8 ms·

Science avoids the "cesspool of rigid dogma" by experimentation not by a priori argumentation. This point seems to be lost on a bunch of physicists these days

Science avoids the "cesspool of rigid dogma" by experimentation not by a priori argumentation. This point seems to be lost on a bunch of physicists these days who wallow in their derivations and forget that the fundamental revolution in modern science was the empirical method. The silly philosophers who got overthrown never knew it.

whatshisface 8y ago
I'm currently reading a book that talks a lot about the history of particle physics from 1950 to 2000. It amazes me how diverse the scientist's philosophical outlooks were, the only thing they agreed on in the end was empiricism. Given their success, I think that's a strong testament to the idea that philosophy doesn't "power" science the way math does. Here's a philosophy-free formulation of science: (i.e. one where scientists don't have to know any philosophy) - People set up symbol games with rules, that produce symbols. - They also set up physical machines that produce symbols. - When they match, they're happy. I think that does a good job of capturing why physics was able to progress so well without concurrent progress in philosophy. At the end of a day, a physicist will have a number on their scratch paper and a number on the meter and the goal is to get them to match. Mainly the role of philosophy is to guard them from any distractions that would confuse them away from doing that, and perhaps to bend their brains into coming up with good symbol games.
- naasking 8y ago
  Except that's unnecessarily inefficient and still incomplete, since it doesn't tell you anything about what to do with multiple games that predict the same symbols, about what sort of games you should focus more effort on, what should you do with games that don't produce the right symbols, why you should or shouldn't modify game rules that fail such tests so they pass such tests, and more. Philosophy informs these questions. For instance, a scientific process modelled on Solomonoff induction would give you more insight on what kind of games you should set up and why, which games are better than others for the same symbol outputs and why, to what extend modifying a game is a valid approach, etc.
  - whatshisface 8y ago
    Insights on how to write down symbol games that match sensor readings would come from trying to do that, and gaining experience, would they not? It has an empirical kernel: whether or not you are successful at writing down good symbol games. That might technically be classified as philosophy, but since "the art of writing down good symbol games" is clearly founded in a task where you can easily evaluate your success, it strikes me as having more in common with other bodies of knowledge that grew around goal achievement than it does with philosophy. If you have multiple matching symbol games, maybe just either prove them mathematically equivalent (a la matrix mechanics and Schrodinger's equation), or if they aren't equivalent, write them both down and keep an eye on them until you develop an experiment that can distinguish between them. As far as I can see, that remains within the paradigm of "go forth and match the symbols."
    - naasking 8y ago
      > Insights on how to write down symbol games that match sensor readings would come from trying to do that, and gaining experience, would they not? But your rules provide no guidance to do so, which would require philosophy. > As far as I can see, that remains within the paradigm of "go forth and match the symbols." Absolutely, I'm not suggesting changing the spirit of the basic empirical game you outline, merely that a different set or a few additional rules would permit you to generate better games more efficiently. Blind trial and error would eventually work too, but we ideally want to converge on accuracy and precision as fast as possible. What this means in practice is a philosophical question worth answering.
      - whatshisface 8y ago
        >merely that a different set or a few additional rules would permit you to generate better games more efficiently. It seems suspicious that this is classified as philosophy - it has an empirical foundation! You can even design experiments to test these "theories of metascience:" just check to see how fast the scientists that work according to them produce successful theories. So it sounds like what you're advocating for is a human science (i.e. very difficult to design experiments, but fundamentally based on empiricism), as opposed to a branch of philosophy. Roughly speaking, the division I am making here goes: experiments plus arguments makes science, arguments without experiments makes philosophy. In this context, I can say, "scientists are only (professionally) interested in experiments and therefore uninterested in philosophy." However if something involves empiricism but is also labeled philosophy, that's just language and I gladly concede that scientists might be professionally interested in it.
- akvadrako 8y ago
  There is nothing philosophy-free about your formulation. You are just arguing a certain philosophy of science.
  - whatshisface 8y ago
    It is philosophy-free for the scientists that practice it. I'm arguing that physicists don't need to think about philosophy in order to do physics. I'm not arguing that philosophy is unnecessary for civilization - just the practical fact that physicist do not need to take philosophy classes and would be unlikely to benefit from doing so. The philosophy of science I am arguing for is empirically testable: so, as far as I can see that makes it science as opposed to philosophy.
boomboomsubban 8y ago
Philosopher's never knew the empirical method? The idea has it's roots in Aristotelian philosophy, and was developed by people like Bacon and Descartes.
- repsilat 8y ago
  > The idea has it's roots in Aristotelian philosophy Animals understand "the empirical method". Experimentation, pattern inference, cause and effect... Aristotle may have described it, but like most of the rest of the interaction of philosophy and science it's a post-hoc formalisation, mostly good for convincing philosophers that scientists are doing something reasonable.
  - boomboomsubban 8y ago
    Describing a naturally occurring concept and explaining why it is reasonable both seem like key steps in the process.
akvadrako 8y ago
So you are saying that lots of physicists don't do science the right way? That's why they should learn some philosophy of science.

