Is the scientific method both faith and knowledge based?

[Loren Booda]

Does the scientific method mark the coexistence between belief and actual science, and describe tenets that involve a religion of information? Its prediction of world events may apply equally to measuring the electron's mass, or consequently to the conviction in its own efficacy.

The scientific method cannot justify itself by circular logic, but by its reflection of nature in the reproducibility of results. Creed, on the other hand, survives by seeming self-fulfilling prophesies that define the mind in terms of often uncontrollable events.

May one say that the scientific method has become as much a way of life for many as a process for determining material truths? What philosophical effect could the scientific method possibly have when applied to itself?

 

[selfAdjoint]

Any systematic has to involve a leap of faith that it's worth while and effective. That's as true of philosophy and mathematics as it is of physical science.

 

[Doctordick]

I'll comment if no one else will!

Does the scientific method mark the coexistence between belief and actual science, and describe tenets that involve a religion of information?

Now I would answer "yes and no" to that! It all depends on how you look at it. This thread is called "Philosophy of Science and Mathematics"! In order to have an intelligent discussion, one needs to define "Philosophy", "Science" and "Mathematics" and no one does a competent job: ergo, none of the discussions can be called intelligent. Though I suspect I have an idea of what you mean by "a religion of information" there are certainly a great number of various interpretations available.

Its prediction of world events may apply equally to measuring the electron's mass, or consequently to the conviction in its own efficacy.

I take it here that you want to use the "scientific method" to resolve philosophic issues. Nice idea but not likely to be implemented. Not as long as philosophy is an "inexact science" (if it could be called a science).

The scientific method cannot justify itself by circular logic, but by its reflection of nature in the reproducibility of results.

You act as if the "scientific method" is a well thought out idea. The human race has very few "well thought out ideas"; most of their ideas are not thought out at all (and that includes their "scientific" ideas).

Creed, on the other hand, survives by seeming self-fulfilling prophesies that define the mind in terms of often uncontrollable events.

Now that is vague enough to be interpreted any way one wishes. So I guess I will agree with it – am I "doing" philosophy now?

May one say that the scientific method has become as much a way of life for many as a process for determining material truths? What philosophical effect could the scientific method possibly have when applied to itself?

Well, if you are interested in thinking objectively about the issue, I'll give you my thoughts. First, the "scientific method" is a poorly expressed idea; as normally given, it bears little resemblance to what would be an objective approach. Let me put for the the following diagram of "the scientific method" in an objective attack.

Any conceivable question can be answered via the following procedure:

1. List out all the possible answers! (Now this is the really difficult part as most of us are not bright enough to think of "all" of them. So, the scientists first error is to only work with a few possibilities. Well, that's life; perfection is hard to come by.)

2. For each answer, work out all the logical consequences of that answer being correct. (Now this step is a real bear too. Mainly because working out those consequences requires belief that we know the correct answers to other relevant questions. Oh well, life is tough all over; I guess the best they can do is presume they know the right answer to most questions and truck on. Creed and science seems to be getting mixed here doesn't it.)

3. Now we have "all possible answers" (that we can think of anyway) and the "consequences" relevant to each answer (presuming we know a lot already) and we can just look down those lists of consequences until we find a difference. When we find a difference, all we have to do is look at reality and see which consequence actually occurs. Low and behold, we have eliminated a possible answer (the consequences are not what happens)!

4. As we continue this process, we either eliminate a possible answer or something else happens: two or more answers yield exactly the same consequences. In that second case, it clearly makes no difference at all as to which answer is correct and, if it makes utterly no difference what the answer is, are you really asking a question worth answering?

The whole point of this discourse is to reveal the lack of objectivity in what is extraordinarily presented as "exact science". Most people seem to think that what makes a science "exact" is the fact that it can yield definite answers. This perception is not true at all; what makes a science exact is that they make it exactly clear what presumptions underlie their conclusions. And so called "exact scientists" are not near as exact as they would have us believe.

And lastly, philosophy could be an exact science if done carefully. The only problem then would be that all you jokers couldn't talk about things you don't understand and that would really throw a cramp in your style. Seriously, is there anyone out there who would like to talk about something they understand?

Have fun -- Dick

 

[Nereid]

Hmm, let's see now ...

"What is the colour, smell, taste and feel of a \tau neutrino?"

I conceived it, so it comes within Dr Dick's 'domain of applicability'. Now, Step 1, "list out all the possible answers". I think I need the help of the author of the method.

 

[Doctordick]

Hmm, let's see now ...

"What is the colour, smell, taste and feel of a \tau neutrino?"

