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these explanations are also judged with the aforementioned assumptions in the background. science absolutely presupposes that there is an objective reality gove

these explanations are also judged with the aforementioned assumptions in the background. science absolutely presupposes that there is an objective reality governed by natural laws that are uniform throughout the observable universe, which is why experiments are constructed in a way to falsify specific hypothetical versions of those laws. for example, if the laws were not uniform then astrophysicists would have no basis for assuming that the wavelengths of light emitted by a star is evidence for the composition of that star.

lisper 6y ago
> if the laws were not uniform then astrophysicists would have no basis for assuming that the wavelengths of light emitted by a star is evidence for the composition of that star Yes, that's true, but that does not mean that uniform laws are an assumption. They are not. They are a conclusion. Uniform laws are the best explanation that anyone has been able to come up with that explains all the observed data. But this was not assumed, and in fact it still isn't. The idea, for example, that physical constants change over time is very much a hypothesis that is given serious consideration. It just turns out that there's no evidence for it.
- chordalkeyboard 6y ago
  The assumption of uniform laws is used when evaluating how evidence confirms or rejects a theory. The assumption of uniform physical laws is used when theories are compared to see which is the best explanation for the evidence. > The idea, for example, that physical constants change over time is very much a hypothesis that is given serious consideration. It just turns out that there's no evidence for it. In fact the hypothesis that the speed of light changes over time is a component of several heterodox physical theories that have appeared over the years. Whether or not there is evidence for a theory depends entirely on the assumptions used when attempting to explain a phenomenon.
  - lisper 6y ago
    > the hypothesis that the speed of light changes over time is a component of several heterodox physical theories that have appeared over the years All of which have been rejected for being poor explanations. > Whether or not there is evidence for a theory depends entirely on the assumptions used when attempting to explain a phenomenon. That depends on what you mean by "assumptions". Yes, all evidence has to be evaluated against a background theory. That does not mean that the background theory has to be taken as an axiom. The background theory that there is an objective reality governed by laws that are invariant with time and space is not an axiom, it is a hypothesis that has emerged over literally centuries of work as the best current explanation for all the observed data. It is open to question, but if you want to question it you'd better have some damned good evidence.
    - chordalkeyboard 6y ago
      > The background theory that there is an objective reality governed by laws that are invariant with time and space is not an axiom, it is a hypothesis No, those are the axioms that we use to construct a theory. > best current explanation what is "best" is judged according to our fundamental axioms. given different axioms, another theory would be seen as best. > It is open to question, but if you want to question it you'd better have some damned good evidence. certainly, but given different fundamental axioms the same evidence leads to a different theory.
      - lisper 6y ago
        > No, those are the axioms that we use to construct a theory. No, they aren't. > what is "best" is judged according to our fundamental axioms No, it is judged by the community of people who engage in the scientific enterprise. > given different fundamental axioms the same evidence leads to a different theory That is certainly true. From different assumptions, different conclusions follow. But the existence of an objective reality is not an axiom, at least not a scientific one. It is an explanation for the observed fact that science is possible in the first place. It is an explanation of the observed fact that there are things that nearly all humans agree on, e.g. the fact that there appear to be lights in the sky, the fact that everyone more or less agrees what the repertoire of lights is (one very bright one, one not-so-bright-one, and lots and lots of much dimmer ones), and that they move with enough regularity that their future positions can be predicted with astonishing accuracy. No axioms are required to make these observations, nor to come up with the explanation that the reason that everyone agrees on all these things is that there are, in point of actual fact, sources of light out there in some objective physical reality.
- ncmncm 6y ago
  The assumption of uniformity is necessary to disprove a hypothesis. Otherwise, I could say, "You haven't refuted me; you just live in a different universe." (Sometimes it seems like they do.)
  - lisper 6y ago
    Yes, you could say that. But you would be hard-pressed to convince anyone that that hypothesis is actually the best explanation for all the observed data.
    - ncmncm 6y ago
      Only because they insist upon uniformity. "God did it" accounts perfectly for every possible measurement, where any theory at best approximates our results. Yet, we reject that at the outset.
