The Problem with Science

[Spiked Blood]

I don't know where to put this topic, I think perhaps it might be better suited in this sub forum.

 

I'm not a scientist, my only education of science was at high school level with Physics and Chemistry. I would like to study physics in my own time, but I have difficulty finding a good place to start.

 

I have noticed the phrase "the problem with science" is used quite a lot, people have said it on this forum.

 

My question is this, do you think there is a problem with science, with today's scientific methods? If so, what do you think that problem is?

 

It seems to me, though I am probably entirely wrong, that a current problem might be this.

 

Gravity: When you try to understand how gravity works, you make an assumption of what gravity does, and then try work out what makes it do this answer that you have presumed to be true. Like you are working backwards. Therefore you are always taking the same answer, and just looking for different ways to get to this answer. If what you presume gravity does is actually wrong then your theories will never be right becuase the initial answer is not correct.

 

Does that make sense? Sometimes I have difficulty articulating myself so that others understand what I mean.:hihi:

[GAHD]

I'm with you on that one SB, but untill we can play with gravity it'll be kind of hard to "nail it down".

[hallenrm]

My question is this, do you think there is a problem with science, with today's scientific methods? If so, what do you think that problem is?

 

It seems to me, though I am probably entirely wrong, that a current problem might be this.

 

Gravity: When you try to understand how gravity works, you make an assumption of what gravity does, and then try work out what makes it do this answer that you have presumed to be true. Like you are working backwards. Therefore you are always taking the same answer, and just looking for different ways to get to this answer. If what you presume gravity does is actually wrong then your theories will never be right becuase the initial answer is not correct.

 

Does that make sense? Sometimes I have difficulty articulating myself so that others understand what I mean.:fly:

 

If I am getting your post right, you are at a loss to understand how science works? If so I would recommend you to read my article The fascination of science in the subforum articles.

[Doctordick]

Hallenrm, you have very nice sentiments but, in my opinion, you fundamentally miss a very significant issue. :evil:

Science is fascinating for anybody who values knowledge,

Just as does everyone else, you completely omit the idea of “understanding”. It is my opinion that you (and everyone else) omit this issue because you believe understanding is automatically embedded within the concept of knowledge. That this is a false belief is quite clearly demonstrated by the existence of idiot savants. I also think it is the major defeating fault in the common attack on AI. Until the programmers recognize the existence of that issue and come up with an organized means of achieving it, AI will continue to be a pipe dream. :D

Indeed the word science is derived from the Latin word scire, meaning, “to know.” Science is dynamic, which means it is constantly developing, the science today is not exactly the same as it was, say, fifty years ago. This is so because scientists are always on the look out for new knowledge.

I could be wrong but I think that is exactly the issue Spiked Blood is trying to bring up. Everyone is looking for "knowledge" (more information) without much worrying about how to go about understanding it. Scientists never spend much time looking for new understandings of old knowledge because they have this overwhelming belief that they understand what they know. Most often, one thinks they understand something because they have a personal emotional feeling they understand; a state which by the way can also be achieved via drugs or religious indoctrination. ;)

 

This is, in fact, the very issue I have been trying to get people to think about but it seems they would rather not. That is the very driving force behind my definition of "an explanation". My position is that understanding is an emotional illusion unless you can provide an acceptable internally consistent explanation. My work is entirely devoted to the problem of achieving understanding from nothing except information itself. As far as I know, no one in the history of the world has even made an attempt to establish the boundaries on such an approach. ;)

 

All you bright people should spend a little time thinking about a very simple problem. You are an immortal being in a locked in an empty room with no space to move and utterly no access to the outside world. Your only source of information about the outside world is a light which turns off and on: i.e., a binary sequence. Your only contact with the outside world is a switch which you can turn on and off: i.e., a binary sequence you can create. :shade:

 

Now, it should be clear to you that all kinds of information about the outside world can be sent to you via that flashing light and, once you figure out the code, you can ask any question you wish. How do you go about establishing a meaning to those flashing lights? I'll give you all the time you need, all I want to know is how do you propose to attack the problem. Fundamentally, this is the problem solved by the millions of children born every year. Roughly, they seem to manage to decode the signals they get into something that makes sense to them in around a year. I would set that at being equivalent to something considerably less than ten^twenty flashes of that light. :eek:

 

So, I challenge you to provide me with a rational attack on the problem. I do not accept the attack, "I would just let my mind absorb the signals until it managed to acquire an understanding" (the attack most people presume to be the only successful approach) because it does not begin to provide a method of developing that understanding. :confused:

 

Have fun -- Dick

[InfiniteNow]

This is, in fact, the very issue I have been trying to get people to think about but it seems they would rather not.

