriad situations where the variables can't be identified and quantified. If you open a pair of pliers you can predict exactly how much the handle must be opened to grip a three quarter inch bolt but you can't predict how much it must be opened to to grip a cherry that only exists in the form of a blossom. Of course we apply math to nature all the time. But our understanding and our models are highly incomplete so math is of necessity always misapplied to a greater or lesser extent. With the ISS it's about 99.99999% properly applied in the short term. But even here if the people in the ISS all were to suddenly start off in the same direction the numbers would be thrown off. Obviously, in docking and maneuvering operation the orbit would change. In the real world there are always unknowns. I think people are missing my points here. I'm hardly calling for an abandonment of math, science, and the ISS. Indeed, I'm not really asking anything here except that people try to see a different perspective. From this perspective the world looks far different than it does from the models. From this perspective the things that can be seen are just as real and some might be more important than even the models themselves.

It's not in a philosophical sense but in reality. Obviously models are tied to reality but the tie is indirect. Reality affects experiment and the models reflect experiment. The problem is that people are mistaking the model for the reality. There is no such thing as an "electron" but rather there are extensive experiments of many types which all say something similar to our "electron" must exist. This is no fine distinction when fundamental knowledge about the nature of electrons is lacking. Our understanding of models fools us into thinking we understand the reason so many experimnents say "electrons" exist. Yes. This is the nature of language. Words represent concepts rather than the thing itself. Essentially true but not quite what I'm trying to convey. Words represent concepts because there is no ideal for "chair" or "table" and there are many definitions and connotations for both words. We see what we know and when we have a model for everything we tend to believe we know everything when in point of fact our ignorance is virtually complete. I'm using the definition of "metaphysics" as "the axioms and definitions upon which a science is founded". I never use another definition of this word. Perhaps it's the belief that rules exist that is confounding things and holding up progress. Nature behaves in predictable ways only in the short term and the large scale. In the long term and on the tiny scale nature is notoriously unpredictable. Man is part of nature yet in the affairs of man the future is also notoriously unpredictable. Indeed, nature is quite unpredictable all the time when all the variables can't be identified and quantified and this is almost all the time. For instance it's nearly impossible to predict what will happen in a power failure. Sure you can use statistics to estimate the number of fatalities but you certainly can't identify any of the victims before the fact. No, nature has numerous characteristics and processes that are repeatable. You can compute how far a rock will move if you know the forces applied to it with great accuracy. This does not mean the rock is behaving laws nor that nature does. It merely means that we can identify gross and subtle ways that nature operates. It doesn't mean we know all the rules nor that nature must operate in some given way. If you find the models confusing, that is your problem. It doesn't stop them being useful. . I know nothing about the other thread. But science is merely the scientifiuc process, its results, and its axioms and definitions. Nature is reality and until we understand nature there are only scientific models which will become ever more encompassing unless this tool is already played out. Need I remind you we've been stuck on the unified field theory for nearly a century. And it probably can never be proved to be infinite and this assumes that cartesian geometry has any meaning in reality. A real number can dwarf infinity. Numbers extend to infinity in two directions and if you can add more dimensions. How much is infinity squared? etc etc. How many billions of vigintillion atoms exist? A few million? Each one of these may affect every other so in every collision there are a virtually infinite number of possible outcomes yet there are countless such collisions in even the briefest lenght of time. These collisions always determine the course of events yet the number of possible outcomes is staggering. If you convert these possibilities to ones ands zeros and the entire known universe with them (ones and zeros) you can still hold all this information for only the tiniest lenght of time. Infinity is child's play in comparison to the actual complexity of reality. If the butterfly in China causes a hurricane here next week will the first water molecule that was exhaled by Ghengis Khan be the one that causes a leaf to fall that plugs a drain and floods a home? This comnplexity is boundless but we can't see it because we see our models and the understanding they generate. We are blind to what we don't understand. Thanks. People are so set in their beliefs they can only see a single perspective most of the time so they run out in front of a semi never seeing the car hidden behind it before they are hit. They check to make sure there's no car coming never realizing that if you don't look at the entire lane there might be a motorcycle in it. Despite the fact that riding a motorcycle is tantamount to suicide they won't put light extending away from the machine so it can be seen. People live in a narrow world created not by human nature but by language. It builds models of experiment. Observation merely drives experiment (and about everything else in science). If you add one penny plus one penny you get two pennies and it doesn't matter if one is shiny and the other is corroded. Of course if a baby swallows the corroded one it might dissolve and be fatal and there's nothing you can buy for 2c any longer. It's painfully obvious as I've stated several times that we usually get away with applying math to the real world and this is because we recognize the limitations of math and the complexity of reality. We simply don't compute how much gas we'll need to drive to Hawaii. But we do compute how long it will take to get home and whether we need to stop for gas even though we later learn the bridge is out or the car gets a flat. We can count our rabbits but if they share cages we can grossly underestimate the cost of rabbit food because 1 + 1 = 2 never applies perfectly to the real world. Nature doesn't hold still for our math and it doesn't do what we tell it to or does it obey laws.

