Lost marbles (Introduction)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Friday, October 23, 2009, 23:37 (5302 days ago) @ George Jelliss

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".
> -I'm being quite technical with my usage here: We observe phenomenon and assign a model to explain it. We hope its a 1:1 correspondence, but only by subsequent empirical testing can we verify it. However, no model will ever perfectly fit reality; this simply doesn't happen. We can have a high degree of precision, but a model is just what it says it is: an approximation of something else. Remember, you're the one who challenged me that mathematical objects don't exist--I'm only carrying that same analogy forward. Science is about building models--philosophy is about finding "truth." -Take Newton's laws. They work: the equations are still used today to send rockets into space. However, his theory was not a 1:1 correspondence, and was subsequently proven to have missed the mark. -Let me be a bit more direct on the concept of 1:1 correspondences: they are not truth statements. We assign a part of our model to the outer world, say "a" in an equation for acceleration. "a" isn't true any more than acceleration is true: they are not concepts that have truth-assignments, they are simply a "container" within the model that hopefully achieves some scientific aim. -
> 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.
> -What I'm driving at is that the total number of scientific laws are small. Most of our models we have are built from inferences using laws and their various implication. An implication however, does not guarantee the validity of its claim. -
> 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.
> 
No. Science is about model building. If you think I'm wrong, then ask yourself under what contexts do Newton's Laws hold true? Isn't it true that the subsequent models we've produced are better than what he came up with? -Science is involved with bringing explanations and utility into the world, and yes--empiricism works to help sort the wheat from the chaff, but it always remains that a given explanation will be further refined in the future. Some things are more contingent than others, but all things are contingent. --> 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. 
> -I agree we have done a great job of learning what we can about the material world, but remember that the "search for truth" isn't a scientific goal. It's about producing useful explanations. I'd suggest you read chapter 4 of Massimo Pigliucci's "Denying Evolution" for words from an evolutionary biologist on his perspective of what the "true" nature of science is about. -I quote: "In fact, a brilliant young physicist may set herself the goal of producing an even better theory than that of general relativity, and she may succeed. Her new theory will then be provisionally regarded as the best available, and so forth. Science, if you will, is always about "very likely maybes," never about absolute truth."-In all my travels, I've found no more sage scientific advice than that. -Science--is a method--and NOT a body of knowledge. It is the best method available in order to throw out bad explanations, but we shouldn't fool ourselves that we always have a *real* truth after it has done its job on an phenomenon. General relativity is still a provisional explanation.

--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"