      - lisper 6y ago
        >"God did it" accounts perfectly for every possible measurement Yes, but it is a very poor explanation. There are an infinite number of theories that are consistent with the data. But, it turns out, only one that is both consistent with the data and a good explanation.
        ncmncm 6y ago
        I know of lots of people who would disagree with you; possibly more than half of humans alive, and certainly more than half of humans who have lived.
        heresie-dabord 6y ago
        > I know lots of people who would disagree Friend, you know some people -- it is a small number even if you are a popular fellow. But let's say, for fun, that you know millions or even billions of living people. These people, if pressed beyond a superficial level of conformity, would disagree _with one another_ on many points of _dogma_. They would mostly agree to practical compromise with one another and with reality. Doors open, Time passes, flame cooks food, arrows pierce flesh, machines must be repaired with new parts... and let's not fly hijacked aircraft into buildings to defend $ourdeity. In short, these lots of people don't really agree very much among themselves. And some will kill others if they _believe_ enough. There isn't much uniformity of considered opinion among most people, but there is a good deal of pragmatism in action, if not in _word_. > certainly more than half of humans who have lived This argument is a sort of speculative vote by dead parliamentarians. And most of these parliamentarians couldn't even write or do high-school math. The current living human population is larger than any that we can reasonably assume to have existed before. Let's assume that a parliament of 8 billion Homo sapiens is a sufficient indicator of diversity of superstition and practicality. Other genus Homo may have been different, but Homo sapiens may _believe_ and or say just about anything. Homo sapiens is a practical animal that functions rather well given the mix of under-utilised rational capacity and noodles inside its head. But it is clear that nonsense abounds in the human mind.
- throw0101a 6y ago
  > Yes, that's true, but that does not mean that uniform laws are an assumption. They are not. They are a conclusion. It was a fairly pervasive idea that God created an orderly universe: > For when we call the builder the principle of the house, in the idea of such a principle is included that of his art; and it would be included in the idea of the first principle were the builder the first principle of the house. God, Who is the first principle of all things, may be compared to things created as the architect is to things designed. * https://www.newadvent.org/summa/1027.htm https://www.newadvent.org/summa/1027.htm The painting "God the Geometer" dates back to ca. 1220: > Science, and particularly geometry and astronomy/astrology, was linked directly to the divine for most medieval scholars. The compass in this 13th century manuscript is a symbol of God's act of Creation. God has created the universe after geometric and harmonic principles, to seek these principles was therefore to seek and worship God. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:God_the_Geometer.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:God_the_Geometer.jpg * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Architect_of_the_Universe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Architect_of_the_Univers... Earlier natural philosophers (the word "scientists" was coined in 'only' 1833) looked for order and reason because they assumed it was there to be found.
  - lisper 6y ago
    > It was a fairly pervasive idea that God created an orderly universe: Sure, but that is not the reason that science accepts uniformity today.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  Yes, uniform laws are an assumption; they aren't a better explanation based on testing, they are an assumption without which testing is meaningless. They are the key working assumption underlying the scientific method. > The idea, for example, that physical constants change over time is very much a hypothesis that is given serious consideration That's not an alternative to uniform laws, that's the idea that a particular term in the uniform law is variable rather than constant.
  - lisper 6y ago
    No, you are wrong. It is possible that we exist in a simulation, and if we are, that the creator of that simulation could change the code for that simulation whenever they wanted to. There is a lot of evidence that this is not actually happening. This is not an assumption.
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      > No, you are wrong No, I'm not. > It is possible that we exist in a simulation, and if we are, that the creator of that simulation could change the code for that simulation whenever they wanted to. That's true, though “simulation” and “creator” bear no real weight in that description. > There is a lot of evidence that this is not actually happening No, there's not and there cannot be. Because literally any evidence is equally consistent with that as it is with constant physical laws; more consistent, actually, absent a complete model of the actual physical laws supposedly at work. The very concept of evidence requires assuming that there are constant physical laws governing the production of sense data from something else. Without that, nothing is evidence of anything. Now, there are lots of other assumptions that get marshalled to justify that assumption as a conclusion (my personal favorite being “God exists and he wouldn't allow me to be deceived the way thay that not being true would entail”), but you can't have evidence for it, because you can't have evidence without it.