Just to be clear on my position, I choose not to think about it because I have other interests, find your tone condescending, and your inability to explain to others what you claim to know so robustly a consistent limitation for you, one which I'm not patient enough to overcome.

 

 

Now, it should be clear to you that all kinds of information about the outside world can be sent to you via that flashing light and, once you figure out the code, you can ask any question you wish. How do you go about establishing a meaning to those flashing lights?

By combining previous experience with surroundings and expectation, then comparing these. However, I would more correctly argue that understanding is not some clear nor well defined destination, but a continually evolving path, an exploration.

 

 

 

Cheers. :confused:

[Turtle]

Science is fascinating for anybody who values knowledge,...

 

Just as does everyone else, you completely omit the idea of “understanding”. It is my opinion that you (and everyone else) omit this issue because you believe understanding is automatically embedded within the concept of knowledge. That this is a false belief is quite clearly demonstrated by the existence of idiot savants.

Have fun -- Dick

Hey Doc, you have mentioned idiot savants before and it is no secret I say I am one.(Nor is it "fun") Do you mean to say a savant's understanding of things is no understanding at all, or do you mean to say it is less or greater an understanding than "everyone else" possesses? Do you consider yourself a savant? What makes a savant in your view?

[Doctordick]

Just to be clear on my position, I choose not to think about it because I have other interests, find your tone condescending, and your inability to explain to others what you claim to know so robustly a consistent limitation for you, one which I'm not patient enough to overcome.

Now that seems to be about the attitude of the whole forum doesn't it? It is at least a decent statement of what I think their attitude is. If that makes me condescending I guess I can't argue with it.

By combining previous experience with surroundings and expectation, then comparing these. However, I would more correctly argue that understanding is not some clear nor well defined destination, but a continually evolving path, an exploration.

Hmm, that sort of sounds like "I would just let my mind absorb the signals until it managed to acquire an understanding" doesn't it? If understanding "is not some clear nor well defined destination", don't you think the issue needs a little exploration? If you don't have any idea as to where you are trying to go, how do you expect to get there?

Hey Doc, you have mentioned idiot savants before and it is no secret I say I am one.(Nor is it "fun") Do you mean to say a savant's understanding of things is no understanding at all, or do you mean to say it is less or greater an understanding than "everyone else" possesses? Do you consider yourself a savant? What makes a savant in your view?

You and I seem to be working with a very different definitions of "idiot savant". I was brought up with the idea that the word "idiot" derived from the same source as "idiom" which meant a very specific way of doing things and was used to indicate an inability infer alternative ways of interpreting information. After your comment, I looked in the dictionary and found no real definition there. It appears that the word is currently used to simply classify IQ levels (apparently idiot is the lowest possible classification). I have a suspicion that is a rather modern usage as "IQ" is itself a rather modern idea. And, from the comments you have made on this forum, I would certainly not classify you as an idiot. I would say that idiots do not question their beliefs. Apparently that is because they cannot comprehend things being different from what they "know they are".

 

Likewise, a "savant" usually implies someone who possesses an abnormal abundance of knowledge; the dictionary defines a savant as "a learned person; a scholar; a person famous for his knowledge and wisdom". Certainly, that interpretation would make "idiot savant" an explicit oxymoron; however, if you omit "wisdom" from the definition of savant (after all it is an aspect of the tertiary possibility) the two words in combination seem to express a very specific mental deficiency (and one I would certainly not credit you with by the way). There are those who can perform prodigious tasks with extended information well beyond the capability of most people but cannot relate the results to their everyday needs (very analogous to what computers do). I would be very curious as to where you got the idea you were an "idiot savant" and what you think the term means. As I have said many times, human languages are rampant with opportunities for misunderstanding and it seems to me that what we are dealing with here is exactly that problem.

 

And, as to me, "savant" implies an abnormal abundance of knowledge, I would certainly not classify myself as a savant. There are a great number of people who possess significantly more information than I do. What people don't seem to understand is that the big question in my mind is, "what would you expect if you knew nothing?" So long as the logical answer is exactly the same as what the "savants" tell me actually happens, I see no need to "know" anything. The search of my whole life has been, "if I want to understand what happens, what do I need to know?" Except for mathematics (which I am sure you understand I regard to be a language) and logic itself, I have discovered no piece of information necessary to that understanding. So no, I do not regard myself as a "savant". The exact opposite in fact!

