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My pet theory is that success of predictions of modern science helped us achieve a local maximum which, while useful, also makes it difficult to evolve towards

My pet theory is that success of predictions of modern science helped us achieve a local maximum which, while useful, also makes it difficult to evolve towards a higher (globally) maximum. The axioms are: 1. Some models are useful, but all models are necessarily incorrect, incomplete, and/or unfalsifiable. (This can be restated in an unsettling, for a natural science enthusiast, manner as “there is always the unexplained”.) 2. We cannot know where the incorrectness/incompleteness lies. However, the arrogance of modern natural science due to its success makes us disinclined and demotivated to look outside the box of its current models and tempts us into, e.g., treating the entities described by current models (wrong, per above) as ground truth, treating consciousness (you’d think, the only thing we have direct access to) as an illusion (red flag, explaining away), etc. Thus, we get entrenched in a local maximum.

mikhailfranco 2y ago
I don't think that all models are necessarily incorrect. Scientific models are precisely correct until they are falsified. For example, the inverse-square law for electromagnetism and Newtonian gravity is just an exact feature of continuous 3D space (surface area of a sphere). It only became an approximation when Einstein proposed warped spacetime, and will become even more incorrect in detail, if/when someone finds evidence for discrete spacetime structure. Then the inverse square law becomes a double approximation, over macro and micro structure of spacetime (lattice, wolfram graph, spin foam, ...). It just so happens that at the moment, we know that the whole of physics is pervasively incomplete (approximate nonsense), so very few current models are likely to be preserved in future better theories. QFT is a terrible hack, with renormalization and virtual hand-waving. QFT depends on a fixed background spacetime, but we know that background is dynamic (GR). We don't know how QFT and GR fit together, but I would guess almost all current models are incorrect. However, it is possible that some future Theory of Everything is correct indefinitely (until end of civilization, while not being ontologically True, of course).
spywaregorilla 3y ago
Seems to me we have very strongly evidenced beliefs about where incompleteness lies.
- strogonoff 3y ago
  Consciousness is perhaps the most glaring one (as far as current models offered by natural sciences are concerned), if nothing else then because we deal with it every moment of existence or because it is what natural science itself stems from, is shaped by, is dependent on and exists because of. Of course, whether it is the only unknown is unknown.
  - lisper 3y ago
    Have you read Dennett's book?
    - strogonoff 3y ago
      No, but I’m familiar with his take on consciousness and it is more or less what I mean by thinking in the box of existing models and trying to explain away something inconvenient to them.
      - lisper 3y ago
        Maybe you should actually read the book before you pass judgement on it.
        strogonoff 3y ago
        I’ve read enough in-depth takes about it that I’ll pass for now.
        hju22_-3 3y ago
        How ironically hypocritical of you.
        lisper 3y ago
        When have I ever criticized a book I haven't read?
lisper 3y ago
It's true that science is not complete, and cannot be. We know, for example, that we cannot solve the halting problem, we cannot predict chaotic systems, etc. But that's the wrong thing to focus on. There are a lot of things we can predict, and the scientific method produces better predictive theories than any other known method. > disinclined and demotivated to look outside the box of its current models OK, but that is not the scientific method's fault. If you want to look outside the box, nothing in the scientific method says you can't. An indeed the biggest breakthroughs have come when people have thought outside the box. The problem is that it's often hard to distinguish between brilliance and crackpottery. But again, that's not a shortcoming of the scientific method, it's just the Way The World Is. Some problems are hard.
- strogonoff 3y ago
  > the scientific method produces better predictive theories than any other known method Better theories in what sense? (If possible, in terms that are genuinely extrinsic to scientific method itself.) > If you want to look outside the box, nothing in the scientific method says you can't Nothing in the scientific method says you can’t, indeed. However, some people tend to misinterpret it (possibly due to a suppressed religious impulse finding its way) as revealing objective truth through its models, as opposed to what it does: offer predictions as to what we would observe if we do X. For many of those (very smart) people, imagining radically new models that focus on different aspects (e.g., that conspicuous we above, or something else) and sideline other aspects (e.g., the various entities described by current models) is taboo.
  - lisper 3y ago
    > Better theories in what sense? In their ability to make accurate predictions. > However, some people tend to misinterpret it (possibly due to a suppressed religious impulse finding its way) as revealing objective truth through its models But science does reveal objective truth, in the sense that it reveals truths (or at least very good approximations to truths) that are independent of what anyone's opinions are. What it does not do is reveal metaphysical truth, but that's not the same thing. But even then, it does put constraints on what metaphysical truth could be. For example, unless quantum mechanics is wrong (which is extremely unlikely) then it is not possible for metaphysical truth to be classical.
ordu 3y ago
> the arrogance of modern natural science due to its success makes us disinclined and demotivated to look outside the box of its current models I'd say it is not the arrogance that stops us, but the sheer amount of work invested into current theories. You cannot match it with mere personal effort. > treating the entities described by current models (wrong, per above) as ground truth Psychology shares one special property with sociology and economics: theories not just describe a object of a research, they change the object. In some obvious ways (like popularization of IQ scores makes life easier for people with high IQ score) and in less obvious ways. It doesn't mean that anything said by a psychologists becomes true, but many things are. I'd bet that even if consciousness was not an illusion it is now.