This statement looks absurd tome but that's just because we don't share the same perspective. You care about modelling the laws of nature and I don't believe there are any laws of nature and that models are confusing. You think metaphysics is magic and I think it's the rules of both ancient and modern science. Reality is the object of all science because understanding reality is how predictions are made. Infinity is a mathematical construct just like the number "2". Neither exist though "2" does have real world referents. "Infinity" does not. Imagine a rocket that can accelerate to infinite speed. The pilot can withstand only a couple g's on a cointinuing basis so trying to reach the ends of the universe and report back is going to take a long time. Replace the pilot with instrumentation that can withstand 100 g's but again if the universe is immense there's no way of predicting how long is required to return with the data. Now imagine the rocket can by some means accelerate to infinite speed instantaneously. If it instantaneously returns with data from the edge of the universe then you know that the universe is finite. If it doesn't return immediately then what have you learned? Are we to believe its still traveling at infinite speed seeking the edge but just can't find it? How can infinite distance trump infinte speed. By definition it must go "all the way" immediately. I repeat, for all real world applications there is no such thing as infinity. Reality creates staggeringly large numbers that dwarf "infinity" for all practical purposes anyway. Mathematics is a construct that works only because it reflects the logic of nature. You may not have noticed, but there are more than two things out there. (Apart from the fact that your claim is bogus.) But there may be no two identical things. Even if there were two identical thing time exists to keep them from occupying the same place and hence they can't be completely identical.

It is merely an opinion based on logic and my own (limited) experience. We see what we believe and in the case of educated scientists we see what we know as derived from models of experiments. If we better understand the nature of these experiments and how our models are constructed we should simply see this as well. We'll better observe the reality if we understand we can't really look at reality directly. We need to recognize that we aren't so much seeking reality but rather its effects on experiment. This is all metaphysics so better understanding of metaphysics should directly translate to a better understanding of the nature of models and of reality itself. This is why I believe metaphysics should be taught from infancy and drilled into them by six or seven. Scientific observation should begin about this time as well. History of science should be taught from 6th grade on and a 7th step should be added to the scientific method; Metaphysical Implications. Perhaps even more importantly we need to better define words and language and create a special language for philosophy where words have but a single meaning. This would be a scientific language at least to the degree it's "repeatable". Everyone won't agree but we also need to train some in generalism as a sort of specialty. We are each a product of our beliefs but we are open to input in these beliefs through education (especially at a young age). We are also a product of language and unfortunately that language is confused. We don't exist because we think but rather we think because we exist. I believe with greater attention to the nature of science most of the world's problems will begin correcting themselves in a few generations.

Mebbe it was because you can't divide by zero. Language defines words and math uses language to phrase the axioms, postulates, and definitions by which it operates. Math is constrained by these definitions before it even begins. Take the concept of "infinity" for example. In the real world the odds against of every event makes the concept of "infinity" seem like a fraction rather than being infinite. In the real world infinity can't be expressed except as a construct or in mathematics. In the real world infinity doesn't even exist. The concept can not be accurately applied to anything at all. There is a finite chance that all the air could "suddenly" be gone in a given area and the larger the area the lower the statistical probability but it will never reach zero even if every molecule is stacked on top of one another all the way to Alpha Centari. In the real world even numbers don't exist because you have to have two things to count. Numbers are constructs used in math and are not real. Such concepts can not be expressed in math we use everyday. They fly in the face of the very definitions and axioms of math so reminding me that 1 + 1 = 2 is simply irrelevant. I'm simply trying to define a perspective from which something different can be seen. I now fear this is getting off topic so won't respond to these points further either. http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/87618-math-is-never-applicable-to-the-real-world-split-from-is-current-day-math-flawed/?hl=misapplied#entry851246

Lol. Math is always wrong as well. More accurately math is always misapplied. More importantly and more relevantly to your point "math" is not language hence a "statement" can't be formulated at all. ie- Math can't even be wrong when viewed from the perspective of communication. How do you add one red apple eaten last night and one apple that spoiled the bushel? How do you communicate the question, or any question, in math?