      - lisper 6y ago
        > No, I'm not. Yes, you are :-) > literally any evidence is equally consistent with that as it is with constant physical laws No, it isn't. The Kolmogorov complexity of the universe turns out to be very small. That is not consistent with an intelligent agent pushing changes to a simulation in real time.

lisper 6y ago

> if the laws were not uniform then astrophysicists would have no basis for assuming that the wavelengths of light emitted by a star is evidence for the composition of that star Yes, that's true, but that does not mean that uniform laws are an assumption. They are not. They are a conclusion. Uniform laws are the best explanation that anyone has been able to come up with that explains all the observed data. But this was not assumed, and in fact it still isn't. The idea, for example, that physical constants change over time is very much a hypothesis that is given serious consideration. It just turns out that there's no evidence for it.

chordalkeyboard 6y ago
The assumption of uniform laws is used when evaluating how evidence confirms or rejects a theory. The assumption of uniform physical laws is used when theories are compared to see which is the best explanation for the evidence. > The idea, for example, that physical constants change over time is very much a hypothesis that is given serious consideration. It just turns out that there's no evidence for it. In fact the hypothesis that the speed of light changes over time is a component of several heterodox physical theories that have appeared over the years. Whether or not there is evidence for a theory depends entirely on the assumptions used when attempting to explain a phenomenon.
- lisper 6y ago
  > the hypothesis that the speed of light changes over time is a component of several heterodox physical theories that have appeared over the years All of which have been rejected for being poor explanations. > Whether or not there is evidence for a theory depends entirely on the assumptions used when attempting to explain a phenomenon. That depends on what you mean by "assumptions". Yes, all evidence has to be evaluated against a background theory. That does not mean that the background theory has to be taken as an axiom. The background theory that there is an objective reality governed by laws that are invariant with time and space is not an axiom, it is a hypothesis that has emerged over literally centuries of work as the best current explanation for all the observed data. It is open to question, but if you want to question it you'd better have some damned good evidence.
  - chordalkeyboard 6y ago
    > The background theory that there is an objective reality governed by laws that are invariant with time and space is not an axiom, it is a hypothesis No, those are the axioms that we use to construct a theory. > best current explanation what is "best" is judged according to our fundamental axioms. given different axioms, another theory would be seen as best. > It is open to question, but if you want to question it you'd better have some damned good evidence. certainly, but given different fundamental axioms the same evidence leads to a different theory.
    - lisper 6y ago
      > No, those are the axioms that we use to construct a theory. No, they aren't. > what is "best" is judged according to our fundamental axioms No, it is judged by the community of people who engage in the scientific enterprise. > given different fundamental axioms the same evidence leads to a different theory That is certainly true. From different assumptions, different conclusions follow. But the existence of an objective reality is not an axiom, at least not a scientific one. It is an explanation for the observed fact that science is possible in the first place. It is an explanation of the observed fact that there are things that nearly all humans agree on, e.g. the fact that there appear to be lights in the sky, the fact that everyone more or less agrees what the repertoire of lights is (one very bright one, one not-so-bright-one, and lots and lots of much dimmer ones), and that they move with enough regularity that their future positions can be predicted with astonishing accuracy. No axioms are required to make these observations, nor to come up with the explanation that the reason that everyone agrees on all these things is that there are, in point of actual fact, sources of light out there in some objective physical reality.
ncmncm 6y ago
The assumption of uniformity is necessary to disprove a hypothesis. Otherwise, I could say, "You haven't refuted me; you just live in a different universe." (Sometimes it seems like they do.)
- lisper 6y ago
  Yes, you could say that. But you would be hard-pressed to convince anyone that that hypothesis is actually the best explanation for all the observed data.
  - ncmncm 6y ago
    Only because they insist upon uniformity. "God did it" accounts perfectly for every possible measurement, where any theory at best approximates our results. Yet, we reject that at the outset.
    - lisper 6y ago
      >"God did it" accounts perfectly for every possible measurement Yes, but it is a very poor explanation. There are an infinite number of theories that are consistent with the data. But, it turns out, only one that is both consistent with the data and a good explanation.