mikhailfranco 2y ago

I don't think that all models are necessarily incorrect. Scientific models are precisely correct until they are falsified. For example, the inverse-square law for electromagnetism and Newtonian gravity is just an exact feature of continuous 3D space (surface area of a sphere). It only became an approximation when Einstein proposed warped spacetime, and will become even more incorrect in detail, if/when someone finds evidence for discrete spacetime structure. Then the inverse square law becomes a double approximation, over macro and micro structure of spacetime (lattice, wolfram graph, spin foam, ...). It just so happens that at the moment, we know that the whole of physics is pervasively incomplete (approximate nonsense), so very few current models are likely to be preserved in future better theories. QFT is a terrible hack, with renormalization and virtual hand-waving. QFT depends on a fixed background spacetime, but we know that background is dynamic (GR). We don't know how QFT and GR fit together, but I would guess almost all current models are incorrect. However, it is possible that some future Theory of Everything is correct indefinitely (until end of civilization, while not being ontologically True, of course).

spywaregorilla 3y ago

Seems to me we have very strongly evidenced beliefs about where incompleteness lies.

strogonoff 3y ago
Consciousness is perhaps the most glaring one (as far as current models offered by natural sciences are concerned), if nothing else then because we deal with it every moment of existence or because it is what natural science itself stems from, is shaped by, is dependent on and exists because of. Of course, whether it is the only unknown is unknown.
- lisper 3y ago
  Have you read Dennett's book?
  - strogonoff 3y ago
    No, but I’m familiar with his take on consciousness and it is more or less what I mean by thinking in the box of existing models and trying to explain away something inconvenient to them.
    - lisper 3y ago
      Maybe you should actually read the book before you pass judgement on it.
      - strogonoff 3y ago
        I’ve read enough in-depth takes about it that I’ll pass for now.
      - hju22_-3 3y ago
        How ironically hypocritical of you.
        lisper 3y ago
        When have I ever criticized a book I haven't read?

lisper 3y ago

It's true that science is not complete, and cannot be. We know, for example, that we cannot solve the halting problem, we cannot predict chaotic systems, etc. But that's the wrong thing to focus on. There are a lot of things we can predict, and the scientific method produces better predictive theories than any other known method. > disinclined and demotivated to look outside the box of its current models OK, but that is not the scientific method's fault. If you want to look outside the box, nothing in the scientific method says you can't. An indeed the biggest breakthroughs have come when people have thought outside the box. The problem is that it's often hard to distinguish between brilliance and crackpottery. But again, that's not a shortcoming of the scientific method, it's just the Way The World Is. Some problems are hard.

strogonoff 3y ago
> the scientific method produces better predictive theories than any other known method Better theories in what sense? (If possible, in terms that are genuinely extrinsic to scientific method itself.) > If you want to look outside the box, nothing in the scientific method says you can't Nothing in the scientific method says you can’t, indeed. However, some people tend to misinterpret it (possibly due to a suppressed religious impulse finding its way) as revealing objective truth through its models, as opposed to what it does: offer predictions as to what we would observe if we do X. For many of those (very smart) people, imagining radically new models that focus on different aspects (e.g., that conspicuous we above, or something else) and sideline other aspects (e.g., the various entities described by current models) is taboo.
- lisper 3y ago
  > Better theories in what sense? In their ability to make accurate predictions. > However, some people tend to misinterpret it (possibly due to a suppressed religious impulse finding its way) as revealing objective truth through its models But science does reveal objective truth, in the sense that it reveals truths (or at least very good approximations to truths) that are independent of what anyone's opinions are. What it does not do is reveal metaphysical truth, but that's not the same thing. But even then, it does put constraints on what metaphysical truth could be. For example, unless quantum mechanics is wrong (which is extremely unlikely) then it is not possible for metaphysical truth to be classical.

ordu 3y ago

> the arrogance of modern natural science due to its success makes us disinclined and demotivated to look outside the box of its current models I'd say it is not the arrogance that stops us, but the sheer amount of work invested into current theories. You cannot match it with mere personal effort. > treating the entities described by current models (wrong, per above) as ground truth Psychology shares one special property with sociology and economics: theories not just describe a object of a research, they change the object. In some obvious ways (like popularization of IQ scores makes life easier for people with high IQ score) and in less obvious ways. It doesn't mean that anything said by a psychologists becomes true, but many things are. I'd bet that even if consciousness was not an illusion it is now.