The rise and fall of evidence-based natural philosophy.

In summary, the conversation discusses the shift from a perspective of natural philosophy that was often influenced by human biases and egotism to a more evidence-based approach. It also talks about examples of anthropocentrism in ancient and medieval beliefs and the advancements in technology due to this evidence-based perspective. However, there are also examples of decline in this approach, particularly in mainstream cosmology and physics beyond the Standard Model. The conversation ends with a question about what will take the place of evidence-based fundamental physics if it is in decline.
  • #1
oldman
633
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The rise and fall of evidence-based natural philosophy.

The way we think of the external physical world — natural philosophy -- has in the past often been coloured by anthro’centric prejudice and personal egotism. This perspective has gradually been eclipsed by the secular ideal of evidence-based knowledge, which has served fundamental physics well. But it now seems to be in decline.

First, here are examples of thinking coloured by anthro’centric prejudice:

1. The ancient Greek belief in a real, physical pantheon of deities on Mt. Olympus, who lived and loved much as we do. As deities do, they took a personal interest in the welfare of their
dependants, like Athena did with Odysseus.

2. The medieval conviction that the Earth is flat and centred on civilised places like the
Mediterranean, with edges one should be careful of approaching because of strange creatures --- sea-serpents and suchlike.

3. Pre-Copernican models of the heavens in which the Sun revolved around our central domain, the Earth. This was a persistent, natural, seemingly evidence-based prejudice.

4. The early 20th century astronomical view that the Milky Way is an Island
Universe, which preserved our central status in the scheme of things.

5. The outdated 20th century view that what we ourselves can easily observe 'out there' --- stars collected in luminous galaxies --- is nearly all that need concern astronomers. Remember that observations by Zwicky were ignored for quite some time, and that Vera Rubin’s data was at first sceptically received.

6. The still-extant conviction that this planet and all non-human life on it exists primarily to serve the needs and purposes of that small fraction of its biomass that is 'intelligent', namely our good selves.

Meanwhile, technology has flourished, driven by the gradual rise to domination of a secular
evidence-based perspective in physics and all other sciences. The result is that fortunate folk now enjoy comforts beyond the imaginings of earlier peoples. There are however two prominent examples of the decline of this successful perspective:

The first is mainstream cosmology, where obtaining evidence that confirms theoretical advances is costly and sometimes impossible. The mainstream consensus now is that (5) above is improbably simplistic, and that some 95% of the universe is in fact made of undiscovered 'dark energy' and 'exotic' matter, both of a quite unknown kind. There is indeed supporting evidence for this view, for example the observed element abundances, the Euclidean geometry of space and agreement with the analysis of recent satellite observations (WMAP). These are all features concordant with the Lambda CDM model universe that mainstream cosmologists now agree is sufficiently convincing.

But even this model is not quite free of problems. It incorporates a startling invention; an inconceivably brief instant of exponentially rapid drastic change (inflation), driven by a scalar field invented specifically for this purpose. And it cannot yet account for a striking asymmetry of our universe — the entire absence of natural anti-matter.

Consensus cosmology has acquired sceptics who find the current consensus too fanciful to accept for a variety of reasons: ignorance, scepticism about postulating vast amounts of invisible stuff, conservatism, contradiction of their own (sometimes crackpot) ideas and prejudices and distrust of a consensus model with ad hoc 'patches' added to solve specific problems.

It is clear that modern cosmology incorporates ideas cantilevered out further over an abyss of ignorance than say, classical thermodynamics or Newtonian physics. This structure has been needed because the ideal of evidence-based knowledge is so difficult to attain.

A second and more extreme example is physics beyond the 35-year-old Standard Model of
particle physics. Here our evidence-based perspective has given way entirely to mathematical ratiocination, as documented in the dissident writings of Peter Woit (Not Even Wrong) and Lee Smolin (The Trouble with Physics). And in well-regarded recent approaches to the thorny problem of reconciling General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics there seems to be little attempt to predict observable consequences. See Androvandi and Pereira, Arxiv:0711.2274V1[gr-qc], Ambjorn, Jurkiewicz and Loll Arxiv:hep-th/0509010V3 and Fairbarn Arxiv:0807.3188V1[gr-qc].

