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My pet peeve is that in this worshipping of science (count me guilty) it’s often forgotten that it is ultimately an attempt to model a system from within itself
by goblin89 5y ago
My pet peeve is that in this worshipping of science (count me guilty) it’s often forgotten that it is ultimately an attempt to model a system from within itself, and thus will never model it fully and prove that it is correct or even validate the very fundamental assumptions (STEM-inspired material monism, some mainstream flavor of dualism, or a riff on transcendental idealism—note how this stuff technically would have huge implications for science, yet is formally outside of its scope because it is impossible to prove or falsify).
So whether it is hard science or ghosts and Grandma’s noodle soup, it is always a belief at the core. One of those is a more detailed model and quite useful at making some predictions, that’s all.
- whimsicalism 5y agoI disagree that those assumptions are core to science. Really, science makes relatively weak assumptions, largely around induction and its existence.
- goblin89 5y agoThose assumptions are technically not even in scope of our “hard science”, but if one of those assumptions got “proven true” through whatever means (possible oxymoron) it would have major implications as much of pre-existing hard science would suddenly become either markedly less or markedly more consequential and/or new fields may be created. Those assumptions describe fundamental traits of a system which humans are ill-equipped to live not having a model of; some (many?) people believe advances in science support one of them (e.g., material monism).