 

I seems to me that the assorted scientific communities (and most everyone else also) think that understanding flows from knowledge: i.e., accumulate enough knowledge and you will come to understand it. I, on the other hand, think that knowledge flows from understanding: i.e., in the absence of understanding knowledge cannot be accumulated. The critical issue is that "thinking you understand" is an illusion. The only demonstration of understanding is achievement of an explanation which yields expectations consistent with its own defined phenomena and that is why the definition of an explanation is so important. The critical issue of solving the problem I described in my previous post is the realization that your senses are part of the solution and are not themselves a-priori phenomena. The freedom to define the nature of your senses (i.e., what is being sensed) is exactly the freedom required to construct a solution (without that freedom, a solution is not even possible). That fact has some very interesting consequences.

 

Sorry if I misunderstand you all. Believe me, I think my understanding of you is probably as bad as your understanding of me. It certainly isn't my intention to misinterpret your interests and concerns.

 

Have fun -- Dick

[Turtle]

You and I seem to be working with a very different definitions of "idiot savant". I was brought up with the idea that the word "idiot" derived from the same source as "idiom" which meant a very specific way of doing things and was used to indicate an inability infer alternative ways of interpreting information. After your comment, I looked in the dictionary and found no real definition there. It appears that the word is currently used to simply classify IQ levels (apparently idiot is the lowest possible classification). I have a suspicion that is a rather modern usage as "IQ" is itself a rather modern idea.

Have fun -- Dick

I'll spare you a litany justifying my idiocy because giving it seems idiotic to me. Here's a starting point for your general understanding:

http://www.autism.org/savant.html

[Qfwfq]

I was brought up with the idea that the word "idiot" derived from the same source as "idiom" which meant a very specific way of doing things and was used to indicate an inability infer alternative ways of interpreting information.

The word 'idiom' has more to do with language although indicating what is most distinctive/peculiar of someone's language. While the word itself, like many, came to be used with a broader meaning of 'peculiarity', the term 'idiot' (deprived of idiom) arose AFAIK to indicate those who voiced no opinion on the public affair (of the Greek Polis) and came to mean those who had none, thence applied to those incapable of having any, hence to a jackass.

 

Webster's etymology seems rather shallow, tracing it to a Greek indication of "a private person, not holding public office" but no doubt this arose from the above etymus, which I had heard from an excellent classic scolar who was giving examples of the Greek desinence for lack of. Another example was 'patriot' as someone deprived of their country, in the sense of feeling the lack of it and ready to battle for it, although now applied to those who highly support it and not necessarily who are deprived of it.

 

Etymology can often shed a lot of new light on old words.

[InfiniteNow]

If understanding "is not some clear nor well defined destination", don't you think the issue needs a little exploration? If you don't have any idea as to where you are trying to go, how do you expect to get there?

Perhaps you could provide some parameters regarding the what you see as the difference between "here" and "there," or "now" and "then," so I can address your question more intelligently?

[Qfwfq]

I'm also a grumpy old man, although not 50 yet I've been burdened with reasons plenty,

:D but this isn't an excuse!

/forums/images/smilies/mad_2.gif

:)

 

I do agree with the point you make regarding the difference between understanding and knowledge.

There is an obvious difference, but the webpage you thank Turtle for says that the cases of an autistic savants aren't demonstrations of knowledge without understanding.

[Qfwfq]

How I came to contract this infliction at such a young age is a very looooooooooooooooooooooong story. :D

[Southtown]

All you bright people should spend a little time thinking about a very simple problem. You are an immortal being in a locked in an empty room with no space to move and utterly no access to the outside world. Your only source of information about the outside world is a light which turns off and on: i.e., a binary sequence. Your only contact with the outside world is a switch which you can turn on and off: i.e., a binary sequence you can create. :hihi:

Well I look at this from a musical perspective, always had a big love for it. And not entirely out of step with the 'autistic savant' conundrum, I suggest looking for patterns and comparing them. Also variations of patterns, and even variations of variations, such as in guitar chords and scales.

 

A varying pattern:

 

0124012301220121

 

A varying variance:

 

0124012301140113

 

The contrast of structures can be used to extrapolate further sequences, and no knowledge of the world or universe should be required. Am I close?

[Doctordick]

Etymology can often shed a lot of new light on old words.

Etymology sheds the light of history on words; however, it often has little bearing on current usage as most people pay little attention to what their elders meant. For example, it is said that "nice" started life as a contraction of "no sense" and that "piss" was once "a euphemism used by women in place of the vulgar term used by men, which was not recorded." What is important is figuring out what the person using the word means. I am old enough that I have seen major changes in usage during my own life. I guess that is why they call English a living language. People today seem to have no idea what the word "fewer" means (they seem to think that it's the guy in charge of Germany in WWII). :cup:

I'll spare you a litany justifying my idiocy because giving it seems idiotic to me.

