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The goal of science is to provide predictive models of the observed data. Explaining 'how the world works' is a bit too ambitious. You need to reach to religion

The goal of science is to provide predictive models of the observed data. Explaining 'how the world works' is a bit too ambitious. You need to reach to religion for that.

mjburgess 3y ago
I know of no such scientific model. Indeed, almost all of them do not predict observed data. Newton's universal law of gravitation didn't predict huge amounts of stuff in the solar system. Rather than say it's wrong, we supposed there were missing planets. All models i'm aware of "predict" in the sense that they make existence claims; they don't "predict" observations -- on the latter, they'd basically all 'wrong'. The body of science we call "gravity, space/time, etc." makes the following existence claims: there is a sun, earth, planets, there are forces, masses,; these have properties that give rise to interactions; etc. From this body of knowlege, most of what we can predict abotu the observable universe is wrong. simply because, ex hyp., we arent able to observe enough of it. The models here arent wrong, we just do not have enough data to match them to observations. The world really has forces,masses,planets,etc. and they interact such that F=GMm/r^2 subject to {some constraints}. But if we use that to predict where "everythign should be", nothing is in the right place. We're missing a lot of "Everythign". This "science predicts observations" is humean problem of induction BS. It's never been true; it's radically sceptical; and is a deeply broken model explaining how we know things. If we had to literally have models from observations to observations, knowledge would be impossible.
- ur-whale 3y ago
  > I know of no such scientific model. Indeed, almost all of them do not predict observed data. Now you're being entirely unreasonable. How did NASA put people on the moon? How did we fly satellites to the outer reaches of the solar system using orbital sling effects? Clearly because the Newtownian model of gravity is entirely wrong. We only pulled it off by chance.
  - mjburgess 3y ago
    You've misunderstood the point. The models we used do not predict data we have observed about almost everything They do predict data counter-factually: if a rocket were to do X, then Y would happen. They do this by a model of how the world works. The actual world is a place of a near infinite number of causes that no one model explains We correct for telescopic lenses, light shift, atomsspherei optic distortion etc in our scanning the skys. The skys themselves are unexplained by any of these models Literally, there is no direct observational data predicted by scientific models Usually we engineer highly simplified situations where we can use them predicely that's because they're descriptions of mechanism so can be used to engineer situations they are /not/ descriptions of observational data
    - ur-whale 3y ago
      Your approach of the problem, while theoretically correct (world is infinitely complex, therefore no model can encompass it, news at 11), is of zero practical use. As a matter of fact, IIRC, the Chinese around the 11th century walked the exact same intellectual path, which led them to conclude that trying to model the behavior of the natural world was a waste of time, and made them completely abandon the idea of simplified, yet predictive and therefore useful models. The net result was: they killed their then budding tech/science endeavors in the egg. In other words, your take does not seem to be particularly fruitful.
      - mjburgess 3y ago
        It's descriptive, not normative. Engineers build "useful models", scientists as a matter of fact, build explanations. Whether those explanations prove useful is always an open question; newton's took centuries to have much of an engineering use. Engineering is a kind of pseudoscience justified by its utitility -- if it's undertood to be mere utility, it's fine. But "engineering thinking" has taken over large areas of thinking, and it's a catastrophe. You cannot build really new things by engineering. Engineering is just "statisticalisation" of new science; a simplification, an eloration, a proceduralisation. The science must come first.
ur-whale 3y ago
> The goal of science is to provide predictive models of the observed data. This, a 100%. The "explaining how the world works" is only interesting insofar as it helps produce further and better predictive models (BTW Feynmann had that exact same view [1]) Everything else is intellectual onanism, an unfortunately rather common academic pursuit. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Kab9dkDZJY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Kab9dkDZJY
raincom 3y ago
'to provide predictive models of the observed data' is just one of many philosophies (or meta-conceptions) of science.

The goal of science is to provide predictive models of the observed data. Explaining 'how the world works' is a bit too ambitious. You need to reach to religion for that.

mjburgess 3y ago

I know of no such scientific model. Indeed, almost all of them do not predict observed data. Newton's universal law of gravitation didn't predict huge amounts of stuff in the solar system. Rather than say it's wrong, we supposed there were missing planets. All models i'm aware of "predict" in the sense that they make existence claims; they don't "predict" observations -- on the latter, they'd basically all 'wrong'. The body of science we call "gravity, space/time, etc." makes the following existence claims: there is a sun, earth, planets, there are forces, masses,; these have properties that give rise to interactions; etc. From this body of knowlege, most of what we can predict abotu the observable universe is wrong. simply because, ex hyp., we arent able to observe enough of it. The models here arent wrong, we just do not have enough data to match them to observations. The world really has forces,masses,planets,etc. and they interact such that F=GMm/r^2 subject to {some constraints}. But if we use that to predict where "everythign should be", nothing is in the right place. We're missing a lot of "Everythign". This "science predicts observations" is humean problem of induction BS. It's never been true; it's radically sceptical; and is a deeply broken model explaining how we know things. If we had to literally have models from observations to observations, knowledge would be impossible.

ur-whale 3y ago
> I know of no such scientific model. Indeed, almost all of them do not predict observed data. Now you're being entirely unreasonable. How did NASA put people on the moon? How did we fly satellites to the outer reaches of the solar system using orbital sling effects? Clearly because the Newtownian model of gravity is entirely wrong. We only pulled it off by chance.
- mjburgess 3y ago
  You've misunderstood the point. The models we used do not predict data we have observed about almost everything They do predict data counter-factually: if a rocket were to do X, then Y would happen. They do this by a model of how the world works. The actual world is a place of a near infinite number of causes that no one model explains We correct for telescopic lenses, light shift, atomsspherei optic distortion etc in our scanning the skys. The skys themselves are unexplained by any of these models Literally, there is no direct observational data predicted by scientific models Usually we engineer highly simplified situations where we can use them predicely that's because they're descriptions of mechanism so can be used to engineer situations they are /not/ descriptions of observational data
  - ur-whale 3y ago
    Your approach of the problem, while theoretically correct (world is infinitely complex, therefore no model can encompass it, news at 11), is of zero practical use. As a matter of fact, IIRC, the Chinese around the 11th century walked the exact same intellectual path, which led them to conclude that trying to model the behavior of the natural world was a waste of time, and made them completely abandon the idea of simplified, yet predictive and therefore useful models. The net result was: they killed their then budding tech/science endeavors in the egg. In other words, your take does not seem to be particularly fruitful.
    - mjburgess 3y ago
      It's descriptive, not normative. Engineers build "useful models", scientists as a matter of fact, build explanations. Whether those explanations prove useful is always an open question; newton's took centuries to have much of an engineering use. Engineering is a kind of pseudoscience justified by its utitility -- if it's undertood to be mere utility, it's fine. But "engineering thinking" has taken over large areas of thinking, and it's a catastrophe. You cannot build really new things by engineering. Engineering is just "statisticalisation" of new science; a simplification, an eloration, a proceduralisation. The science must come first.

ur-whale 3y ago

> The goal of science is to provide predictive models of the observed data. This, a 100%. The "explaining how the world works" is only interesting insofar as it helps produce further and better predictive models (BTW Feynmann had that exact same view [1]) Everything else is intellectual onanism, an unfortunately rather common academic pursuit. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Kab9dkDZJY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Kab9dkDZJY

raincom 3y ago

'to provide predictive models of the observed data' is just one of many philosophies (or meta-conceptions) of science.