I conceived it, so it comes within Dr Dick's 'domain of applicability'. Now, Step 1, "list out all the possible answers". I think I need the help of the author of the method.

Yeh, you need help all right! But, if that's an example of your best effort, you aren't bright enough to be worth any attention on my part; you clearly didn't spend any time thinking about it! :zzz:

 

[Loren Booda]

Doctordick,

Brave work to overturn 1000 years of convention. I see you constructing a "quantum logical" approach, where a difference ("interference") between answers ("positive propagation") and consequences ("negative propagation") yields a hierarchy of results ("Many Worlds").

 

[Nereid]

Yeh, you need help all right! But, if that's an example of your best effort, you aren't bright enough to be worth any attention on my part; you clearly didn't spend any time thinking about it! :zzz:

Humour me, Dr Dick ... explain - in words of one sylable if necessary - how my question fails (or is beyond the domain of applicability of your august idea) ... really ... pretend I'm from Missouri ...

 

[Mentat]

Does the scientific method mark the coexistence between belief and actual science, and describe tenets that involve a religion of information? Its prediction of world events may apply equally to measuring the electron's mass, or consequently to the conviction in its own efficacy.

The scientific method cannot justify itself by circular logic, but by its reflection of nature in the reproducibility of results. Creed, on the other hand, survives by seeming self-fulfilling prophesies that define the mind in terms of often uncontrollable events.

May one say that the scientific method has become as much a way of life for many as a process for determining material truths? What philosophical effect could the scientific method possibly have when applied to itself?

Loren, it's been far too long since I got to participate in one of your threads. Always excellent questions, even more excellently phrased (and, as the veterans among you know, I'm not given to flattery; this is the sincere truth).

Before I can answer, I need to know: by "scientific method" are you referring to the high-school text-book/Bacon/observation-hypothesis-experimentation-theory process, or are you referring to the more post-Popper "disqualificationist" (if I may coin a term) approach that (AFAIK) real theorists seem to prefer?

By that, I mean, are you referring to the Inductionist concept that led Bacon to devise the "scientific method", or the anti-Inductionist method that is typically employed?

 

[honestrosewater]

Humour me, Dr Dick ... explain - in words of one sylable if necessary - how my question fails (or is beyond the domain of applicability of your august idea) ... really ... pretend I'm from Missouri ...

If you were from Missouri, you wouldn't spell "color" with a "u". Problem solved. (Duh, Nereid, if you just stop and think about it. ) I think I'm getting the hang of this.

 

[Loren Booda]

Hello Mentat,

Thanks for your faith in my worldview, and your ability to decipher my meaning. The Popper, "disqualificationist" method - is that the eventual falsification of theories by experimentation?

As for the more primitive of the two scientific methods, induction relies on faith in the worldly Laws it emulates. Bacon's classical scientific religion is a medieval clockwork cycling through hypothesis, experiment and modification of hypothesis. It was not only simple, but at the time, rather revolutionary, and has yet to wind down. It has a magical quality of eliciting modern truths from Grecian elements, or of a portable test supplanting the repetitive rosary. Perhaps, like Christianity over Mediterranean polytheism, the physical creed credited to the monk Bacon eventually eroded greatly literal Biblical interpretation of the cosmos.

 

[Nereid]

Mentat! How wonderful to see you again! Welcome back ... please don't disappear again, OK?

 

[Nereid]

If you were from Missouri, you wouldn't spell "color" with a "u". Problem solved. (Duh, Nereid, if you just stop and think about it. ) I think I'm getting the hang of this.

OK, pretend I've been corrupted by those perfidious Anglos/Poms/Brits/English ... and have forgotten how words are spelled 'in the real world'. So are you from Missouri (too)?

 

[honestrosewater]

OK, pretend I've been corrupted by those perfidious Anglos/Poms/Brits/English ... and have forgotten how words are spelled 'in the real world'. So are you from Missouri (too)?

Close- Florida. I only add the extra "u"s during leap years. You know, cause I have the extra time and all. Anyway... How do other scientific methods handle your question, "What is the colour, smell, taste and feel of a tau neutrino?"

 

[Nereid]

About the same way they handle determination of the isospin and isotope composition of an uffish thought! (and AFAICS, they don't even begin to address why the slithy toves gyred and gimbled in the wabe).

A question carries with it a huge amount of baggage - quite apart from the language in which it's expressed, there are historical aspects ("Where is Sedna tonight?" cannot even be asked before Sedna had been discovered and named), theoretical ones ("When will the 3C75 SMBHs collide?" has built into it layer upon layer of theory), and so on.

So let's discuss your question ("How do other scientific methods handle your question?") - but first, which method are you taking as that to compare to ('other')?