I have read your reference; however, it seems to imply that "professionals in the subject area" have simply shifted their diagnostic name from a politically unacceptable "idiot savant" to the new "autistic savant". In my head both of those usages are little more than tags the doctors use to categorize what they do not understand.

 

One day when I was in graduate school (which was, by the way, paid for via the GI bill) my wifes arms turned bright red. We went to the emergency room where a blood specialist diagnosed her as having "idiopathic thrombocyte purpura". We were told that a certain percentage died within twenty four hours, some few got over it on their own without doing anything and about half would improve if their spleen were taken out (which he suggested doing immediately). I looked up the diagnosis and discovered that "idopathic" meant "they didn't know what caused it, "thrombocyte" meant "it had to do with the blood" and "purpra" meant "the capillaries leaked". Essentially the diagnosis was "her arms are turning red and we don't know why!" It seemed to me that he was talking about a number of different diseases so we said we would just wait to see what was going to happen (the twenty four hours had already passed). The symptom is a very low platelet count. So, for almost fifteen years, she was under doctors care (went in regularly for a blood count to see how close she was to kicking the bucket). We noticed that her blood count went up and down seeming to depend upon the stress she was under. He said stress had nothing to do with it.

 

Well, one day I happened to read a science article on scurvy. Low platelet counts are one of the symptoms. And scurvy was caused by lack of vitamin C. I put this together with the fact that aspirin destroys vitamin C and that she ate aspirin like candy whenever she was upset to conclude that she was suffering from self induced scurvy. Made her quit aspirin and the whole thing went away. Needless to say, I don't have a real high opinion of MD's (or authorities in general for that matter).

 

But, back to the issue at hand, you have essentially used the idea "idiot" twice in your post ("idiocy" and "idiotic") and have left me with the problem of discerning exactly what you mean by the word. I am fairly confident that you do not mean something exactly equivalent to the current usage of "autistic" as might be implied by your post so I am really somewhat at a loss as to what you mean by the word.

 

When I use the term "idiot savant", I mean a person who satisfies the term "savant" (i.e., can produce information commonly thought of as knowledge far in excess of the common man) while seeming to be unable to consider possibilities not explicitly conforming to his idea of what is or is not. You put forth questions all the time. That is not at all the type of behavior I would term idiotic. It is the overwhelming compulsion put forth one's own perspective as the only possibility that I would term idiotic.

 

That brings me to a private message from Southtown which I think ought to be discussed here.

 

Southtown, after reading your private message, which stirred me to answer in a rather convoluted way, I decided it might be more reasonable to post my answer for everyone to see. Thank you very much for trying to understand what I am talking about.

I guess I was just wondering if you knew off the top of your head if it was plausible in your view. If it's neither here nor there, then I apologize.

No need to apologize. Everyone seems to think I am proposing a solution to the problem of explaining the universe. I am not! What I am doing is pointing out the underlying nature of the problem; quite a different thing.

 

The first issue is "understanding what people mean" (an issue of significant importance above): i.e., does there exist an alternate interpretation of what they say. That would be an alternate to what one's subconscious delivers as a wholesale solution (the solution which was achieved by your brain during the first year of your life). All of us have built a whole world view as a rational solution to the problem of understanding what we call our experiences. An issue barely brushed at in that old question, "how do I know that, when you say you see green, you are seeing the same thing I see when I think I am seeing green".

 

Most people simply believe that the issue (how do I know that your world view bears any resemblance to mine) is so complex that a consistent alternate explanation could not possibly exist. That is an assumption that I felt, very early on, should be examined carefully. Taken at face value, it is in fact exactly the same problem as the problem of decoding a totally unknown language: i.e., there exists no a-priori source for the true meaning of any specific reference upon which your world view is based. Everything must be taken as a whole.

 

Now any linguist will assert that, without a-priori knowledge of some sort (related to what is being communicated), decoding of a totally unknown language cannot be accomplished. Yet that is exactly what millions of children do every year (they all begin as single cell organisms with no a-priori definitions at all) so it most certainly can be accomplished. The real question embedded in that problem is, how do we know our personal solutions bear any resemblance at all to one another? The correct answer is we don't. All we know is that it seems to be a fact that I can map your descriptions of reality into mine (at least for the most part and, when we can't, we all presume it must be a simple misunderstanding of something).