If evidence-based fundamental physics is in decline, have readers of this forum any ideas of what is to take its place?
 
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  • #2


Trial and error, you lose and you learn.
 
  • #3


oldman,

Interesting post. I agree that we have missed a big turn in science in the last 50 years or so, which I suspect is related to QM foundational issues. In TTWP Lee Smolin says there are these four questions which need to be answered for progress to occur. I think there is only 1 major question - the "measurement problem". If we get to the bottom of the paradox i feel the other 3 questions will fall into place more easily. But ironically i feel that the solution *may* involve a paradigm change somehwat reversing certain Copernican assumptions.

Lets see now; we've ignored the oberver paradox for how long now? 90 years. We attempt to explain it away by coming up with the most outlandish interpretations instead of asking ourselves seriously ...why and how does biology interact with quantum states? Is it really the same as the interactions between isolated states and the environment as "decoherence" would have us "imagine"?

So until we come to terms with the shocking paradox we will make no real progress.
 
  • #4


oldman said:
If evidence-based fundamental physics is in decline, have readers of this forum any ideas of what is to take its place?

I agree with the others that these are interesting reflections.

IMO, I don't think there needs to be a problem with evidence-based science as such, but I do not think that the old style idea of universal knowledge and hard evidence was never fundamental in the first place. The philosophy and logic of science doesn't seem to have developed very much lately.

Evidence needs to be collected, stored and processed and perhaps even communicated to others - this in itself makes it subjective or relative. I take these things seriously, and I think what is going on here needs to be accounted for. Reality constrains many of these things especially in an information perspective. Communication, data storage and processing power are usually limited, putting fundamental constrains on reasoning.

I think we will need to question the nature of evidence, and realize it's relative. And question the nature of physical law, and realize it's emergent and relative too.

That sounds like a step back, releasing ourselves from deductive power. But my personal opinion is that at the same time we will discover a greater understanding the natural processes, and this will in the secondary phase give us an inductive power far more powerful and sophisticated than the previous strategy.

Perhaps the recent writings oldman refers to, from smolin etc are a sign of a coming change. It's awaited for some, and possible comes as a cold shower for some. But unfortunately I think this isn't going to happen overnight.

/Fredrik
 
  • #5
.

Coldcall said:
oldman,

...we have missed a big turn in science in the last 50 years or so, which I suspect is related to QM foundational issues. ...feel that the solution *may* involve a paradigm change somehwat reversing certain Copernican assumptions.
Well, this is a severe opinion indeed! But as an iconoclast, I agree quite strongly with you. I think that a helpful start would be to back further away from the anthro'centric prejudice we are naturally imbued with. In particular it might be useful to reflect on why quantum mechanics has taken the course that it has, generating some serious puzzles along the way, such as the 'wave-particle duality' and the 'decoherence' you mention.

My own view is that we take too seriously our attempts to describe happenings in the microscopic 'quantum' milieu. Being big, clumsy and prejudiced, we are ill-equipped to do this. But that doesn't stop us from foolishly attributing to such happenings the properties of the mathematical dialects we choose to describe them with. I expressed view along these lines some time ago in a thread called https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=124737" which generated absolutely no response in the Quantum Physics forum.

So commenting as you did may be like trying to light a match on a piece of wet soap! I hope not.
 
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  • #6


DrClapeyron said:
Trial and error, you lose and you learn.

Trouble now is that we have too much error of theory and too little trial of predictions. So we lose a lot and don't learn much. You advice is perfect.
 
  • #7


Fra said:
I don't think there needs to be a problem with evidence-based science as such, but I do not think that the old style idea of universal knowledge and hard evidence was never fundamental in the first place. The philosophy and logic of science doesn't seem to have developed very much lately.

Thanks for your reply, Fra. I don't actually think there is a problem with evidence-based science; we could do with lots more of it --- it's nice to see that in say, medicine, it's on the rise --- and high time too. Communication is also vital. Even medics are now starting to make use of check lists as a diagnostic help, like aircraft pilots have been doing for years. But progress is always slower than one would wish.