It's impossible in modern language to express any complex thought and to be entirely correct in every aspect. Even the simplest thoughts expressed in modern language are open to deconstruction and misinterpretation. "I have one red apple" can have a virtually infinite number of meanings and it's worse if you consider homonyms. The point at which a green apple becomes a red apple during its life is not defined and, of course, all apples never become "red" in anyone's perception. The color "red" is a specific spectra of visible light but we take it as a given from language that all individuals percieve the same "red". Never mind that some people due to genetic or "traumatic" reasons hear the color red or smell it. Calling it an "apple" at all is a sort of appeal to authority since no apples are identical. One can own an apple (and access the net) or one can merely be holding an apple. Every means of having an apple has degrees. If you had an apple after dinner last night it becomes almost impossible to have it taken. No red apple is red on the inside nor are the stems and seeds red. The tree it grew (groes) on is probably never very red. Its roots are not red. The apple probably began its life as a white flower. The apple might be used to begin an apple orchard which would make it a very different apple than the one which rotted and spoiled a bushel. Since we're all wrong all the time and so very little is known we should be seeking the ideas which hold reality together in our minds but the concept of "reality" is excluded from modern science's metaphysics. The idea that reality was determined by perception resulted in an intentional exclusion of perceptions and reality. "Reality" affects science only through its effect on experiment. We build models as a mnemonic to remember these experiments and then tend to accept the models as reality itself. We see and understand the world as these models and see only what we expect and are blind to what we don't expect. We speak and understand in such terms. Effectively we can't speak without appealing to authority and we are necessarily misunderstood as the thoughts we try to express become more complicated. Experts are simply on the cutting edge of the state of the art. They always try to use the same language whether the subject is cosmology or art history. If you are outside this circle or use words that are not current you are marked as being wrong and being a crackpot from the moment you speak. Human knowledge has been divided into countless thousands of specialties but reality is never divided at all. We try to isolate variable for experiment but the real world simply doesn't work this way. Each specialist usually has extensive training in some small aspect of human knowledge and we believe this training reflects reality while, in fact it really just represents an aspect of our model of experiment. Nature has repeating processes that extend throughout its range. Math and its logic is merely an example of an aspect of reality. Since this repetition repeats it's only natural that someone treained in chemistry might have an insight that applies to factory construction or cosmology. A factory sweeper might have an insight that applies to all human existence or the nature of language. Dividing knowledge into specialties is unnatural so it's hardly surprising that it might be noticed. Specialization is necessary due to the huge extent of human knowledge but this specialization has teamed with technology, modelling, and language to cause people to believe they know almost everything. It has caused people to believe that nature behaves laws and that we understand some of these laws. It has caused people to see only what they know and to be blind to everything else. Since we each see only what we know we mistakingly believe we know far far more than we actually do. We each look and see a red apple but we don't realize that a red apple means something very different to different people. I'll probably abandon this thread due to its new location. I do tend to try to support points already made however, so will probably be back iff challenged.

No one will know you're smoking if you just blow the smoke out the windows. Virtual smoke doesn't cause cancer so few will care if they notice. Coffee and doughnuts are only served early though.