 

[Nereid]

Does the scientific method mark the coexistence between belief and actual science, and describe tenets that involve a religion of information? Its prediction of world events may apply equally to measuring the electron's mass, or consequently to the conviction in its own efficacy.

The scientific method cannot justify itself by circular logic, but by its reflection of nature in the reproducibility of results. Creed, on the other hand, survives by seeming self-fulfilling prophesies that define the mind in terms of often uncontrollable events.

May one say that the scientific method has become as much a way of life for many as a process for determining material truths? What philosophical effect could the scientific method possibly have when applied to itself?

If 'the scientific method' is 'what scientists actually do' (i.e. an operational definition), then it can certainly be applied to itself!

Mentat has mentioned Bacon (and his philosophical descendents) and Popper; I contend that neither applied the method to itself; instead they pondered deeply and philosophically and gave birth to a view of the method which looked a bit like an early European artist's view of the Australian landscape (e.g. http://www.artrenewal.org/images/artists/W/Watling_Thomas/large/Watling_Thomas_A_Direct_North_General_View_Of_Sydney_Cove.jpg ). Kuhn was probably the first to attempt the project, and IMHO his result has all the hallmarks of a first draft.

But back to the philosophical question ... (l8ter, but for folk who like this kind of discussion, why not visit the Ebla Forum?)

 

[Aquamarine]

1. The scientific method requires some axioms. We still do no know any absolute "truth" that it can be derived from.

2. Regarding Popper:
http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/gardner_popper.html
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/popper/ (See critical evaluation)

3. From an earlier thread:

It seems that this discussion about the foundations of science stirs quite agitated feelings. In a way this is a strange since Ockham's razor as the scientific method is all that stand in the way of the postmodernistic explanations.

Let's take another approach. Ockham's razor is simple the statement that when curve-fitting, one should find the solution that best fits the data while avoiding overftting. Understand that a cuve is a theory, it is more than the data. Now, a objection is that this general goal is very vague and is not a description of how science is practiced today. This is true. The scientific method today follows one particular solution to this problem, namely cross-validation.

Cross-validation is essentially that the data should be divided into subsets and that the value of a theory is how well it predicts the data on "virginal" subsets. That is, subsets not used in making the theory.

Now this is a very powerful and robust solution of how to apply Ockham's razor. But it is in no way the only solution. And it has some great disadvantages.

One is the requirement for "virginal" data. Let's assume that an alien civilization sends a long message to Earth. The cryptographers solve this message, using all the data available. But according the cross-validation, "virginal" data never seen by the cryptographers is required to decide if this is the correct solution. So if one demands that only cross-validation should be used in science, then even if a solution if found that gives perfect meaning to a very long message, this is pseudoscience.

One other problem with cross-validation is the assumption that the subset will contain all the information of the whole set. But it may well be that the only way to find a solution is by looking at all the data available. Saving some data for "virginal" testing may make it impossible to find a solution.

Furthermore, even if cross-validation can find a solution, it is in not certain that it is more efficient at doing this compared to alternatives like MML, MMD, AIT or AIC.

So in the end, the critiques have mistaken one good solution of how to apply Ockham's razor with the whole scientific method. There may well be many different ways to apply Ockham's razor, with different ways having different efficiency depending on the particular situation.

4. Examples of science using MML and not cross-validation:
http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~lloyd/tildeMML/Intro/

 

[Mentat]

Hello Mentat,

Thanks for your faith in my worldview, and your ability to decipher my meaning. The Popper, "disqualificationist" method - is that the eventual falsification of theories by experimentation?

Yeah. He presented it as an opposing view to that of the Vienna Circle (logical postivism was their basic tenet).

As for the more primitive of the two scientific methods, induction relies on faith in the worldly Laws it emulates. Bacon's classical scientific religion is a medieval clockwork cycling through hypothesis, experiment and modification of hypothesis. It was not only simple, but at the time, rather revolutionary, and has yet to wind down. It has a magical quality of eliciting modern truths from Grecian elements, or of a portable test supplanting the repetitive rosary. Perhaps, like Christianity over Mediterranean polytheism, the physical creed credited to the monk Bacon eventually eroded greatly literal Biblical interpretation of the cosmos.

Well, it was a Kuhnian revolution, to say the very least. David Hume was the first (AFAIK) to poke serious holes in it (as he also did with Causality), but, in the end, Induction has some pretty serious flaws.

As to the question of whether the scientific method requires a leap of faith (and I assume you're equating "faith" with "credulity"), I'd say it clearly does. Paradoxically, it seems that the scientific method was invented specifically to avoid making unwarranted assumptions.

 

[Mentat]

Now, let me address the original questions directly...

