12 ms·

The Scientific Method Part 5: Illusions, Delusions, and Dreams

72 points by lisper 3y ago

naasking 3y ago
> To quote Joe Provenzano: if consciousness is an illusion, who (or what) is being illused? "What" is the right question here, and because it's not "who", the hard problem disappears. What is being illused is a system that processes perceptions and generates thoughts like "I exist".
raskelll 3y ago
What I find concerning about these discussions on what qualifies as science and what doesn't is the excessive arrogance displayed by some writers, as if they stand on the same esteemed ground as the countless individuals throughout history who have propelled scientific progress and shaped the technological world we live in today. Science is a remarkable collective effort of humanity, and it is crucial that we continue to allocate resources to this endeavor. If anything, studying the history of science would open one's eyes to the fact that the methodologies and approaches that have resulted in a vast reservoir of knowledge have not followed a linear or consistent path throughout time. There's a quote from his first blog post titled "A Clean-Sheet Introduction to the Scientific Method" that is unironically portraying science as a human endeavour somehow relieved of everything that made "religion" bad. > Let me start with the easy part: By "religious beliefs" I do not mean to imply that science is a religion in the usual sense. It isn't. Religions generally involve things like the worship of deities, respect for the authority of revealed wisdom, and the carrying out of prayer and rituals. Science has none of that, not because science rejects these things a priori, but because when you pursue science you are invariably (but not inevitably!) led to the conclusion that there are no deities active in our universe, and therefore no good reason to accept the authority of revealed wisdom, and hence not much point spending valuable time on prayer and ritual Science as an insistution has all those hallmarks: worship, authority and rituals. I'm not trying to make a case for religion here, but wanted to point out the shallowness of the whole write-up. I wish these science preaching guys would actually engage in more science worthy attitudes and be a bit more humble in their holistic assessment of what does and what doesn't constitute science. Anything goes! would Paul Feyerabend say.
- pierrebai 3y ago
  The fact that science and religion can have similar flaws or components is shallow. Churches in the US and universities in the US both use English. That does not make them the same. What makes science is a self-consistent framework and tree of knowledge that successfully model the universe and for which proof and experiments can repeatedly redone giving the (approximate) same results. All religions fail on one or more of these criteria.
- remoquete 3y ago
  Ah, Feyerabend. So often shunned and belittled as an enemy of science—so often feared. His conversations with Imre Lakatos still hold up well to this day. For an unbiased analysis of Feyerabend's impact, I recommend this book review:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3186788/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3186788/
- lisper 3y ago
  > excessive arrogance Why excessive? The objective fact of the matter, as I point out in the first article in the series, is that the scientific method produces vastly more accurate predictions than anything else humans have ever tried. This is the whole reason science is even a thing. I think that justifies a little bit of cockiness until someone actually comes up with something better.
  - raskelll 3y ago
    The arrogance I mentioned is directed towards the people who think of themselves as appropriate to speak for the century-long success story of science itself while not really addressing (and understanding) how science emerged. Science as a human enterprise has flourished best without anyone putting boxes on what does and what doesn't consitute science.
    - lisper 3y ago
      Ah. FYI, I have a whole series of unpublished chapters about the (very messy) history of science. I decided to take this different approach because I thought it would be a more effective way of reaching my target audience. > Science as a human enterprise has flourished best without anyone putting boxes on what does and what doesn't consitute science. That's not true. There is one box you cannot get out of without destroying the process: any hypothesis that is inconsistent with experiment must be rejected (and as a corollary to that, unfalsifiable hypotheses must be rejected). But yeah, beyond that pretty much anything goes.
hcks 3y ago
I find it funny that a blogpost claiming to be about the “scientific method” spends 4000 words to try to convince its readers of a wordplay, using analogies and metaphors. (Yes “consciousness is an illusion” is a wordplay. If you claim it’s a scientific theory, then what does it predict?)
- naasking 3y ago