Most of what we believe is actually based on opinion. Science is based on axioms but these are expressed in language and most people have lost sight of the metaphysics anyway. Much of what we believe is passed down on our parents' knees while the language comes from our aunts and uncles. We learn a veritable wall of beliefs from teachers. Persective is everything and we are wed to things like cartesian geometry as the foundation of reality itself or that in the beginning God created light. Many of the concepts that are so difficult to understand rewrite the axioms, definitions, or even language itself but few will respond in kind. They simply reiterate their axioms, definitions, and use the same language to say what is the prevailing opinion of the day; the opinion of experts. There is a knee jerk reaction to reject even the simplest concepts if they don't agree with the widely held belief that everything is already known, or at least, that the outline of reality is at our fingertips and is known as theory. Meanwhile people still don't notice that the simplest ideas like "gravity" are still not supported empircally. Measuring something is not the same as understanding it. We measure time but then experts tell us that one moment doesn't even follow another or that it isn't "linear". Everytime anyone speaks he is referencing expert opinion. It's called theory and is (ideally) derived from experiment. Obviously every scientist doesn't support the status quo but "science" does. I'm not competent to judge all these hypotheses bandied about here. Some seem to be obviously crackpots and the individual proposing them has little training or understanding of the subject. Many seem uninterested in learning. The problem is that all are treated the same. I'm beginning to believe that there is little chance of physics or cosmology discovering a unified field theory and that it will arise from philosophy or another branch of science. Perhaps it will look much different than anyone realizes. If it were posted here on this forum tonight I have little doubt it would be ripped to shreds. I've seen several ingenius attempts at it and for all I know maybe one is right. There are several things we all believe that future scientists will probably find remarkably humorous about current science. Some things can't be seen because you're too close and some because you're too far away. And others are merely hidden to your view. I may not see reality but from my vantage is obvious others might not as well. I very much agree. But sometimes these new ideas rewrite everything so the proponent simply has less interest in trying to understand current thought. Some of these folks lack the math skills to understand the state of the art and this is especially true in physics. I sympathize with your viewpoint but from personal experience I know that in some fields expert opinion can be formed with virtually no data at all. How does one challenge expert opinion when that opinion is mere assumption? Not every field of science is as cut and dried as the behavior of a diode or how a geode is formed. Some areas are more about assumption and deconstruction. I guess I must stop here or go off topic.

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

I guess it's water under the bridge then. It appears many of the individuals on this site accept expert opinion and assumptions on par with experimental results. If any of these opinions are challenged it is taken as a challenge to experiment and hence to science. If experimental interpretation is challenged it is taken as a challenge to science itself. If models are attacked or it's pointed out that models are not experiment it is taken as a challenge to science. It's only natural for the status quo to be maintained but people should remember if the status quo always prevailed we'd still living in caves. Just because someone doesn't support the current paradigm it doesn't mean he doesn't understand the current paradigm.

I'm assuming the prohibition against talking about the site is being waived for this thread. I don't believe that moderation in this section is the problem per se. Much of the problem is the culture that has been generated that accepts all science as equally valid and all who doubt or reject the orthodox assumptions as lumbering fools. There's a "piling on" everytime a new subject comes up and negs fly no matter how logical and well evidenced a point happens to be. This isn't a failing of science or scientists but of this particular forum section. When someone presents me with a speculation or new hypothesis I suspend disbelief until I've heard him out. Then I seek the illogic or lack of support for key points. I think most speculators here will feel driven off. Lest someone think I don't like this forum, I really do. It has numerous good points as well including the many people who do understand the state of the art in many categories of modern science. While the tactics for winning arguments are beyond the pale the expertise is real and cogent. In 10th grade I developed a ~64 step proof that any number divided by zero was infinity. It was a thing of beauty. No one had the least interest in it. At best they'd glance at the first and last steps and hand it back. I was about ready to send it off when I discovered the tiniest little flaw where I had assumed the conclusion. Of course it mushroomed and led inexhoribly to the conclusion. Nothing has changed in the least. They are simply hoping some expert will tell them I'm right or I'll discover my error so they don't need to. I'm confident this applies to many people in this section. If their theories make better predictions it will simply be discounted.

Each individual organism is charged with striving for perfection. What's perfect for one individual is wrong for another. This ideal changes with time so the goal is always a moving target.

No one really knows. I believe nature is simply logical and mathematics is the quantification of logic. It's only natural that math can model nature or nature appears to model math. The sole purpose of any science is to make predictions. The degree to which understanding is achieved is the degree to which accurate prediction can be made. Models are merely a sort of mnemonic to remember experimental results. Models are often mistaken for reality and understanding of models mistaken for understanding of nature.

There's probably nothing about human cognition that can't be simulated by a computer if sufficient effort is put into trying. The last and most difficult aspect of human mental ability to be achieved would be intuition because this requires experience and learning to understand where logical steps can be avoided. However there's no such thing as "human intelligence" so it follows there is no such thing as "artificial intelligence". AI is a dead end that will be supplanted by machine intelligence. The most difficult thing for intelligent machines will be understanding humans and human perspectives.