And before progress comes understanding of what you have been doing, which is what I'm trying to hurry along here.

...are a sign of a coming change. It's awaited for some, and possible comes as a cold shower for some. But unfortunately I think this isn't going to happen overnight

You're quite right. In science overnight change isn't easy, often because of vested interests and distinguishing crackpots from innovators. But in contrast to many other spheres of human activity, there is always progress when concordance between ideas and observed nature appears, sometimes quite suddenly. Maybe soon, I hope.
 
  • #8


oldman,

"Well, this is a severe opinion indeed! But as an iconoclast, I agree quite strongly with you. I think that a helpful start would be to back further away from the anthro'centric prejudice we are naturally imbued with. In particular it might be useful to reflect on why quantum mechanics has taken the course that it has, generating some serious puzzles along the way, such as the 'wave-particle duality' and the 'decoherence' you mention."

Yes anthro-centrism, revolving around humans is most definitely narrow minded. However i prefer to view humans as a class of biology or observers, and my view is we have neglected the evidence of a biocentric universe - based on demonstrated QM interactions between observer/observed. There is plenty of "evidence" to indicate this is a real physical phenomenom ie. (Two-slits), (delayed choice), (quantum eraser), (Schrodinger's cat) etc...

I agree when you say we need to get back to predictive, falsifiable, evidential science, but the facts are we have willfully ignored the evidence of the observer paradox we are confronted with in QM - science. These are not fanciful ideas - we get the same results time after time but for some odd reason, the consensus refuses to take the observer as a serious function within a quantum mechanical universe.
 
  • #9


Coldcall said:
I agree when you say we need to get back to predictive, falsifiable, evidential science, but the facts are we have willfully ignored the evidence of the observer paradox we are confronted with in QM - science.

Since I see the current issues tracing back to the scientific method itself, I think the simple model of science with theories tested against experiment and when "falsified" they are tossed, is incomplete and lacks sophisitication.

1. We have a theory
2. Test against experience.
3. If in agreement keep testng, otherwise toss the theory

As I try to see it the general scientific problem consists of three parts

1. The logic of guessing (originating from inductive reasoning)
2. The logic of correction
3. A full corrective type of inductive reasoning.

Cleary, if our guess is right, "the correction" consists of increasing our confidence in the lines of reasoning and premises that suggested it.

If our guess is wrong, the lines of reasoning is diminished in confidence and, some other possibility is finally considered.

I think the interesting part of science is not to test a theory to agree or not agree, the interesting part is the action to either outcome. I think we should have a theory also for this.

This is the level of sophistication that takes us into theories of theories. And they are too falsifiable but not in the simplistic old sense, here the falsification is a process not a single step.

It's interesting that perhaps already in the days of leibnitz et all the association between science and inductive reasoning seems to have appearted, during the philosophical history of probability and statistics. The history of probability and inductive reasoning seems related to the history of the scientific method.

Originally the probability concept was a blurry concept of degree of belief, and often probability referred to a authorative source. Whatever an authority said, was "probable", likely to be true.

Then the concept of evidence-based probabilities as opposed to faith-based appeared with things like observing and counting signs or evidence in favour of a statement in nature. Counting equiprobable options. But how do you unambigously "count" evidence for hypothesis or theories? And was faith-based evidence "wrong"? What options did they have?

Clearly this problem still haunts us. Look at the papers trying to "count geometries" in CDT. It seems to me that there is an element of a 300 year old problem there. That rests in the foundation of the scientific method, inductive reasoning and probability.

The problem of choosing the prior, seems closely related to chosing what theory to test? Clearly we can not test all theories. So we need to decide, which theory to test. Here I think induction should come. If we consider theories dynamical rather than statical, then each test suggest a correction, and the corrected theory is the one to keep testing.

To just falsify a theory, as opposed to correct it, strikes me as possibly inefficient. Rarely do we see models of corrective actions, when we are wrong.