  > (Yes “consciousness is an illusion” is a wordplay. If you claim it’s a scientific theory, then what does it predict?) Here's the start of what you're looking for: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2116933119#fig01 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2116933119#fig01
- raskelll 3y ago
  Read the whole of his "science" series. You're going to be delighted to find out that he's really fond of analogies, golfing being a particularly fitting one.
- mistermann 3y ago
  One interesting phenomenon Maya (~consciousness is an illusion) could explain is the perceived (by themselves and others, the internet is absolutely full of artifacts of it) omniscience of scientists, despite the letter of science providing all that is needed to logically protect one from such illusory beliefs.
lisper 3y ago
Author here. Please note that this is the fifth installment of what is planned to be a very long series of articles about the scientific method targeted at a general audience. Comments and constructive criticism are welcome, but please keep the context in mind.
- n4r9 3y ago
  Hi Ron. I've definitely gotten into arguments with you about quantum theory on HN before, so it's nice to see something about which I broadly agree with you. I skimmed back over your "Scientific Method Part 4" post and noticed the following paragraph: > The reason science is naturalistic and atheistic is not because these are prejudices built into the method by fiat, it is because it turns out that the best explanations -- the most parsimonious ones that account for all the known data and have the most predictive power -- are naturalistic. The supernatural is simply not needed to explain any known phenomena. I wonder if there's some nuance missed here. The natural follow-up question in my head is: can the scientific method ever support a supernatural explanation? What could such an explanation look like? How could it have predictive power whilst maintaining its supernaturalness? I wonder if, actually, the scientific method is inherently at odds with supernatural explanations because as soon as an explanation has genuine predictive power (edit: and is parsimonious), it becomes natural.
  - marmight 3y ago
    > I wonder if there's some nuance missed here. The natural follow-up question in my head is: can the scientific method ever support a supernatural explanation? What could such an explanation look like? How could it have predictive power whilst maintaining its supernaturalness? In principle religious prophecy could fit the bill. You could imagine a surprising and unambiguous religious prophecy about a future event, such as that the Yellowstone Caldera will erupt in February of 2025. If a series of such prophecies were successfully made about various events spanning a variety of disciplines or topics, each attributing the knowledge to the same deity, it would be difficult for me to not attribute the predictions to the supernatural. In practice though, religious prophecy tends to either fail in being surprising or in being unambiguous. And when it is not unambiguous, it is not falsifiable. edit: I would also add that it is important that the prophecy be about something that is independently verifiable as well.
NayamAmarshe 3y ago
I wish people could just read Sāṁkhya and Nyāya philosophy once just to get a better understanding about consciousness and reasoning. No science course requires you to learn epistemology beforehand, which is why things like these happen. People keep on bringing mental speculation and debating philosophy which has pretty much been discussed to death thousands of years ago. A good lecture on this topic: https://youtube.com/watch?v=4FQBs4K8EDo https://youtube.com/watch?v=4FQBs4K8EDo PS: Not trying to dismiss the blog post, it tries to get close. It's a good read.
- NtochkaNzvanova 3y ago
  Thanks for sharing the lecture, from watching the first 1/3 or so it looks very interesting. Do you have any pointers to an introduction to Sāṁkhya and Nyāya philosophy that might be good for beginners? Specifically people with no prior experience with Sanskrit or Hindu philosophy?
  - NayamAmarshe 3y ago
    I'd highly recommend Edwin Bryant's lectures here: Nyāya Sūtras: https://sites.rutgers.edu/edwin-bryant/nyaya-sutras-svadhaya/ https://sites.rutgers.edu/edwin-bryant/nyaya-sutras-svadhaya... Sāṁkhya: http://sites.rutgers.edu/edwin-bryant/samkhya-karikas/ http://sites.rutgers.edu/edwin-bryant/samkhya-karikas/ It might be confusing at first, especially if you don’t understand certain terms but he usually explains in a really easy way. It'd be better if you start with Yoga Sūtras so that you can understand all the different terminologies but I don't think that's a requirement :) You can watch all his other lectures here: https://sites.rutgers.edu/edwin-bryant/course-videos-of-sanskrit-texts/ https://sites.rutgers.edu/edwin-bryant/course-videos-of-sans...
lincpa 3y ago
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72 points by lisper 3y ago

