3 ms·
Trigger warning: anti-science rant. "Science requires a substantial amount of creativity. In fact, they are necessary. The nature of breakthroughs requisite th
by mistermann 3y ago
Trigger warning: anti-science rant.
"Science requires a substantial amount of creativity. In fact, they are necessary. The nature of breakthroughs requisite thinking outside the box and breaking from convention."
And if you do not have adequate depth in philosophy, you may find yourself parsing this seemingly simple phrase in a highly misinformative manner - as just one example: are you measuring things on a relative scale or an absolute scale? Also: are you actually measuring things, or are you....doing something much more interesting, that may not be obvious (and thus not taken into consideration)?
> What I would say are real limits to creativity are the arbitrary and absurd evaluation metrics we use.
Indeed!
> The need to innovate also prevents replication, which is the basis of science!
And also a substantial, rarely discussed drag on progress, across several dimensions!
> It is far more difficult, often nearly impossible, to get funding or even approval to replicate works.
That which is not studied, is unlikely to be understood, and this lack of understanding may register as NULL (as in: it may not be on one's radar, thus it "is" "nonexistent", as fans of science will assure you passionately, "because The Science says"). That science actually says the opposite is of no help - be it religion or science, once the Normie mind is captured, it's a goner.
See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventure_of_Silver_Blaze https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventure_of_Silver_Blaze
-------------------
Gregory (Scotland Yard detective): Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?
Holmes: To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.
Gregory: The dog did nothing in the night-time.
Holmes: That was the curious incident.
-------------------
> The pursuit of novelty is also not only fundamentally anti-scientific but the basis of an existential crisis.
An ideological simulation, but also very true for science as it is imho.
> Science is the process of ruling things out, not confirming things.
There's also a substantial streetlight effect going on in science. Of course, such things are unavoidable to some degree, but not the degree to which they currently are in science, and there is also the issue of whether this is realized and disclosed, regularly and without aversion (as opposed to only when one gets caught telling some tall tales about science's abilities and on the ground performance, much of which is unknown and unknowable....maybe this is why science types tend to mock &/or hate philosophy and the skilful practice of it so much).
> But by nature, science is anti-authority and highly creative.
Including to it's own beliefs (including invisible metaphysical axioms) and authority?
Science, comprehensively, is what it is - and, what that is, precisely, is unknown. <--- I propose that this is not knowable to most scientific thinkers, including many(!) highly competent scientists.
Typically, the mind won't even allow the proposition to be contemplated, often only heuristic processing (guess according to one's sub-perceptual biases + post-hoc-rationalize, or downvote/delete-via-moderation/throttle) is available....all of which has very real consequences (though, we cannot measure them, thus they do not exist, so we are told and trained to think). Gee, what could go wrong with this approach!! (Possibly related: wow, there sure seems to be a lot of suboptimality in the world....could these two things maybe be related!!???? lol)
> You _must_ challenge pre-existing notions (trust but verify) and you must think outside the box.
Actually, you do not have to - only pretending* to do this is also very effective, and common.
- godelski 3y agoI can only compare physics and computer science, because these are the only domains I have a formal education in. But I'll tell you that in physics, philosophy is well discussed and at the core. The study is called "natural philosophy" after all. There's a reason there isn't a shortage of philosopher mathematicians and philosopher physicists. You can't do those subjects without philosophy, but you can do philosophy without those subjects and you definitely lose some rigor and to be blunt I feel that the academics I meet there appear to have just toked a large bowl. There is a reason the mathematicians broke away from philosophers fairly early on, because there was a goal of finding truth rather than endless debate, which is based on charisma and linguistic flexibility. The goalpost is too easy to move as people continue to act smug weaseling their way into the contradictory provable evidence to their claims actually being proof of their own (because they're not arguing for truth but rather for intellectual superiority). Because of this, I'd be careful with your diction if you want to actually communicate. I'm sure you know of Hacking, but that's a great place to start for anyone unaware. But the point of science is that which Asimov explained: The Relativity of Wrong. We must not ignore the fact that we get more right over time, and not pretend that all wrongs are equally wrong. That just prevents progress (and why many philosophers come off as annoying. They try to poke holes without understanding the fabric they are prodding, often pointing at the well known holes as if they were invisible). Not to say that physicists aren't pretentious, they are and I'm not sure you could get many to even pursue the subject if you didn't promise them a fictitious pedestal in intellectual superiority ;) (It's why you look for those who's eyes light up when they talk). On the other hand, I find computer scientists to be lacking in philosophy and especially in a discussion of ethics. They have a high focus on empirical evidence but despite discussing it do not seem to internalize the tyranny of metrics, but rather place it even higher on a pedestal. Maybe it is that they often are more jack of all trades, master of none, but think that they are because they did a project that took a week or two in a domain. But if I don't use spacing who's going to read my text anyways?
- mistermann 3y ago[flagged]
- 3y ago