/Fredrik
 
  • #10
Coldcall said:
...we have neglected the evidence of a biocentric universe - based on demonstrated QM interactions between observer/observed. There is plenty of "evidence" to indicate this is a real physical phenomenom ie. (Two-slits), (delayed choice), (quantum eraser), (Schrodinger's cat) etc... the consensus refuses to take the observer as a serious function within a quantum mechanical universe.

I'm not part of any consensus. But despite dipping into your interesting thread "decoherence -- the myth" I can't quite figure what you mean by 'biocentric universe'. You're surely not suggesting that the physical universe 'out there' depends in any way on whether we or our cats (mine is a mews!) are there to observe it or not, are you? Biosolipsism replacing anthro'centrism? I'll post in your thread about QM, which is not as complicated as it seems. Trust me.
 
  • #11


oldman said:
I'm not part of any consensus. But despite dipping into your interesting thread "decoherence -- the myth" I can't quite figure what you mean by 'biocentric universe'. You're surely not suggesting that the physical universe 'out there' depends in any way on whether we or our cats (mine is a mews!) are there to observe it or not, are you? Biosolipsism replacing anthro'centrism? I'll post in your thread about QM, which is not as complicated as it seems. Trust me.

Biocentric meaning that the universe is just right for life, any life. The term anthro relates to humans in a special way. Thats why i don't use the term.

Yes i am suggesting that there is no independent objective reality "out there" without an observer/observed relationship. Its that quantum interaction that makes reality.However if there is such a universe that doesn't involve quantum mechanics then perhaps one can have an independent objective reality without any observers.

What else do you propose QM is telling us about the nature of reality?
 
  • #12


Fra said:
Since I see the current issues tracing back to the scientific method itself, I think the simple model of science with theories tested against experiment and when "falsified" they are tossed, is incomplete and lacks sophisitication.

Maybe. But a theory is only a human description of some aspect of nature, couched in a suitable human-invented language, say mathematics in the case of most physics. The success of a theory is judged by how complete its description is, and how accurately it can be extended beyond its original remit to further describe other aspects of nature . Theories get 'cantilevered out' to bridge canyons of ignorance, and sometimes bend and fail if the canyons are too wide, or if theories are made of flawed metal, as it were.

This is the level of sophistication that takes us into theories of theories. And they are too falsifiable but not in the simplistic old sense, here the falsification is a process not a single step.

I'm deeply suspicious of 'theories about theories'. Exactly how do you judge them? And how do you stop making 'theories about theories about theories', and so on ad infinitum?




...Clearly this problem still haunts us. Look at the papers trying to "count geometries" in CDT. It seems to me that there is an element of a 300 year old problem there. That rests in the foundation of the scientific method, inductive reasoning and probability.

The problem of choosing the prior, seems closely related to chosing what theory to test? Clearly we can not test all theories. So we need to decide, which theory to test. Here I think induction should come. If we consider theories dynamical rather than statical, then each test suggest a correction, and the corrected theory is the one to keep testing.

I agree with much of what you say here. But what you are suggesting is too conservative! Sometimes a theory keeps on throwing up problems that are then solved by ad hoc additions. This is a sign that one need to go back to its beginnings and see if its foundations are really as sound as the consesnsus assumes. Cosmology is an example.

Sometimes a theory is too sucessful to be wrong in toto but keeps on throwing up disturbing paradoxes. For example Quantum Mechanics with its troubles as mentioned by Coldcall above. This can be a sign that we don't properly understand the nature of the theory we have invented --- But I'll post about this in Coldcall's thread " decoherence - the myth", rather than here.

To just falsify a theory, as opposed to correct it, strikes me as possibly inefficient. Rarely do we see models of corrective actions, when we are wrong.

Yes indeed.
 
  • #13


I'm not oldman but here is, fwiw, a short view of mine on this.

Coldcall said:
What else do you propose QM is telling us about the nature of reality?

First I think QM as it stands isn't fully perfected, so to take QM fundamentally to it's extreme is uncalled for IMO. What can be motivated, is to explain it's effectiveness. It sure seems to be effectively telling us something about nature, at worst in a approximate way.

I think QM is PART of the answer to the question of howto combine contradicting information. To combine two mutally exclusive or complementing opinions is easy. They are not in contradiction to each other so adding them is simple. The notion of addition of two opinons that is.

