Lost marbles (Introduction)

by George Jelliss , Crewe, Friday, October 23, 2009, 21:54 (5509 days ago) @ xeno6696

Xeno wrote: "Your problem is that you have what appears to be a very common misunderstanding about science: You seem to think that science is about finding truth. No. Science is about building a model that creates a 1:1 correspondence with the world." -I find this a rather curious logic. I thought "having a 1:1 correspondence with the world" was a synonym for "true".-Xeno: "All models are contingent and temporary."-Yes but some are more contingent and temporary than others. This is where you need to have a basic knowledge of science, to be able to tell the latest speculative fancies of eccentrics from genuine breakthroughs.-Xeno: "Accepting that science isn't about truth resolves most of your issues you raised in this post." -Accepting that science isn't about truth undermines science, because that is exactly what science is about. The honest pursuit of truth.-The trouble with the "Ida" business, as I and many others noted at the time, is that the people who were publicising it were not concerned with the truth, but with hyping it up to sell their books and make money.-Xeno: "Will it ever end? No. Because the only way you can know your model doesn't need improvement is to possess all knowledge."-I agree science will never end, but it will and does come closer and closer to the truth. You yourself have used the idea of an asymptote. There is a distinct possibility that physics will be able to come to an end, in an ultimate "theory of everything", i.e. reconciling quantum theory and relativity. Once that is done the core of the subject will likely stay as it then becomes for millennia. 
 
Xeno: "The process of truth and how it relates to science is another question of relativism. Since the goal is to fit the model to the world, the question of truth only relates to "How well does my model fit?""-But you can't know how well the model fits reality until it breaks down. The test is how well your theory fits in with the rest of established scientific knowledge.

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GPJ