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> "The question is not whether there is just as valid cultural knowledge, but whether culture as a source of knowledge is just as valid as science, which it is

> "The question is not whether there is just as valid cultural knowledge, but whether culture as a source of knowledge is just as valid as science, which it is not." Science only truly works in when the properties being explored can be accurately quantified. There are plenty of experiences and occurrences which cannot be accurately quantified. There is a common misconception amongst scientifically-minded people that science can explain everything just because it can explain a wide range of events, from the big bang to the splitting of an atom. The truth is there are certain parts of our experience that make no sense to put a number on, and science will never excel in those spheres.

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y ago
> Science only truly works in when the properties being explored can be accurately quantified. What about the scientific method makes it so that this supposedly is the case? > There are plenty of experiences and occurrences which cannot be accurately quantified. Mind giving an example (for which you also think the scientific method is not applicable)? > There is a common misconception amongst scientifically-minded people that science can explain everything just because it can explain a wide range of events I doubt that that is a very wide-spread misconception among scientifically minded people, for the simple reason that a very central aspect of science is to say "I don't know" if ... well, if you don't know. That directly contradicts the supposed belief that "science can explain everything", as saying "I don't know" implies "I don't think science can explain this, at least not yet". If anything, it seems to me like that is a wide-spread misconception among not so scientifically minded people about what scientifically minded people think. However, the mere fact that science can not explain something does not mean that anything else can, and so far nothing has been demonstrated that could explain anything that science can't. > The truth is there are certain parts of our experience that make no sense to put a number on, and science will never excel in those spheres. What does putting numbers on things have to do with any of this?
- mjburgess 9y ago
  > and so far nothing has been demonstrated that could explain anything that science can't. Science hasn't explained how science works, nor can it. Every precondition of science (causality, mathematics, etc.) goes unexplained by science.
  - zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y ago
    OK. So, how do you know that science works? Or do you think that it doesn't work or that you don't know whether it works?
- ZenoArrow 9y ago
  > "What does putting numbers on things have to do with any of this?" Before we explore the rest of your questions, we need to establish the fundamentals. Science is built upon testability. If something can't be tested, we can't extend our scientific understanding of it. The scientific method works by first establishing a hypothesis to test, and then conducting experiments to assess whether the hypothesis was accurate. If you can't verify if the hypothesis is accurate or not then the scientific method doesn't work. You can only verify if something is accurate or not if you can accurately measure it. Measuring something relies on being able to quantify it. Do you disagree with any of the above? > "I don't think science can explain this, at least not yet" It's the "at least not yet" that I'm referring to as the misconception. Some things do not lend themselves to measurement, so in some cases it's much more honest to admit we'll probably never be able to accurately measure some things. To give a simple example, let's say I ask you... "On a scale of 1 to 10, how unhappy do you feel today?" Let's also imagine I ask multiple people the same question. What can I infer from this data set? Am I measuring the perception of sadness? What role does the strength of memory play on this? Would I have got a different answer if I asked you 5 minutes later? Is a 7/10 from one person comparable to a 7/10 from another person? Note that even though the data set is nonsense, the decision on which number between 1 to 10 was based on something (or rather a group of different things), it's just not something that can be boiled down to an accurate model. Any attempt to do so will require such high levels of abstraction that the end result is too far divorced from reality. To give a more famous example, Douglas Adams' meaning of life being 42, even if you understood the variables used to arrive at this number, what relation does that number have to reality? In summary, science attempts to describe the order in the chaos, but there are certain aspects of life that do not lend themselves to being reduced in this way. If you accept that, then you can accept that even if science has merit in some fields, it also has its limitations.
  - zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y ago
    > Science is built upon testability. If something can't be tested, we can't extend our scientific understanding of it. Yes. > If you can't verify if the hypothesis is accurate or not then the scientific method doesn't work. No. Science never verifies, science only falsifies. If something were to be verified successfully, that would mean that falsification would be impossible. If something is not falsifiable, it is not testable, and therefore not science, therefore science does not verify. > You can only verify if something is accurate or not if you can accurately measure it. What does "accurate(ly)" mean here? > Measuring something relies on being able to quantify it. No, unless you mean that in the very abstract sense that any information can be encoded as numbers. > It's the "at least not yet" that I'm referring to as the misconception. Some things do not lend themselves to measurement, so in some cases it's much more honest to admit we'll probably never be able to accurately measure something. I'll take the "to accurately measure something" to mean "to explain something scientifically", as I don't understand what you mean by "accurately measure something", see above. "at least not yet" means "it's not possible now, possibly it will never be possible, possibly it will be possible at some point", right? So, where does that contradict the "admission" that "we'll probably never be able" to make that a misconception? Aren't you saying essentially the same thing with different words? > Let's also imagine I ask multiple people the same question. What can I infer from this data set? Am I measuring the perception of sadness? With noise, as all measurements are, but yes, what else would you be measuring? > What role does the strength of memory play on this? Would I have got a different answer if I asked you 5 minutes later? All perfectly fine scientific question that one could investigate, no? > Is a 7/10 from one person comparable to a 7/10 from another person? Maybe, maybe not, how is the precision of a measurement relevant to the question of whether it is a measurement? > Note that even though the data set is nonsense, the decision on which number between 1 to 10 was based on something (or rather a group of different things), it's just not something that can be boiled down to a model. Any attempt to do so will require such high levels of abstraction that the end result is too far divorced from reality. Are you saying that you think the answers you would get would be completely random with no connection to people's actual emotional state? Do you think that if you asked this question to a population of people whose loved ones were murdered the night before you ask them, they would be just as likely to answer 1 as they would be to answer 10 or any number in between, and the distribution of answers would be indistinguishable from when you asked a population of people who just found new love and won a million bucks in the lottery? Or in other words: Are you saying that you think the model/concept that we commonly refer to using the label "happiness" in the English language does not map to anything in reality? > To give a more famous example, Douglas Adams' meaning of life being 42, even if you understood the variables used to arrive at this number, what relation does that number have to reality? Erm ... the relation described by the method that is used to arrive at this number? Is that a trick question? > In summary, science attempts to describe the order in the chaos, but there are certain aspects of life that do not lend themselves to being reduced in this way. Such as? Can you justify that position in any way? So far, this seems to be a completely unsupported assertion on your part. > If you accept that, then you can accept that even if science has merit in some fields, it also has its limitations. Which is precisely what I said: It is a very important part of science to say "I don't know", that is exactly the recognition that scientific knowledge has limits.