But when it comes to combining difference pieces of evidence, that in a sense are overlapping and even contradicting each other, the question arises how to rate their conjunction. The logic of compromise?

For example, suppose you have two different sources of evidence, each with it's own consistent structure. But then, as these are communicated to a single instance, they need to be combined into a single structure. How is that done? This is I think both a philosophical question of science and of measurement.

I think QM says something about this... but the picture from my way of analysis is left incomplete by QM, so something is missing... it's the concept of rating evidence in the first place. And I think this connects to gravity. I think a better understanding of inertia in the concext of QM is needed before QM itself is satisfactory understood.

/Fredrik
 
  • #14


oldman said:
I'm deeply suspicious of 'theories about theories'.

That's a good thing :) I am too, but for me the different is what is meant. There are theories of theories that really does the same mistake again, in it constructs the theory or the theory in the same arbitrary way as the original theory was constructed. This is not what I have in mind.

I have in mind a sort of inductive way of building theories, where the theory of the theory takes the form of feedback driven induction. But of course many problems persist, I have no answers yet. But I am very confident in the idea. But then I could well be mad :)

Later I will assocaite the arrow of time with the direction of evolution. I think that much of current models will be recovered when some of the slowly evolving layers are assume fixed. Just like one can often consider spacetime to be flat locally FAPP.

oldman said:
Exactly how do you judge them?

First I should not that IMO it's the observer that judges them, not me. They are judged by their persistence. A idea that keeps contradicting feedback, will loose in confidence. It's like a game. The theories are betting with their life in a sense. Observers/theories that fail to correct it's opinion in a timely manner will not persist. It's a natural selection.

oldman said:
And how do you stop making 'theories about theories about theories', and so on ad infinitum?

In what I imagine this is not like a house where each theory of theory is another flat, and eventually it reaches the skies. It's more like an induction scheme, where there is a window of a few generations that's visiable at a time. This is determined I imagine by the complexity of the observer. So the Complexity of the observer prevents divergence of theories of theories of theories. so there will be no infinite landscape of theories where to get lost. Because the dynamics that generates this landscape will not allow it. It would not be efficient. There is a balance between making correct predictions, but there must also be flexibility to respond to changes. This feature is also seen in biology. Timely flexibility and adaptive power is sometimes more important for survival than more specific traits like big sharp teeth.

It seems that this leads to infinitely complex situations, where there is selection in total chaos. But the trick I see is that then there are also no large stable observers, which means that this constrains the complexity. And I'd suspect that in a chaos built by those principles, certain structures will emerge by a higher probability than others. these things might be the notion of space, time and some of the elementary particles and forces.

This is not perfect, it's still conditional on my own human reference frame. But if this shows to work, then it would suggest a truly revolutionary view of things. It would grant a level of understanding much deeper than before. And the number of applications is not hard to speculate on.

/Fredrik
 
  • #15


Fra,

"First I think QM as it stands isn't fully perfected, so to take QM fundamentally to it's extreme is uncalled for IMO. What can be motivated, is to explain it's effectiveness. It sure seems to be effectively telling us something about nature, at worst in a approximate way."

I agree it is still incomplete or only describing a more fundamental underlying law. But even in our approximate knowledge of whatever the truth is behind QM, it still seems clear to me its like a big hand pointing towards subjective reality. I think we both agree on the "subjectvity" part, where we disagree is about what collapses subjectivity into a globally observed, entangled reality.

"For example, suppose you have two different sources of evidence, each with it's own consistent structure. But then, as these are communicated to a single instance, they need to be combined into a single structure. How is that done? This is I think both a philosophical question of science and of measurement."

Yes but what other than observers would need that level of consistency - the global observed reality? Let pretend no observers lived in this universe. In that case why is there a need for mutually agreed reality? Let's look at what consistency means. Does it have any meaning to ianimate objects that do not think for themselves? Why would non living materials need any form of consistency? They cannot look at their world and say "this does or does not make sense". But what is interesting about entanglement is that it is like a demand from nature that in our universe everything maintains consistency and makes sense from our objective perspectives.