Does the scientific method mark the coexistence between belief and actual science, and describe tenets that involve a religion of information?

That depends on what you mean by "actual science". If "actual science" is a method that is free of belief, then I'd have to ask first how you believe this can be accomplished and why you believe it should be (hint, hint ). If, OTOH, "actual science" is a method that is free of all beliefs except those two (for the purpose of argument), then I'd have to ask how one could consider that a step (in any direction) from the previous paradigm.

Its prediction of world events may apply equally to measuring the electron's mass, or consequently to the conviction in its own efficacy.

But then, post-Godel, can we really speak of a system's justifying itself?

The scientific method cannot justify itself by circular logic, but by its reflection of nature in the reproducibility of results.

Hold up...you're saying that the scientific method could justify itself by Induction (which is how it justifies everything else) right? How, then, could it justify Induction?

May one say that the scientific method has become as much a way of life for many as a process for determining material truths?

Define "material truth". It's tempting to define it as simply "those truths which hold true under each observation/experiment", but that temptation arises from a pre-supposed bias toward the scientific method.

I would, instead, define "truth" as "justified belief in social context" (this is not of my originality...it's Richard Rorty's view, as expressed in "Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature"). IOW, it's what you can get away with claiming; or what you can defend successfully in argument.

In that case, a "material truth" is a statement about something material, which can be defended in argument. If this be accepted, then the scientific method could only be seen as a likely source of material truth if it has already become an authority in the mind of those arguing. Seems somewhat self-fulfilling, doesn't it?

 

[honestrosewater]

So let's discuss your question ("How do other scientific methods handle your question?") - but first, which method are you taking as that to compare to ('other')?

How about the method you use?

 

[Loren Booda]

Mentat,

By "belief" I mean logically and cognitively supportable truthvalues, distilled by the individual, as opposed to intuitive or cultural standards of knowledge. In any case, we are free to choose whom to believe.

The scientific method should justify itself as far as testing local or incomplete phenomena; i. e., the method is not universal. Whichever the chosen scientific method, one can only truly test other, similar scientific methods with at least one element (a specific statement of hypothesis, experiment, measurement, etc.) different than its own.

"Material truth," I posit (claim, if you will), is derivable by parallel classical and quantum scientific methods, and thus represents independent nonsimultaneous dichotomies in regard to the observer:

The scientific method itself is subject to the quantum correspondence principle​

The scientific method originally codified experiment over intuition, whereas the quantum correspondent method now codifies the duality of classical and quantum logic.

A thumbnail sketch:

1. Does a measurement achieve {C} unitarity or {Q} interference with respect to observer?

2. Is the observation thus {C} classical or {Q} quantum?

3. Truthvalues: {C} if true, QED; if false, revise experiment; {Q} if repeated measurements "conflict," continue them to establish a quantum-probabilistic table of truthvalues.

4. Repeat if necessary modified experiment and {C} realize classical processes, or {Q} establish quantum statistical description.

 

[Nereid]

How about the method you use?

The simple answer is 'it's my own, who wants to know?'

Silliness aside, I'm not sure 'a scientific method' - in the sense we are discussing in this thread, and section of PF - can be individual; isn't it a community/group thing? (I touched on this in another thread). From an operational POV, my comment in this thread is close to the mark (if not couched in suitably philosophical words ). One last, important aspect ... however you characterise it, 'the scientific method' makes sense only within the historical context (IIRC, Mentat and I had a brief discussion on this point, a very long time ago ).

 

[Mentat]

Mentat,

By "belief" I mean logically and cognitively supportable truthvalues, distilled by the individual, as opposed to intuitive or cultural standards of knowledge. In any case, we are free to choose whom to believe.

Says who?

Seriously, how can one speak of cognitive truth without becoming Dualistic? How, in turn, can one speak of something beyond a cultural standard of knowledge, when the only chance they will have to defend their concept will be in a social setting?

The scientific method should justify itself as far as testing local or incomplete phenomena; i. e., the method is not universal. Whichever the chosen scientific method, one can only truly test other, similar scientific methods with at least one element (a specific statement of hypothesis, experiment, measurement, etc.) different than its own.

Interesting.

When you say that the method isn't universal, do you mean also to imply that there are some "local" or "incomplete" phenomena that it is not qualified to test? Also, why should a scientific method be applied to the testing of scientific methods for validity?

 

[Aquamarine]

I think that the axiom should be usefulness. The current scientific method is used because it has been useful for achieving various human goals. I doubt that we today can answer why the scientific method allows us to achieve these goals. While waiting for that answer, potential scientific methods should be evaluated by how useful they are for achieving human goals. And that evaluation may be empirical.

