3 ms·
The difference between science and woo is science makes falsifiable predictions. I mean, go back 500 years. Tell everyone that everything is actually make of f
by pixl97 1mo ago
The difference between science and woo is science makes falsifiable predictions.
I mean, go back 500 years. Tell everyone that everything is actually make of fields (no not the kind you grow things in). These fields manifest waves that carry certain amounts of energy. Those bits of energy build larger structures that are still so incredibly tiny the human imagination fails. But then you take those larger structures in a pattern and it builds atoms. Those atoms are actually 99.9999999% nothing but empty space end fields of force and electricity. This is why you don't pass thru things. Oh yea, these tiny empty things connect to each other in predictable ways creating molecules that are the basis of life. Just a tiny speck of them contains quadrillions of these molecules, crazy tiny.
[The people you are talking to]: Get the wood, we're burning this witch.
- undershirt 1mo agoWe cant even verify if these fields are real though. It is an ordered mythology for making predictions that work. If I have a machine that can reproduce the footprints of an animal no one has ever seen, I have not discovered that animal. (This is personally a more powerful analogy than saying "the map is not the territory" which gets at the same point.)
- pixl97 1mo ago>We cant even verify if these fields are real though We can perform casual experiments that are falsifiable against them. This is the scientific definition of real within a probabilistic framework.
- undershirt 1mo agoSure. Just making sure people understand that the "scientific definition of real" is based on a metaphysical assumption that real = works. It is very hard to remember this since philosophy of science is not taught in school.
- GoblinSlayer 1mo agoDid you verify that we can't verify?
- undershirt 1mo agoI think so. Are you familiar with epistemology and how assumptions can be formally justified?
- GoblinSlayer 1mo agoAre you familiar with fallibilism? Aristotle justified geocentrism too. Who's to say your justification is correct for real this time?
- undershirt 1mo agoFallibilism seems to smuggle a claim of certainty about how we can't be certain about anything, which leads to a performative contradiction when brought up in an argument where people are trying to arrive at certainty.
- GoblinSlayer 1mo agoIf you don't like such skepticism, then it should be okay to believe in fields. Where do you draw a line, how much skepticism is enough? Does radio exist? You can't see it, just like other fields.
- undershirt 1mo agoI was only addressing your argument. If fallibilism leads to a contradiction then it doesn't work to undermine all agnostic arguments against the actual reality of fields. My warning is that science becomes something like a 'scientism' religion when "real" is used as shorthand for "effective abstraction". Science has philosophical boundaries that isn't part of the science curriculum.