So I'm arguing that this normalisation of reality is only necessary if thinking or conscious/aware observers are present. Add to that the stranage observer paradox buried in the "measurement problem" and i believe the clues are pointing in the direction of a sort of symbiotic relationship between mind and matter.
 
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  • #16


Coldcall said:
I think we both agree on the "subjectvity" part, where we disagree is about what collapses subjectivity into a globally observed, entangled reality.

Perhaps I didn't catch your view on that. IMO, "globally observerd" seems suspect. Are you talking about the environment as an observer - "environment as a witness" - like in Zureks thinking? Sure the entire environment is a valid observer, and often a very dominant one indeed, but it's not unique.

Also it misses the point of a problem formulated by one particular observer. The information in "the environment" is not accessible for basing your actions. This is my objection to the decoherence ideas. It's not wrong (it's rather interesting) it just missed the point IMO.

One decision problem is how to select actions, from the inside.
Another problem is how one observer, can guess the actions of a third observer.
Another problem is how to continously adjust your selection strategy based on feedback.

All are important questions.

It's like if we are playing a game, if we know the odds, we know how to bet. But the problem is that if the odds aren't given, we have to guess the odds as well. Moreoever the odds might change during the game.

I think that we have subjectivity, putting the observer in focus. But the subjectivity is mutual and the observer is not unique. There are different views, no one is more right than the other.

At best I consider what we may consider the "conincidence" that the subjective views agree, meaning that they are communicated without contradiction. I think there is a locally emergent objectivity. This is plausible since interacting subjective views should equilibrate on some points.

Coldcall said:
"For example, suppose you have two different sources of evidence, each with it's own consistent structure. But then, as these are communicated to a single instance, they need to be combined into a single structure. How is that done? This is I think both a philosophical question of science and of measurement."

Yes but what other than observers would need that level of consistency - the global observed reality? Let pretend no observers lived in this universe. In that case why is there a need for mutually agreed reality? There would no observers or minds in order for a clash of realities to matter. Hence there would be no neccesity for a mechanism like QM, which as you've pointed out, helps our world maintain consistency - an objective reality.

I'm not sure I understood your point here.

To imagine that there are no observers, is in my terminology to say that there is nothing. Not even anyone to question anything. That's a trivial scenario and nothing I see that I are likely to be forced to act upon.

I suspect we may disagree upon what an observer is. To me it has nothing specifically to do with living biology. An electron is IMO a perfectly potential observer for example. That's not to mix concepts of conscioussnes into this. I think that is unnecessary.

/Fredrik
 
  • #17


Fra said:
To imagine that there are no observers, is in my terminology to say that there is nothing. Not even anyone to question anything.

In a sense this is analogous to the boundary problem. Ie. consider a bucket with a particular size and shape which is empty, and thus have nothing in it. This "nothing" relates to the boundaries, so I think the notion is very foggy.

I think the void is not innocent.

/Fredirk
 
  • #18


Fra,

"Perhaps I didn't catch your view on that. IMO, "globally observerd" seems suspect. Are you talking about the environment as an observer - "environment as a witness" - like in Zureks thinking? Sure the entire environment is a valid observer, and often a very dominant one indeed, but it's not unique.

Also it misses the point of a problem formulated by one particular observer. The information in "the environment" is not accessible for basing your actions. This is my objection to the decoherence ideas. It's not wrong (it's rather interesting) it just missed the point IMO.


No i defintely don't agree with Zurek that the environment all on its own, with no observers in the same universe, can decohere quantum states automatically. What i meant by "globally observed" is the collapsed reality all universal observers can agree on.

"At best I consider what we may consider the "conincidence" that the subjective views agree, meaning that they are communicated without contradiction. I think there is a locally emergent objectivity. This is plausible since interacting subjective views should equilibrate on some points."

Yes I agree about the emergent reality but i think its local and non local, and entanglement handles the long distance part by collapsing non-local phenomon in order to make objective reality consistent. Its why i place QM far higher on the fundamental level than GR because the speed of how qm affects the world is superior to that of photons. We use photons to see and we cannot break that limit hence everything becomes consistent faster than we can ever notice (photons) there was any inconsistency to start with.