> To quote Joe Provenzano: if consciousness is an illusion, who (or what) is being illused? "What" is the right question here, and because it's not "who", the hard problem disappears. What is being illused is a system that processes perceptions and generates thoughts like "I exist".

raskelll 3y ago

What I find concerning about these discussions on what qualifies as science and what doesn't is the excessive arrogance displayed by some writers, as if they stand on the same esteemed ground as the countless individuals throughout history who have propelled scientific progress and shaped the technological world we live in today. Science is a remarkable collective effort of humanity, and it is crucial that we continue to allocate resources to this endeavor. If anything, studying the history of science would open one's eyes to the fact that the methodologies and approaches that have resulted in a vast reservoir of knowledge have not followed a linear or consistent path throughout time. There's a quote from his first blog post titled "A Clean-Sheet Introduction to the Scientific Method" that is unironically portraying science as a human endeavour somehow relieved of everything that made "religion" bad. > Let me start with the easy part: By "religious beliefs" I do not mean to imply that science is a religion in the usual sense. It isn't. Religions generally involve things like the worship of deities, respect for the authority of revealed wisdom, and the carrying out of prayer and rituals. Science has none of that, not because science rejects these things a priori, but because when you pursue science you are invariably (but not inevitably!) led to the conclusion that there are no deities active in our universe, and therefore no good reason to accept the authority of revealed wisdom, and hence not much point spending valuable time on prayer and ritual Science as an insistution has all those hallmarks: worship, authority and rituals. I'm not trying to make a case for religion here, but wanted to point out the shallowness of the whole write-up. I wish these science preaching guys would actually engage in more science worthy attitudes and be a bit more humble in their holistic assessment of what does and what doesn't constitute science. Anything goes! would Paul Feyerabend say.

pierrebai 3y ago
The fact that science and religion can have similar flaws or components is shallow. Churches in the US and universities in the US both use English. That does not make them the same. What makes science is a self-consistent framework and tree of knowledge that successfully model the universe and for which proof and experiments can repeatedly redone giving the (approximate) same results. All religions fail on one or more of these criteria.
remoquete 3y ago
Ah, Feyerabend. So often shunned and belittled as an enemy of science—so often feared. His conversations with Imre Lakatos still hold up well to this day. For an unbiased analysis of Feyerabend's impact, I recommend this book review:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3186788/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3186788/
lisper 3y ago
> excessive arrogance Why excessive? The objective fact of the matter, as I point out in the first article in the series, is that the scientific method produces vastly more accurate predictions than anything else humans have ever tried. This is the whole reason science is even a thing. I think that justifies a little bit of cockiness until someone actually comes up with something better.
- raskelll 3y ago
  The arrogance I mentioned is directed towards the people who think of themselves as appropriate to speak for the century-long success story of science itself while not really addressing (and understanding) how science emerged. Science as a human enterprise has flourished best without anyone putting boxes on what does and what doesn't consitute science.
  - lisper 3y ago
    Ah. FYI, I have a whole series of unpublished chapters about the (very messy) history of science. I decided to take this different approach because I thought it would be a more effective way of reaching my target audience. > Science as a human enterprise has flourished best without anyone putting boxes on what does and what doesn't consitute science. That's not true. There is one box you cannot get out of without destroying the process: any hypothesis that is inconsistent with experiment must be rejected (and as a corollary to that, unfalsifiable hypotheses must be rejected). But yeah, beyond that pretty much anything goes.

hcks 3y ago

I find it funny that a blogpost claiming to be about the “scientific method” spends 4000 words to try to convince its readers of a wordplay, using analogies and metaphors. (Yes “consciousness is an illusion” is a wordplay. If you claim it’s a scientific theory, then what does it predict?)