Hopefully science can justify itself in the future using coherentism. But that requires a coherent justification for the standard for coherence.

 

[Loren Booda]

Mentat,

I know you're not a Turing machine, which is better than I can say of most people!

You may agree that all logic, as all relationships, can be reduced to a series of dualities.

Until we human observers get a grasp of quantum logic, social relevance to the physical world will ultimately be classical in nature, thus potentially no more complete than an individual's information of the macroscopic. Scientific methods, each appropriate to an individual, as a whole may be tested against each other to formulate a communalistic method, possibly more comprehensive.

In general the phenomena exceptional to a scientific method are a limiting case, more collectively exhaustive than the method's elements themselves. Compare candidates for scientific methods with respect to Goedel's theorem to demostrate their relative truthvalues and equivalence in approaching the limit.

Aquamarine,

I am processing your arguments, as I am as slow at the keyboard as I am deliberative at philosophy.

 

[marley.wannabee]

hi loren

Does the scientific method mark the coexistence between belief and actual science, and describe tenets that involve a religion of information? Its prediction of world events may apply equally to measuring the electron's mass, or consequently to the conviction in its own efficacy.

Aleister Crowley sometimes argued that his form of enochian magic was sound and coexisted peacefully with the S method. Roman catholics have a 'mass' which follows very specific rules to attain certain predetermined results... then there is yoga. I don't know loren, maybe it all just depends on how we choose to see it right?

 

[selfAdjoint]

What empirical, objectively perceivable effects did Aleister Crowley's magic ever produce (aside from disgust). And the intent of the Mass is to produce an effect explicitly stated to be unobservable: the conversion of the unobservable substance of the bread and wine, but not the observable accidents, into the body and blood of Christ.

None of this can possibly be considered part of the scientific method.

 

[Mentat]

Mentat,

I know you're not a Turing machine, which is better than I can say of most people!

Thanks, I think (<-- that's an obscure joke; it needn't be funny).

You may agree that all logic, as all relationships, can be reduced to a series of dualities.

If not, it could get a little hairy (another failed joke...unless you're a logician).

Until we human observers get a grasp of quantum logic

?

social relevance to the physical world will ultimately be classical in nature, thus potentially no more complete than an individual's information of the macroscopic.

"Social relevance to the physical world"? We're the ones studying it, so we're all that matter, aren't we? Who's going to argue with "us"?

I got to go. I'll try to get back to this as soon as I can.

 

[Loren Booda]

Mentat,

All ingest. My ignorance makes for bad humor. Feel free to take time to ruminate.

To say that our community of observers is the basis of objectivism overlooks that, because we humans process exclusively in terms of classical logic, when participating with the microworld we must construct incomplete models in attempting to describe the dual, quantum logic.

As we experimenters evolve, we gradually eliminate old ideas (and their creators) as obsolete. If that is so, a Darwinistic time's arrow would be an overarching factor which determines the eventual selection of procedures to test our environment. The scientific method has become a distillation of the Anthropic Principle, as it were, where we individuals have interacted with our physical world more than within a community of scientists. We test our modes for survival often selfishly over other sentients and alongside the universe from which we have arisen.

Aquamarine,

The defining term of a specific scientific method (e. g., usefulness, generality or fecundity) often determines not only the form of that menu but its anticipated outcomes as well. I propose a predominant theme for an effective method should be "personableness," (i. e., "relative beauty").

 

[marley.wannabee]

self, hopefully you know enough about crowley's work... and the methods of enochian "magic" to write it off such.

because if not... your post is quite ridiculous. Actually, it must be "not" since you're asking me to supply YOU with evidence... if you had it to retort I'm sure you would have. Please do not attack me out of ignorance(am heritage).

Also, please point me to the passage in the bible that implies this...

"And the intent of the Mass is to produce an effect explicitly stated to be unobservable"

Then define "unobservable" in relation to your arguement(if that's what it is).

please put a little thought into this. It's no fun otherwise :)

 

[Mentat]

Mentat,
To say that our community of observers is the basis of objectivism overlooks that, because we humans process exclusively in terms of classical logic, when participating with the microworld we must construct incomplete models in attempting to describe the dual, quantum logic.

Look, I wasn't just joking when I said it could get "hairy". Fuzzy logic has been dealing with more than two truth values for some time now. "Quantum Logic", as you refer to it, requires simply allowing for a truth-value that is neither true nor false: fuzzy logic.

 

[selfAdjoint]

self, hopefully you know enough about crowley's work... and the methods of enochian "magic" to write it off such.