It would seem the alien might be representative of a species that didn't waste its time much. Who's to say what things set their species and their science apart from our own? If he said everything we believe is wrong then it might be trying to teach us something. Even as a non-alien I can agree with the sentiment if he means all "belief" is wrong even when it's based on known science. Science doesn't show reality but the effects of reality. We are trying to come to know reality through its effects on experiment. We might be coming to understand the forces and processes by which nature operates but that doesn't mean our "belief" in scientific theory or its applicability to the real world is "true" or correct. ...Or one man's waste of time can be another's search for reality. One species' "truth" can be another's detour. All "science" might not even be the same but every tool (specific science) determines the type and amount of knowledge that can be gained. It's not the knowledge gained that can be at issue so much as the effectiveness and applicability to the real world. Real knowledge is often misapplied even without errors of logic. The misapplication is usually the result of unknown or ignored variables. Without talking to the alien, asking for definitions and evidence, it will be impossible to understand his meaning.

This specific miscommunication was principally my fault. I should have made it clear that one party can be chiefly responsible. However, I've used the word "theory" to mean human scientific knowledge so many times that I believed this would be apparent to readers. More importantly, I believe this is the only meaning that fit logically in the sentence so in my opinion is the apparent meaning. I'm involved on one side or another of a great deal of miscommunication so I never assume it's the other guy's fault. But then I've also observed two individuals having a conversation about two different subjects and neither noticing it. I know for a fact that there's a great deal of miscommunication going on and I believe I'm more sensitive to it than most. I may well cause more than most, as well. If I ever meet an alien I almost expect him to tell me everything I believe is wrong. He'd have no way of knowing I don't believe much of anything. I might even find his comment humorous even if it wasn't a joke.

My theory is that everyone should try to grasp theory whether the subject is factual or theoretical. Miscommunication is pervasive everywhere and is never the fault of one party. It takes two to miscommunicate. Indeed, if an alien tells you that scientific theory is all wrong then there's a fair chance he isn't expressing himself well or you misundersrtand him. Perhaps he's stating the case well enough and you aren't following the conversation. Of course, it's usually going to be a combination of both when aliens say science is all wrong. Or it's going to be an incomprehensible joke or it will be a different perspective. One thing it's not is literally true from a scientific perspective. Facts are facts whether you grew up on earth or Alpha Centari.

This would hardly be unusual. To me "theory" is akin to "human knowledge" or "state of the art". Of course, neither of these terms presupposes accuracy or correctness in my mind especially as the subject (specific art) drifts off toward the soft sciences. State of the art knowledge is far more likely to be wrong where premises are more poorly defined and more assumptions exist in foundational beliefs. But in the hard sciences, especially those which can be manipulated mathematically, state of the art (theory) is the sum total of all experiment and (proper) observation. This state of the art is unassailable in its entirety even though every single piece is always open to being rewritten. It's hardly impossible it's all wrong and reality isn't reflected in experiment or even that all experiment is misinterpreted but this might be no more likely than stepping into a vacuum on your evening stroll. Frankly, I probably have less confidence in any given fact than almost anyone but I have no doubt at all about the scientific method and its applicability to understanding nature. It's also ironic that it's only the second best science but I'll save this to when it's more appropriate.

I nearly didn't respond at all because we are so close to a semantical argument. But "theory" by definition requires experiment agree with it. It seems you're much closer to agreeing with the alien than I am. If the alien presented you with empirical evidence that scientific theory is wrong you'd change your mind whereas I'd simply assume he was using his "magic" to fool me. It would be impossible for me to accept the idea science is wrong without completely reorganizing everything I know. It would require a great deal of proof and then some time before I had an opinion about anything at all.

If "theory" doesn't agree with experiment then it's no longer theory. I would be highly disinclined to put any constraints whatsoever on nature; not so much because I consider it blasphemous which I do, but because so little of nature/ reality is known that it's presumptuous to believe it must be right or that it always behaves the same way. I think that for all practical purposes we must consider established theory to explain observation and we must always be vigilant to see where observation differs from that reality. By the same token I believe we should assume a perspective from outside of our knowledge and understanding of theory to better attend to these anomalies. I believe this perspective, metaphysics, and observation should be taught from a very young age to all students who are predisposed to science and who are naturally skeptical. To each his own.

Perhaps I should have said "theory" can't be wrong. Of course this statement wouldn't have been strictly true either because theory can be incomplete, true only in limited applications, or misinterpreted. It simply seemed easier to say science can't be wrong and leave each reader to fend for himself. You sound like me now. Next you'll be saying language is confused and math can't be properly applied to reality.

He's probably telling a joke and you should laugh politely if you don't get it. Science can't be wrong because experiment reflects reality. Our understanding of experiment and how we extrapolate its results can be wrong, and I believe it is, but experiment itself and the observation that leads to it is "right".

Let me answer in a few hundred years.