naasking 3y ago
> (Yes “consciousness is an illusion” is a wordplay. If you claim it’s a scientific theory, then what does it predict?) Here's the start of what you're looking for: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2116933119#fig01 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2116933119#fig01
raskelll 3y ago
Read the whole of his "science" series. You're going to be delighted to find out that he's really fond of analogies, golfing being a particularly fitting one.
mistermann 3y ago
One interesting phenomenon Maya (~consciousness is an illusion) could explain is the perceived (by themselves and others, the internet is absolutely full of artifacts of it) omniscience of scientists, despite the letter of science providing all that is needed to logically protect one from such illusory beliefs.

lisper 3y ago

Author here. Please note that this is the fifth installment of what is planned to be a very long series of articles about the scientific method targeted at a general audience. Comments and constructive criticism are welcome, but please keep the context in mind.

n4r9 3y ago
Hi Ron. I've definitely gotten into arguments with you about quantum theory on HN before, so it's nice to see something about which I broadly agree with you. I skimmed back over your "Scientific Method Part 4" post and noticed the following paragraph: > The reason science is naturalistic and atheistic is not because these are prejudices built into the method by fiat, it is because it turns out that the best explanations -- the most parsimonious ones that account for all the known data and have the most predictive power -- are naturalistic. The supernatural is simply not needed to explain any known phenomena. I wonder if there's some nuance missed here. The natural follow-up question in my head is: can the scientific method ever support a supernatural explanation? What could such an explanation look like? How could it have predictive power whilst maintaining its supernaturalness? I wonder if, actually, the scientific method is inherently at odds with supernatural explanations because as soon as an explanation has genuine predictive power (edit: and is parsimonious), it becomes natural.
- marmight 3y ago
  > I wonder if there's some nuance missed here. The natural follow-up question in my head is: can the scientific method ever support a supernatural explanation? What could such an explanation look like? How could it have predictive power whilst maintaining its supernaturalness? In principle religious prophecy could fit the bill. You could imagine a surprising and unambiguous religious prophecy about a future event, such as that the Yellowstone Caldera will erupt in February of 2025. If a series of such prophecies were successfully made about various events spanning a variety of disciplines or topics, each attributing the knowledge to the same deity, it would be difficult for me to not attribute the predictions to the supernatural. In practice though, religious prophecy tends to either fail in being surprising or in being unambiguous. And when it is not unambiguous, it is not falsifiable. edit: I would also add that it is important that the prophecy be about something that is independently verifiable as well.

NayamAmarshe 3y ago

I wish people could just read Sāṁkhya and Nyāya philosophy once just to get a better understanding about consciousness and reasoning. No science course requires you to learn epistemology beforehand, which is why things like these happen. People keep on bringing mental speculation and debating philosophy which has pretty much been discussed to death thousands of years ago. A good lecture on this topic: https://youtube.com/watch?v=4FQBs4K8EDo https://youtube.com/watch?v=4FQBs4K8EDo PS: Not trying to dismiss the blog post, it tries to get close. It's a good read.

NtochkaNzvanova 3y ago
Thanks for sharing the lecture, from watching the first 1/3 or so it looks very interesting. Do you have any pointers to an introduction to Sāṁkhya and Nyāya philosophy that might be good for beginners? Specifically people with no prior experience with Sanskrit or Hindu philosophy?
- NayamAmarshe 3y ago
  I'd highly recommend Edwin Bryant's lectures here: Nyāya Sūtras: https://sites.rutgers.edu/edwin-bryant/nyaya-sutras-svadhaya/ https://sites.rutgers.edu/edwin-bryant/nyaya-sutras-svadhaya... Sāṁkhya: http://sites.rutgers.edu/edwin-bryant/samkhya-karikas/ http://sites.rutgers.edu/edwin-bryant/samkhya-karikas/ It might be confusing at first, especially if you don’t understand certain terms but he usually explains in a really easy way. It'd be better if you start with Yoga Sūtras so that you can understand all the different terminologies but I don't think that's a requirement :) You can watch all his other lectures here: https://sites.rutgers.edu/edwin-bryant/course-videos-of-sanskrit-texts/ https://sites.rutgers.edu/edwin-bryant/course-videos-of-sans...

lincpa 3y ago

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