Of course I write it off, it's ridiculous.

because if not... your post is quite ridiculous. Actually, it must be "not" since you're asking me to supply YOU with evidence... if you had it to retort I'm sure you would have. Please do not attack me out of ignorance(am heritage).

My post was directed at your assumption that just because somebody says a particular process is causal, it is therefore scientific. Science has other tests of validity than claimed causality; experiment for example.

Also, please point me to the passage in the bible that implies this...

"And the intent of the Mass is to produce an effect explicitly stated to be unobservable"

The description isn't drawn from the Bible but from Catholic teaching. The Catholic Church does not accept that revelation ended with the Bible, and accepts the revelations of the Saints as inspired writ. The doctrine of transubstantiation was developed in the 9th century and carefully explained along Aristotelian lines by St. Thomas Aquinas. It says, following Aristotle, that everything has an inner nature or "substance" which provides its identity and "true nature" and a separate outer nature or accidents which provide its physical properties. Then transubstantiation says that a miracle happens when the priest says the Eucharist (central part of the Mass) which transforms the substance, but not the accidents into the identity and reality of the body and blood of Jesus the Christ. Thus the communicant is brought into the Real Presence of Christ, although every scientific test of the hosts will show mere bread and wine.

Then define "unobservable" in relation to your arguement(if that's what it is).

The Real Presence is physically unobservable, as you will see from my discussion above.

please put a little thought into this. It's no fun otherwise :)

I have been relying on the intelligence and general culture of the posters here to understand without having everything spelled out for them. Sorry if I was wrong.

 

[Loren Booda]

Mentat,

Look, I wasn't just joking when I said it could get "hairy". Fuzzy logic has been dealing with more than two truth values for some time now. "Quantum Logic", as you refer to it, requires simply allowing for a truth-value that is neither true nor false: fuzzy logic.

A wavefunction which appears at first glance to blur truth and falsehood may in actuality relate a field of binary truthvalue singularities. In either case, the introduction of measurement is necessary to make physical and definite a relatively arbitrary (though very practical) mathematical artifact. Personally, I have heard little about productive application of fuzzy logic to quantum mechanics. The vote is not yet in.

 

[marley.wannabee]

so essentially that big long post says you don't know what you were talking about... have fun fluffin your own ego... I'm not helpin yah ;)

 

[Mentat]

Mentat,A wavefunction which appears at first glance to blur truth and falsehood may in actuality relate a field of binary truthvalue singularities. In either case, the introduction of measurement is necessary to make physical and definite a relatively arbitrary (though very practical) mathematical artifact. Personally, I have heard little about productive application of fuzzy logic to quantum mechanics. The vote is not yet in.

Maybe, but you seem to be working off something like the Copenhagen interpretation. The "truth" about a quantum particle is probabilistic, it's not that we just don't know enough (or can't see past a "blur" of possible truths). From what I've read, QM requires that the particle is in all the possible places at once, though not necessarily observable as such, and with greater "probability" of being observed at some locations than at others.

That sounds like the typical use, in Logic, of a third truth-value, to me. Indeed, "mu" (as it is sometimes called) has been defined as (aside from not being true or false) "both and neither", in some texts. The third truth-value of fuzzy logic seems (IMHO) perfect for defining a quantum state, so that we're not so worried about how accurately we can tell what it actually is (which is a classical concern), but are content to say that it can be "both, neither, and everything in between".

I hope that's somewhere near coherent. I just got in from shoveling snow a few minutes ago, and I...am...pooped out!

 

[Mentat]

so essentially that big long post says you don't know what you were talking about... have fun fluffin your own ego... I'm not helpin yah ;)

I know I haven't been here for a while, but I'm pretty sure this kind of post isn't going to be permitted for very long, wannabee. In my experience, the only people who post like the above are those that "wannabee" banned.

 

[Loren Booda]

Consider a singularity. It may have either a value of one, zero or intermediate to both. These values infer not probabilities, but fractions.

A field of singularities, however, may obey proper-fractional fuzzy logic, which assigns the average of a neighborhood of singularities approaching zero volume to a representative singularity therein. Thus a quantum measurement coheres that neighborhood, collapsing information interior to it and assigning to that singular determination the locally averaged observable.

 

[Mentat]

Consider a singularity. It may have either a value of one, zero or intermediate to both. These values infer not probabilities, but fractions.

A field of singularities, however, may obey proper-fractional fuzzy logic, which assigns the average of a neighborhood of singularities approaching zero volume to a representative singularity therein. Thus a quantum measurement coheres that neighborhood, collapsing information interior to it and assigning to that singular determination the locally averaged observable.

Ok, but what has that to do with Logic?