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y ago

> Science only truly works in when the properties being explored can be accurately quantified. What about the scientific method makes it so that this supposedly is the case? > There are plenty of experiences and occurrences which cannot be accurately quantified. Mind giving an example (for which you also think the scientific method is not applicable)? > There is a common misconception amongst scientifically-minded people that science can explain everything just because it can explain a wide range of events I doubt that that is a very wide-spread misconception among scientifically minded people, for the simple reason that a very central aspect of science is to say "I don't know" if ... well, if you don't know. That directly contradicts the supposed belief that "science can explain everything", as saying "I don't know" implies "I don't think science can explain this, at least not yet". If anything, it seems to me like that is a wide-spread misconception among not so scientifically minded people about what scientifically minded people think. However, the mere fact that science can not explain something does not mean that anything else can, and so far nothing has been demonstrated that could explain anything that science can't. > The truth is there are certain parts of our experience that make no sense to put a number on, and science will never excel in those spheres. What does putting numbers on things have to do with any of this?

mjburgess 9y ago
> and so far nothing has been demonstrated that could explain anything that science can't. Science hasn't explained how science works, nor can it. Every precondition of science (causality, mathematics, etc.) goes unexplained by science.
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y ago
  OK. So, how do you know that science works? Or do you think that it doesn't work or that you don't know whether it works?
ZenoArrow 9y ago
> "What does putting numbers on things have to do with any of this?" Before we explore the rest of your questions, we need to establish the fundamentals. Science is built upon testability. If something can't be tested, we can't extend our scientific understanding of it. The scientific method works by first establishing a hypothesis to test, and then conducting experiments to assess whether the hypothesis was accurate. If you can't verify if the hypothesis is accurate or not then the scientific method doesn't work. You can only verify if something is accurate or not if you can accurately measure it. Measuring something relies on being able to quantify it. Do you disagree with any of the above? > "I don't think science can explain this, at least not yet" It's the "at least not yet" that I'm referring to as the misconception. Some things do not lend themselves to measurement, so in some cases it's much more honest to admit we'll probably never be able to accurately measure some things. To give a simple example, let's say I ask you... "On a scale of 1 to 10, how unhappy do you feel today?" Let's also imagine I ask multiple people the same question. What can I infer from this data set? Am I measuring the perception of sadness? What role does the strength of memory play on this? Would I have got a different answer if I asked you 5 minutes later? Is a 7/10 from one person comparable to a 7/10 from another person? Note that even though the data set is nonsense, the decision on which number between 1 to 10 was based on something (or rather a group of different things), it's just not something that can be boiled down to an accurate model. Any attempt to do so will require such high levels of abstraction that the end result is too far divorced from reality. To give a more famous example, Douglas Adams' meaning of life being 42, even if you understood the variables used to arrive at this number, what relation does that number have to reality? In summary, science attempts to describe the order in the chaos, but there are certain aspects of life that do not lend themselves to being reduced in this way. If you accept that, then you can accept that even if science has merit in some fields, it also has its limitations.
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y ago
  > Science is built upon testability. If something can't be tested, we can't extend our scientific understanding of it. Yes. > If you can't verify if the hypothesis is accurate or not then the scientific method doesn't work. No. Science never verifies, science only falsifies. If something were to be verified successfully, that would mean that falsification would be impossible. If something is not falsifiable, it is not testable, and therefore not science, therefore science does not verify. > You can only verify if something is accurate or not if you can accurately measure it. What does "accurate(ly)" mean here? > Measuring something relies on being able to quantify it. No, unless you mean that in the very abstract sense that any information can be encoded as numbers. > It's the "at least not yet" that I'm referring to as the misconception. Some things do not lend themselves to measurement, so in some cases it's much more honest to admit we'll probably never be able to accurately measure something. I'll take the "to accurately measure something" to mean "to explain something scientifically", as I don't understand what you mean by "accurately measure something", see above. "at least not yet" means "it's not possible now, possibly it will never be possible, possibly it will be possible at some point", right? So, where does that contradict the "admission" that "we'll probably never be able" to make that a misconception? Aren't you saying essentially the same thing with different words? > Let's also imagine I ask multiple people the same question. What can I infer from this data set? Am I measuring the perception of sadness? With noise, as all measurements are, but yes, what else would you be measuring? > What role does the strength of memory play on this? Would I have got a different answer if I asked you 5 minutes later? All perfectly fine scientific question that one could investigate, no? > Is a 7/10 from one person comparable to a 7/10 from another person? Maybe, maybe not, how is the precision of a measurement relevant to the question of whether it is a measurement? > Note that even though the data set is nonsense, the decision on which number between 1 to 10 was based on something (or rather a group of different things), it's just not something that can be boiled down to a model. Any attempt to do so will require such high levels of abstraction that the end result is too far divorced from reality. Are you saying that you think the answers you would get would be completely random with no connection to people's actual emotional state? Do you think that if you asked this question to a population of people whose loved ones were murdered the night before you ask them, they would be just as likely to answer 1 as they would be to answer 10 or any number in between, and the distribution of answers would be indistinguishable from when you asked a population of people who just found new love and won a million bucks in the lottery? Or in other words: Are you saying that you think the model/concept that we commonly refer to using the label "happiness" in the English language does not map to anything in reality? > To give a more famous example, Douglas Adams' meaning of life being 42, even if you understood the variables used to arrive at this number, what relation does that number have to reality? Erm ... the relation described by the method that is used to arrive at this number? Is that a trick question? > In summary, science attempts to describe the order in the chaos, but there are certain aspects of life that do not lend themselves to being reduced in this way. Such as? Can you justify that position in any way? So far, this seems to be a completely unsupported assertion on your part. > If you accept that, then you can accept that even if science has merit in some fields, it also has its limitations. Which is precisely what I said: It is a very important part of science to say "I don't know", that is exactly the recognition that scientific knowledge has limits.