      - ncmncm 6y ago
        I know of lots of people who would disagree with you; possibly more than half of humans alive, and certainly more than half of humans who have lived.
        heresie-dabord 6y ago
        > I know lots of people who would disagree Friend, you know some people -- it is a small number even if you are a popular fellow. But let's say, for fun, that you know millions or even billions of living people. These people, if pressed beyond a superficial level of conformity, would disagree _with one another_ on many points of _dogma_. They would mostly agree to practical compromise with one another and with reality. Doors open, Time passes, flame cooks food, arrows pierce flesh, machines must be repaired with new parts... and let's not fly hijacked aircraft into buildings to defend $ourdeity. In short, these lots of people don't really agree very much among themselves. And some will kill others if they _believe_ enough. There isn't much uniformity of considered opinion among most people, but there is a good deal of pragmatism in action, if not in _word_. > certainly more than half of humans who have lived This argument is a sort of speculative vote by dead parliamentarians. And most of these parliamentarians couldn't even write or do high-school math. The current living human population is larger than any that we can reasonably assume to have existed before. Let's assume that a parliament of 8 billion Homo sapiens is a sufficient indicator of diversity of superstition and practicality. Other genus Homo may have been different, but Homo sapiens may _believe_ and or say just about anything. Homo sapiens is a practical animal that functions rather well given the mix of under-utilised rational capacity and noodles inside its head. But it is clear that nonsense abounds in the human mind.
throw0101a 6y ago
> Yes, that's true, but that does not mean that uniform laws are an assumption. They are not. They are a conclusion. It was a fairly pervasive idea that God created an orderly universe: > For when we call the builder the principle of the house, in the idea of such a principle is included that of his art; and it would be included in the idea of the first principle were the builder the first principle of the house. God, Who is the first principle of all things, may be compared to things created as the architect is to things designed. * https://www.newadvent.org/summa/1027.htm https://www.newadvent.org/summa/1027.htm The painting "God the Geometer" dates back to ca. 1220: > Science, and particularly geometry and astronomy/astrology, was linked directly to the divine for most medieval scholars. The compass in this 13th century manuscript is a symbol of God's act of Creation. God has created the universe after geometric and harmonic principles, to seek these principles was therefore to seek and worship God. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:God_the_Geometer.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:God_the_Geometer.jpg * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Architect_of_the_Universe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Architect_of_the_Univers... Earlier natural philosophers (the word "scientists" was coined in 'only' 1833) looked for order and reason because they assumed it was there to be found.
- lisper 6y ago
  > It was a fairly pervasive idea that God created an orderly universe: Sure, but that is not the reason that science accepts uniformity today.
dragonwriter 6y ago
Yes, uniform laws are an assumption; they aren't a better explanation based on testing, they are an assumption without which testing is meaningless. They are the key working assumption underlying the scientific method. > The idea, for example, that physical constants change over time is very much a hypothesis that is given serious consideration That's not an alternative to uniform laws, that's the idea that a particular term in the uniform law is variable rather than constant.
- lisper 6y ago
  No, you are wrong. It is possible that we exist in a simulation, and if we are, that the creator of that simulation could change the code for that simulation whenever they wanted to. There is a lot of evidence that this is not actually happening. This is not an assumption.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > No, you are wrong No, I'm not. > It is possible that we exist in a simulation, and if we are, that the creator of that simulation could change the code for that simulation whenever they wanted to. That's true, though “simulation” and “creator” bear no real weight in that description. > There is a lot of evidence that this is not actually happening No, there's not and there cannot be. Because literally any evidence is equally consistent with that as it is with constant physical laws; more consistent, actually, absent a complete model of the actual physical laws supposedly at work. The very concept of evidence requires assuming that there are constant physical laws governing the production of sense data from something else. Without that, nothing is evidence of anything. Now, there are lots of other assumptions that get marshalled to justify that assumption as a conclusion (my personal favorite being “God exists and he wouldn't allow me to be deceived the way thay that not being true would entail”), but you can't have evidence for it, because you can't have evidence without it.
    - lisper 6y ago
      > No, I'm not. Yes, you are :-) > literally any evidence is equally consistent with that as it is with constant physical laws No, it isn't. The Kolmogorov complexity of the universe turns out to be very small. That is not consistent with an intelligent agent pushing changes to a simulation in real time.