 

[Loren Booda]

It asks whether quantum logic involves either singular measurements from a field of possible fractional observable values, or a "fuzzy" coherence of binary observable values whose average over their local phase space assigns to a given interior point.

 

[Mentat]

It asks whether quantum logic involves either singular measurements from a field of possible fractional observable values, or a "fuzzy" coherence of binary observable values whose average over their local phase space assigns to a given interior point.

Well, I see that point or I'd not have brought up "fuzzy logic" in the first place. How, in turn, does all this apply to the original question of whether science is based on faith, or if there is some more solid basis?

 

[Rader]

The description isn't drawn from the Bible but from Catholic teaching. The Catholic Church does not accept that revelation ended with the Bible, and accepts the revelations of the Saints as inspired writ. The doctrine of transubstantiation was developed in the 9th century and carefully explained along Aristotelian lines by St. Thomas Aquinas. It says, following Aristotle, that everything has an inner nature or "substance" which provides its identity and "true nature" and a separate outer nature or accidents which provide its physical properties. Then transubstantiation says that a miracle happens when the priest says the Eucharist (central part of the Mass) which transforms the substance, but not the accidents into the identity and reality of the body and blood of Jesus the Christ. Your Thus the communicant is brought into the Real Presence of Christ, although every scientific test of the hosts will show mere bread and wine.

Your post I would agree with accept one thing. I know you know some Latin.
These are the exact words tanslated from the Hebrew to Latin Vulagate. Hebrew was the language spoken at the "Last Supper". So what was written in Hebrew was believed in Hebrew and when translated into Latin was also believed in Latin.

HOC EST ENIM CORPUS MEUM.

THIS IS MY BODY.

HIC EST ENIM CALIX SANGUINIS MEI, NOVI ET AETERNI TESTAMENTI: MYSTERIUM FIDEI: QUI PRO VOBIS ET PRO MULITIS EFFUNDETUR IN REMISSIONEM PECCATORUM.

BECAUSE THIS IS THE CHALICE OF MY BLOOD, OF THE NEW AND ETERNAL TESTAMENT: MYSTERY OF FAITH THAT WILL BE SHED FOR YOU AND MANY FOR THE PARDON OF SINS.

This is what kept the faith alive during the Roman persecution. The belief in the transubstantiation was expressed known and believed at the "Last Supper" and passed down through the ages until today. This was faith 9 centuries prior to St. Thomas Aquinas, although he was a stanch professor of the "Faith" as we both know.

 

[Loren Booda]

Mentat,

Well, I see that point or I'd not have brought up "fuzzy logic" in the first place. How, in turn, does all this apply to the original question of whether science is based on faith, or if there is some more solid basis?

Faith may be necessary in choosing between two parallel but together uncertain alternatives of logical systems under the scientific method. Measurement carries with itself inherent uncertainty, but the overall scientific method's need for faith over ignorance arises in the limit of its systematic effectiveness, demonstrable in the ambiguity of quantum logic.

At best, the scientific method is fundamentally incomplete, as its procedure cannot appreciate simultaneously, e. g., both the logic of the singular fractional valued experiment and of the probabilistic locally averaged value experiment. Call it preference or faith, but the scientific method must eventually incorporate dual logics to justify the bounds imposed by the like of the quantum.

 

[selfAdjoint]

At best, the scientific method is fundamentally incomplete, as its procedure cannot appreciate simultaneously, e. g., both the logic of the singular fractional valued experiment and of the probabilistic locally averaged value experiment. Call it preference or faith, but the scientific method must eventually incorporate dual logics to justify the bounds imposed by the like of the quantum.

Loren, I've been trying to get a clear meaning of this passage into my brain, but I am not having any success. Could you clarify what the different alternatives ("singular fractional valued experiment" and "probabilistic locally averaged value experiment") are, and why they cannot be considered at the same time? Thanks.

 

[Loren Booda]

selfAdjoint,

I tried to express that uncertainty exists not only in observable measurements, but in the scientific interpretation that underlies them. If you were to relate to me that a particular point in space had a 35% chance of being occupied, I would ask whether that value was a fractional possibility of 35% at that one singularity, or a probability of 35% "collapsed" from an average over all space. These interpretations differ between a quasi-classical particular determination and a normalized wavefunction property of quantum mechanics - realizable together only as a belief, not a logic.

 

[selfAdjoint]

Ah, I see now. I didn't understand because I can't consider classical physics any possible basis for what I guess you might call ontology. It still has its uses as a practical matter for finding answers to a restricted range of questions, as long as you don't need too much accuracy, but quantum nature rules the roost and until someone comes up with a valid replacement for it, we have to accept its approach. That is my belief and I have experimental and meshing theoretical backing for it.