whatshisface 8y ago

I'm currently reading a book that talks a lot about the history of particle physics from 1950 to 2000. It amazes me how diverse the scientist's philosophical outlooks were, the only thing they agreed on in the end was empiricism. Given their success, I think that's a strong testament to the idea that philosophy doesn't "power" science the way math does. Here's a philosophy-free formulation of science: (i.e. one where scientists don't have to know any philosophy) - People set up symbol games with rules, that produce symbols. - They also set up physical machines that produce symbols. - When they match, they're happy. I think that does a good job of capturing why physics was able to progress so well without concurrent progress in philosophy. At the end of a day, a physicist will have a number on their scratch paper and a number on the meter and the goal is to get them to match. Mainly the role of philosophy is to guard them from any distractions that would confuse them away from doing that, and perhaps to bend their brains into coming up with good symbol games.

naasking 8y ago
Except that's unnecessarily inefficient and still incomplete, since it doesn't tell you anything about what to do with multiple games that predict the same symbols, about what sort of games you should focus more effort on, what should you do with games that don't produce the right symbols, why you should or shouldn't modify game rules that fail such tests so they pass such tests, and more. Philosophy informs these questions. For instance, a scientific process modelled on Solomonoff induction would give you more insight on what kind of games you should set up and why, which games are better than others for the same symbol outputs and why, to what extend modifying a game is a valid approach, etc.
- whatshisface 8y ago
  Insights on how to write down symbol games that match sensor readings would come from trying to do that, and gaining experience, would they not? It has an empirical kernel: whether or not you are successful at writing down good symbol games. That might technically be classified as philosophy, but since "the art of writing down good symbol games" is clearly founded in a task where you can easily evaluate your success, it strikes me as having more in common with other bodies of knowledge that grew around goal achievement than it does with philosophy. If you have multiple matching symbol games, maybe just either prove them mathematically equivalent (a la matrix mechanics and Schrodinger's equation), or if they aren't equivalent, write them both down and keep an eye on them until you develop an experiment that can distinguish between them. As far as I can see, that remains within the paradigm of "go forth and match the symbols."
  - naasking 8y ago
    > Insights on how to write down symbol games that match sensor readings would come from trying to do that, and gaining experience, would they not? But your rules provide no guidance to do so, which would require philosophy. > As far as I can see, that remains within the paradigm of "go forth and match the symbols." Absolutely, I'm not suggesting changing the spirit of the basic empirical game you outline, merely that a different set or a few additional rules would permit you to generate better games more efficiently. Blind trial and error would eventually work too, but we ideally want to converge on accuracy and precision as fast as possible. What this means in practice is a philosophical question worth answering.
    - whatshisface 8y ago
      >merely that a different set or a few additional rules would permit you to generate better games more efficiently. It seems suspicious that this is classified as philosophy - it has an empirical foundation! You can even design experiments to test these "theories of metascience:" just check to see how fast the scientists that work according to them produce successful theories. So it sounds like what you're advocating for is a human science (i.e. very difficult to design experiments, but fundamentally based on empiricism), as opposed to a branch of philosophy. Roughly speaking, the division I am making here goes: experiments plus arguments makes science, arguments without experiments makes philosophy. In this context, I can say, "scientists are only (professionally) interested in experiments and therefore uninterested in philosophy." However if something involves empiricism but is also labeled philosophy, that's just language and I gladly concede that scientists might be professionally interested in it.
akvadrako 8y ago
There is nothing philosophy-free about your formulation. You are just arguing a certain philosophy of science.
- whatshisface 8y ago
  It is philosophy-free for the scientists that practice it. I'm arguing that physicists don't need to think about philosophy in order to do physics. I'm not arguing that philosophy is unnecessary for civilization - just the practical fact that physicist do not need to take philosophy classes and would be unlikely to benefit from doing so. The philosophy of science I am arguing for is empirically testable: so, as far as I can see that makes it science as opposed to philosophy.

boomboomsubban 8y ago

Philosopher's never knew the empirical method? The idea has it's roots in Aristotelian philosophy, and was developed by people like Bacon and Descartes.

repsilat 8y ago
> The idea has it's roots in Aristotelian philosophy Animals understand "the empirical method". Experimentation, pattern inference, cause and effect... Aristotle may have described it, but like most of the rest of the interaction of philosophy and science it's a post-hoc formalisation, mostly good for convincing philosophers that scientists are doing something reasonable.
- boomboomsubban 8y ago
  Describing a naturally occurring concept and explaining why it is reasonable both seem like key steps in the process.

akvadrako 8y ago

So you are saying that lots of physicists don't do science the right way? That's why they should learn some philosophy of science.