"I suspect we may disagree upon what an observer is. To me it has nothing specifically to do with living biology. An electron is IMO a perfectly potential observer for example. That's not to mix concepts of conscioussnes into this. I think that is unnecessary."

Yes i understand your point, and you are correct our difference lay in that we have different ideas about what consitutes an observer. My view is an electron is only an observer when it is manipulated by us because in effect it becomes an extension of us, entangled with our reality. But in a universe with no observers I cannot see the point of it and it appears to me to be a huge waste of energy.

For instance its why i believe Schrodinger's cat is a non-experiment. The geiger or any other item which we need in the chain is enough to collapse the wave function of the decaying atom. Our observership (or consciousness) is entangled with that geiger because we built it, laid out the experiment etc..

In this i agree with Bohm's idea about our consciosuness being implanted into all kinds of inaimate matter we have moulded into things and technology. For instance art, literature etc...all these things are a product of our subjective minds.
 
  • #19
the problem of induction

oldman said:
fra said:
To just falsify a theory, as opposed to correct it, strikes me as possibly inefficient. Rarely do we see models of corrective actions, when we are wrong.
Yes indeed.

The point I meant to make here, and I'm not sure if you agree on that or not, is that the question I'm posing, with regards to the quest for a scientific method, is really in my eyes a special version of the classic "problem of induction" - to motivate it's validity.

The problem at hand is, the one of finding the supposedley most beneficial action for given input based on whatever we have at hand.

Poppers idea tries to avoid induction, and instead in a "deductive manner" tries to falsify a theory. And the absent of of falsification means keep testing the theory. Which can be though of as an indirect form of induction. But what's worse is that it says nothing about how to select the candidate theories. Unless the candidate theories are seleced by some kind of induction, the options seems to be picking a theory at random.

The question is not just to stay away from beeing wrong, it's also to make sure we learn. Sometimes, taking the risk of beeing wrong is a cheap price for making a valuable induction.

If we take induction to mean that based on our compiled history, make a guess on the future are per som inductive rule, then I suggest that there are two points here that must not be trivialized.

It's that compilation of history, and the inductive logic itself is not unique. But that's the idea of self-organisation. Negative feedback deforms the compilation as well as induction circuits.

It's the relational logic of this inductive evolution I seek. Maybe a too ambitous way of phrasing it would be an ultimate solution to the problem of induction.

What do you think?

/Fredrik
 

1. What is evidence-based natural philosophy?

Evidence-based natural philosophy, also known as empirical natural philosophy, is a scientific approach that relies on observation, experimentation, and evidence to understand the natural world. It is a precursor to modern scientific methods and was popular during the 17th and 18th centuries.

2. What led to the rise of evidence-based natural philosophy?

The rise of evidence-based natural philosophy can be attributed to several factors, including the Renaissance, the scientific revolution, and the development of new technologies such as the microscope and telescope. These advancements allowed for the collection and analysis of data, leading to a shift from philosophical speculation to empirical investigation.

3. What were the key figures in the rise of evidence-based natural philosophy?

Some of the key figures in the rise of evidence-based natural philosophy include Francis Bacon, René Descartes, Galileo Galilei, and Isaac Newton. These philosophers and scientists made significant contributions to the development of empirical methods and the understanding of natural phenomena.

4. What were the main challenges to evidence-based natural philosophy?

One of the main challenges to evidence-based natural philosophy was the resistance from traditional authorities, such as the church, who viewed this approach as a threat to their established beliefs and power. Additionally, the lack of sophisticated technology and limited access to information also posed challenges to the collection and interpretation of data.

5. Why did evidence-based natural philosophy eventually decline?

The decline of evidence-based natural philosophy can be attributed to the emergence of new scientific disciplines, such as chemistry and biology, which required specialized methods and approaches. The rise of industrialization and the focus on practical applications also shifted the emphasis away from pure scientific inquiry. Additionally, some critics argued that this approach was reductionist and limited in its ability to fully explain the complexities of the natural world.

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