 

[katelynndevere]

Does the scientific method mark the coexistence between belief and actual science, and describe tenets that involve a religion of information? Its prediction of world events may apply equally to measuring the electron's mass, or consequently to the conviction in its own efficacy.

The scientific method cannot justify itself by circular logic, but by its reflection of nature in the reproducibility of results. Creed, on the other hand, survives by seeming self-fulfilling prophesies that define the mind in terms of often uncontrollable events.

May one say that the scientific method has become as much a way of life for many as a process for determining material truths? What philosophical effect could the scientific method possibly have when applied to itself?

Your post is so wordy it is almost impossible to decipher. This over use of the thesaurus is a cheap trick, beloved of high school English students and ought not to be relied upon by those serious about philosophy. However, i will attempt to answer your questions, in plain English.

The scientific method does not mark the coexistence of faith and science, nor does it decribe the tenets or dogmas of a religion of information. The scientific method is an attempt to rationally analyse real world events in order to produce rules which can be used to describe and or to predict the behaviour of forces and objects. It is useful. Its prediction of world events is not a consequence of it's conviction of it' s own efficacy. The scientific method is not, so far as I am aware, a conscious or sapient entity and therefore has no convictions about itself. It similarly does not want or need to justify it's own existence or validity. However, it's validity is indeed proved by the reproducability of results. Gravity exists and it behaves as we expect it to, according to rules established by the application of the scientific method (new research in LQG aside, that is).

One may indeed say that the scientific method has become as much a way of life for some, as a process used for determining material truths, but it would be simpler to say that many people think rationally.

Your last question I have no answer for, because it makes little sense to me at the moment. I will think about it and try to decide what you might mean, before I attempt to answer. I should of course, be most grateful for any light you care to shed upon this for my benefit.

Kate.

 

[Loren Booda]

Kate,

You are right in that I make too much use of the (Roget's) thesaurus. You're the first to notice that after thousands of my posts on PF. I did get an 800 (perfect score) on the vocabulary portion of my SAT's in 1976, however. I also won a monthly contest held by The Washington Post, where I was quoted as using the thesaurus, a couple of years ago. Anything more than a sentence by me could seem rather pained. Thanks for the observation.

Your rebuttal is well thought out. I myself cannot easily expound upon concepts that represent to me no direct physical meaning, with which I include philosophy in general. I do appreciate your ascertaining the scientific method as a tool of reason - I had pictured it as a procedure for obtaining one's worldview, both scientific and otherwise. Perhaps, for instance, one could create a song using its menu, or similarly, explore the bounds of metaphysics. Some peoples might interpret its results in a magical sense, like a Delphic oracle.

My last question, which you refer to, contains an attempt to ascertain whether the scientific method is self-consistent; "Goedel's theorem" comes to mind. Can the scientific method surpass Goedel's constraints?

 

[reilly]

Ask ten working physicists about the scientific method, and you'll get ten different answers. In the nine years of my training, I never heard about the scientific method in any of my science courses. And in my time as a practicing theoretical physicist, I never heard any of my colleagues talk about it. For the most part, formalized discussions of work come after the fact, and are often sanitized -- they give no clue about how the work was actually done. Great examples of this can be found in Sir E.T. Whittaker's History of the Aether and Electricity.

On the other hand, in my few years as an urban economist, I found professional economists to be obsessed with the scientific method, and with methodological purity -- they eschew the intellectual opportunism common among physicists. I was part of a small team building simulation models of urban neighborhoods. We were roundly criticized by economists for getting some of our ideas from analysis of real data, rather than formulating a hypothesis, etc, etc. (The criticizing economists never got their urban model to work. Ours was used with considerable success by real planners in real cities for quite some time.)

It would be great if methodological mavens would study science as done by real scientists. Then, maybe, many working scientists would pay more attention to formal discussions of methodology -- in fact, physics is much like art, as it relies on intuition, guessing, and inspiration. (I've been a working jazz pianist, and composer. The way I do jazz and the way I did physics are remarkably similar.) Hypotheses are often like the Cheshire Cat -- now you see them, now you don't, and they never look the same from viewing to viewing.

Regards,
Reilly Atkinson

 

[katelynndevere]

Loren,
Thank you, it is clear to me that I simply did not understand what you meant. If you mean to suggest that the apparent accuracte prediction of world events by the scientific method is illusory, and only appears to exist because of a shared belief in it's efficacy by it's proponents, then I must defer: of course that is possible. We may all be watching shadows on the cave wall after all.
As for whether the scientific method can be used to prove it's own consistency, and if so, whether that means it is in fact inconsistent - I must confess to being lost at sea. I will have to go and think about that for a long time.
Kate.