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> One can think of the emergent scientific method as effectively learning to respect complexity. Which I'm reading like it's the ONLY way we know of how to "re

> One can think of the emergent scientific method as effectively learning to respect complexity. Which I'm reading like it's the ONLY way we know of how to "respect complexity". > The tangible result of this new trait (respecting complexity) was pretty amazing. But only for a precious few domains. Our default mode, being 100% sure about things we have little clue about (who needs hallucinating AI when you've got humans), continues to be the prevalent one. Which means if only everybody in other areas learned to respect complexity as we enlightened scientist do, everything would be great in these other areas too. And so on... This is classical enlightenment scientific positivism that is fuelled by technical prowess of the contemporary society. It's only natural to assume that all these wonders in science can be replicated if we only applied the scientific method for everything, and if it's not working we need to just work harder and eventually find the right set of hypothesis and reductions to prove the necessary theories that will render break through in other areas. What's wrong with this thought? Well first in philosophy, science is a set of assumptions and simplifications that limit the scope of search to what's measurable and ignores qualia. This is the first simplification. [1] The second is reduction, which is responsible for the wonders in physics. You break things down, you study the components of reality in an isolated and reproducible way in hopes to understand the larger picture by means of decomposition. It's just that science isn't direct about how to put things together after reduction. In most areas it's ok, things are simple enough we can make do. But it's being catastrophic in areas like quantum physics. In fact the calculations start to skyrocket in complexity so fast that reductionism itself is put in question, specially when geometric objects like the amplituhedron are known to exist that simplify the calculation quite substantially but isn't prone to investigation by reduction. [2] Which puts in question the assumption that science as you put in your comment is the correct way to manage complexity in all areas. This positivist approach to science is put in question by many other philosophers, including Karl Popper [3]. [1] https://platosmirror.com/galileo-galilei-measure-what-is-measurable-and-make-measurable-what-is-not-so/ https://platosmirror.com/galileo-galilei-measure-what-is-mea... [2] Donald Hoffman, The Case Against Reality: Why Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes ISBN-13: 978-0393254693, ISBN-10: 0393254690 [3] https://www.sobider.net/FileUpload/ep842424/File/12.two_critics_of_logical_positivism1.pdf https://www.sobider.net/FileUpload/ep842424/File/12.two_crit...

openrisk 2y ago
> Which puts in question the assumption that science as you put in your comment is the correct way to manage complexity in all areas. One important aspect of the scientific method is that the outcome "we don't know" is perfectly acceptable. Not sure there are other approaches that have this humility built-in but happy to be enlightened (pun :-)
- gchamonlive 2y ago
  Why are you so sure everybody else's don't accept "we don't know" as an acceptable answer? What makes you think only scientists are humble enough to accept such outcomes. I believe you are romanticising science. It's done by humans it's prone human error just as much (reputation and money comes to mind). And even if it wasn't, if was done 100% correctly all the time, there are fundamental assumptions and simplifications needed to make the current scientific method work that's known to be incompatible with some domains of study, as I mentioned before. And to answer your question, philosophers are the other kind of category of thinkers that would fit that description. So by all means try to apply science to everything. It's been great so far. Just don't put too much expectation on it. It's disrespectful and unfair to science.
  - openrisk 2y ago
    > What makes you think only scientists are humble enough to accept such outcomes? In your previous comment you equated the scientific method with naive positivism that purports to explain "everything". While this is a recurrent pathology, especially during times of major scientific advances that embolden people to make ridiculous assertions (from Laplace to Wolfram), its not really a defining part of science. I don't see science in any way as adversarial to philosophy. But it does have a track record of having diffused as a working thought framework whereas philosophy is still a rather elitist affair.
    - gchamonlive 2y ago
      > In your previous comment you equated the scientific method with naive positivism that purports to explain "everything". I never did that. You should try to read what others write with as much care are you employ in writing stuff yourself, including these elitist philosophers you are writing off so easily.

openrisk 2y ago

> Which puts in question the assumption that science as you put in your comment is the correct way to manage complexity in all areas. One important aspect of the scientific method is that the outcome "we don't know" is perfectly acceptable. Not sure there are other approaches that have this humility built-in but happy to be enlightened (pun :-)

gchamonlive 2y ago
Why are you so sure everybody else's don't accept "we don't know" as an acceptable answer? What makes you think only scientists are humble enough to accept such outcomes. I believe you are romanticising science. It's done by humans it's prone human error just as much (reputation and money comes to mind). And even if it wasn't, if was done 100% correctly all the time, there are fundamental assumptions and simplifications needed to make the current scientific method work that's known to be incompatible with some domains of study, as I mentioned before. And to answer your question, philosophers are the other kind of category of thinkers that would fit that description. So by all means try to apply science to everything. It's been great so far. Just don't put too much expectation on it. It's disrespectful and unfair to science.
- openrisk 2y ago
  > What makes you think only scientists are humble enough to accept such outcomes? In your previous comment you equated the scientific method with naive positivism that purports to explain "everything". While this is a recurrent pathology, especially during times of major scientific advances that embolden people to make ridiculous assertions (from Laplace to Wolfram), its not really a defining part of science. I don't see science in any way as adversarial to philosophy. But it does have a track record of having diffused as a working thought framework whereas philosophy is still a rather elitist affair.
  - gchamonlive 2y ago
    > In your previous comment you equated the scientific method with naive positivism that purports to explain "everything". I never did that. You should try to read what others write with as much care are you employ in writing stuff yourself, including these elitist philosophers you are writing off so easily.