 

It is exactly that presumed misunderstanding that Paul is trying to clear up in his post on "physicsforums.com" and I do not post to his thread because I feel that the approach is doomed to failure before he even begins. My position is quite simple, perhaps the misunderstanding is far more complex than conceived of by anybody. Perhaps the idea that the the problem is so complex that an alternate explanation could not possibly exist is the erroneous position. Perhaps there are millions upon millions of possible solutions and that my map of your description of reality into mine is the totally fabricated illusion. That this is the true nature of our communication problems: i.e., we have all actually made careful examination of distinctively different phenomena and we only think we are talking about the same thing.

 

That is why I consider mathematics to be the only dependable language of communication. So long as we express our knowledge with mathematical relationships and mathematically defined procedures, it makes no difference that concepts being referenced might be different, we can be confident that the map we construct will be usable (that is to say that the defined mathematical relationships are considerably better defined than are the relationships "defined" with common language elements).

 

This is the source of my sets A, B(t), C and D; all undefined references (which are defined by your solution to the problem of conceiving of a valid world view). In understanding you (or understanding any source of information) it is incumbent upon me to find an interpretation of those elements available to me (what I have called C) which makes B(t) (the changes in what I know of that "source of information") make reasonable sense to me.

 

What I have discovered is that (without making any decisions about what A is) there always exists a set D which will allow the rule F=0 to yield a convenient mechanism to establish constraints on what your solution will look like. That is, without knowing anything about what your world view is (without having the slightest idea as to what you think A, B(t), C and D are) I can guarantee that the fundamental elements inherent to your world view will obey the laws of modern physics.

 

What this means is that the fact that I can interpret your description of your experiences (as expressed to me) in such a way as to make your description consistent with mine (at least when it comes to the laws of modern physics) does not constitute any evidence at all that our world views are even similar much less identical. To me that is a rather astonishing conclusion.

 

So, I am not proposing any solutions to anything. I am merely pointing out the fact that, what people think of as absolute proof of the validity of their perspective is proof of nothing. What I am fighting is the conviction held by everyone that "there exists but one valid interpretation of their personal experiences". Essentially, that old "thus I refute Berkeley" thing which proves utterly nothing. The fact that we agree as to the validity of modern physics is simply no proof that our world views are the same. I have proved that you cannot construct an internally consistent world view of any complete collection of information which cannot be interpreted in a way which makes it obey modern physics.

 

Hi rfahrytas, I enjoyed your comments. Ever stayed in a hotel with a "chamber pot"? I have! Reminds me of a story a math professor told me. Newton used dots to indicate differentiation whereas Leibnitz used d's (he called it "dot-ism" and "deism"). He said he went into mathematics (using deism) because in physics (dot-ism) he had problems with flies performing unwanted differentiations. How times have changed. And yes, senility is close enough I can smell it. Things that were trivial to me fifty years ago are difficult to prove now.

 

Have fun -- Dick

[Turtle]

What I am fighting is the conviction held by everyone that "there exists but one valid interpretation of their personal experiences".

Dick

 

I don't hold that conviction. :) As you like the math, what do you find agreeable in my exploration here on Katabataks? Is it problematic with scientists in any way this thread suggests or your explanation of understanding? :)

[Doctordick]

I don't hold that conviction. :)

That's why I would never consider you to be an idiot!

As you like the math, what do you find agreeable in my exploration here on Katabataks?

Your exploration appears to be fun for you and that's the most important part. And I think it also shows what complexity comes from simple ideas but my interest has always been with the problem of explaining reality, not explanations of reality which are somewhat of a different issue.

Is it problematic with scientists in any way this thread suggests or your explanation of understanding? :)

I would never consider examination of patterns to be problematic in any way. You never know when you might stumble across a valuable pattern (i.e., one which has a significant application – as explaining something erstwhile thought to be unexplainable). It happens you know. :)

 

And thanks for the Birthday gift. :hihi:

 

Have fun -- Dick

[Turtle]

I would never consider examination of patterns to be problematic in any way. You never know when you might stumble across a valuable pattern (i.e., one which has a significant application – as explaining something erstwhile thought to be unexplainable). It happens you know. ;)

 

And thanks for the Birthday gift. :hihi:

 

Have fun -- Dick

 

Yes I know it happens; that's why we keep doing it ay. :) Chaos favors the prepared imagination after all, and I examine everyone's work with my own in mind just as you have. We are singing different songs into existence, but they are songs nonetheless. :) The gift was my pleasure and you are welcome. :)