4 ms·

> Whether Science is a valid principle shared by humans and aliens is the point. My point is, PG's view isn't even shared with humans, why should he assume it's

> Whether Science is a valid principle shared by humans and aliens is the point. My point is, PG's view isn't even shared with humans, why should he assume it's going to be shared with aliens? What we're discussing is "the principle that a controlled experiment testing some hypothesis entitles us to have proportionally increased belief in it". Anyone that rejects this principle doesn't know if the sun will rise up tomorrow, is terrified that they may fall through the floor at any moment, or worse, drift off into the enormity of space. What PG was essentially talking about was that all humans agree on the value of inductive reasoning ("experience") *, despite the philosophical problem of induction. This is far older than any notion of science, and is universal among not just humans, but also life forms on Earth in general (at least plants, fungi, and animals). I honestly very much doubt that it is even possible to function in the world, let alone to build interplanetary communication, if you reject inductive reasoning. The fact that we can't reconcile inductive and deductive reasoning is a limitation of our philosophical/logical/mathematical systems, not some ultimate truth that invalidates the above principle. Quite off-topic, but I will also note that I don't really like PG in general, and think much of his argumentation style is unpleasant and often makes undue assumptions. I just happen to strongly agree with (my interpretation of) this particular point. * admittedly, he did go a step further by mentioning "controlled experiments", which induction doesn't rely on; but I don't think that really modifies the statement. As a toddler, when you place a cube on the ground, look away, and then look back, you're performing a controlled experiment to check if objects have permanence.

deltasevennine 4y ago
>The fact that we can't reconcile inductive and deductive reasoning is a limitation of our philosophical/logical/mathematical systems, not some ultimate truth that invalidates the above principle. It's not reconciling those two systems. It's reconciling all of logic (induction and deduction) and reality itself. Logic, by logic itself is inapplicable to reality. We live in a universe of unknown domains and imprecise/inconsistent measurements. At any point in time we can make an observation that contradicts a previous observation. This makes proof impossible. While proof is impossible because of the possibility of a contradictory observation, falsification is very possible. The goal of science is falsification, not proof. This is the logical conclusion of science and therefore reality. Logic, deduction and induction and proof are mostly the domain of mathematics or little axiomatic games we play where we artificially limit the domain. It's a Very very different domain from the one science operates in. Most of humanity actually agrees deduction and induction are inapplicable to reality. Hence why science is, in the end, the most rigorous form of determining truth (despite the fact that it actually can't) instead of logic. This is in fact the conclusion reached ABOUT reality when we apply logic to it; that logic itself is inapplicable to reality as we know it. When we check if a cube on the ground 100 times and see that it exists but we can't know what the next 10 billion observations will yield. Perhaps the 100 observations were biased, and the 10 billion subsequent observations yield that cube was a reflection, the toddler was mistaken and the situation did not exist long enough for the toddler to observe the cube past 100 observations. > Anyone that rejects this principle doesn't know if the sun will rise up tomorrow, is terrified that they may fall through the floor at any moment, or worse, drift off into the enormity of space. This is my issue with PG. If you look at science rigorously... we actually don't assume this is true. Science cannot verify whether the sun will rise tomorrow or whether or not we will or will not fall through the floor. That is science in a nut shell. PG is saying something WRONG about science and that Aliens will share a belief with us about it. As for our day to day experiences, you're right. We all believe the sun will rise tomorrow, but this isn't science. This is simply bias, that all humans are born with. We ASSUME the sun will rise tomorrow, but there is no form of reasoning (scientific, deductive or inductive) that can lead us to that conclusion. PG was NOT talking about this. He was talking about Science and controlled experiments. Not shared assumptions about reality. If PG said, "We assume that Aliens, like us, assume that when we're not looking the cube still exists even though we only observed it a couple of times." then I can probably get behind that, but it is an entirely different statement.

deltasevennine 4y ago

>The fact that we can't reconcile inductive and deductive reasoning is a limitation of our philosophical/logical/mathematical systems, not some ultimate truth that invalidates the above principle. It's not reconciling those two systems. It's reconciling all of logic (induction and deduction) and reality itself. Logic, by logic itself is inapplicable to reality. We live in a universe of unknown domains and imprecise/inconsistent measurements. At any point in time we can make an observation that contradicts a previous observation. This makes proof impossible. While proof is impossible because of the possibility of a contradictory observation, falsification is very possible. The goal of science is falsification, not proof. This is the logical conclusion of science and therefore reality. Logic, deduction and induction and proof are mostly the domain of mathematics or little axiomatic games we play where we artificially limit the domain. It's a Very very different domain from the one science operates in. Most of humanity actually agrees deduction and induction are inapplicable to reality. Hence why science is, in the end, the most rigorous form of determining truth (despite the fact that it actually can't) instead of logic. This is in fact the conclusion reached ABOUT reality when we apply logic to it; that logic itself is inapplicable to reality as we know it. When we check if a cube on the ground 100 times and see that it exists but we can't know what the next 10 billion observations will yield. Perhaps the 100 observations were biased, and the 10 billion subsequent observations yield that cube was a reflection, the toddler was mistaken and the situation did not exist long enough for the toddler to observe the cube past 100 observations. > Anyone that rejects this principle doesn't know if the sun will rise up tomorrow, is terrified that they may fall through the floor at any moment, or worse, drift off into the enormity of space. This is my issue with PG. If you look at science rigorously... we actually don't assume this is true. Science cannot verify whether the sun will rise tomorrow or whether or not we will or will not fall through the floor. That is science in a nut shell. PG is saying something WRONG about science and that Aliens will share a belief with us about it. As for our day to day experiences, you're right. We all believe the sun will rise tomorrow, but this isn't science. This is simply bias, that all humans are born with. We ASSUME the sun will rise tomorrow, but there is no form of reasoning (scientific, deductive or inductive) that can lead us to that conclusion. PG was NOT talking about this. He was talking about Science and controlled experiments. Not shared assumptions about reality. If PG said, "We assume that Aliens, like us, assume that when we're not looking the cube still exists even though we only observed it a couple of times." then I can probably get behind that, but it is an entirely different statement.