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You either believe in natural or supernatural explanations for the universe. If you accept the latter then the discussion is moot. If you're a scientist your

You either believe in natural or supernatural explanations for the universe. If you accept the latter then the discussion is moot. If you're a scientist your approach is the first. It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to come up with a philosophically sound logically consistant explanation for natural phenomenon which isn't unified and connected at a fundamental level. Two incompatible sets of natural explanations are vastly less likely than one unless we're falling back on superstition again. Hence on some level there will be a unified way of approaching and talking about physical phenomena. Now, is that underlying consistent theory achievable? Well that's a different question. If the unified explanation for all natural things, at its heart, relies on physics we just don't have access to - either it's too small scale for us to ever probe, or too large scale, or no longer manifested at this point in the universe's life (there are examples of this I could describe but that'd make this post too long) - then of course we would not ever get to a satisfactory scientific account which is unified. But efforts to get there tend to reveal other interesting things so are worthwhile even if we never achieve the final goal. Plus because it's so specialized and inaccessible to the layman, the degree to which there's already tremendous consistency and unification in our theories of the underlying nature of things is dramatically underappreciated by most people.

sillysaurus2 13y ago
It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to come up with a philosophically sound logically consistant explanation for natural phenomenon which isn't unified and connected at a fundamental level. Two incompatible sets of natural explanations are vastly less likely than one unless we're falling back on superstition again. Really? Ancient philosophers argued that it's vastly less likely for there to be such a huge distance separating celestial bodies than whatever their pet theory of the day was. Or that it's vastly less likely for planets to travel in ellipses, because circles were "so perfect." Throughout history, time and time again, humans seem to have a problem accepting that the imagination of nature is far greater than that of man. Plus because it's so specialized and inaccessible to the layman, the degree to which there's already tremendous consistency and unification in our theories of the underlying nature of things is dramatically underappreciated by most people. I'm trying, but unfortunately you've given no examples.
- asveikau 13y ago
  > Ancient philosophers argued that it's vastly less likely for there to be such a huge distance separating celestial bodies than whatever their pet theory of the day was. Is it me or is that a bit handwavy? The Greeks or whoever else got things awfully right and other things terribly wrong. We have the benefit of hindsight so we can point at the latter category. It doesn't negate the former. Seems like you could take any statement and say "oh yeah? well the ancients got stuff wrong!"
  - Natsu 13y ago
    I think that's a bit of a strawman. The pattern described was that we are often wrong because there's some factor about which we do not yet have the slightest clue. Given for how long we've thought that we knew everything, it should hardly be surprising to find out that there's more to things than we know.
  - richardjordan 13y ago
    You're not comparing apples to apples when you compare ancient "theories" and modern scientific theory. Predicting that the sun will come up tomorrow, and why the sun will come up tomorrow are two very different levels of detail and granularity. The latter will have far more predictive power than the former. No ancient theories had anything like the predictive power of modern theories, so were far less powerful. So when we talk about how the ancients had theories for this - we're talking orders of magnitude less complexity. An analogy: when we were kids my brother took part in a guess the weight of the cake. The answer was 1.010 kg. My brother had guessed 1.005 kg and another boy had guessed 1.04 kg. They tried give it to the other kid - well his difference was "3 different" whereas my brother's was "5 different". Obviously anyone with a brain could see there was an order of magnitude difference in the precision of the two predictions. Ancient theories are like that. Orders of magnitude less precise and therefore less predictive than modern theories. The differences tend to lead to dramatic differences in outcome making them fail to interweave in ways that are useful for us in the modern world - this is why, after all, we moved to the modern theories and they led to everything we have today. Ancient theories didn't tend to connect in philosophically logical ways as do modern theories - this is reflected in their lack of predictive power. So when I say that the problems with tying theories together that modern physicists have are vast in our minds, but really amount to splitting hairs when we compare them to the differences between theories that preceded them, this is why.
nnq 13y ago
> It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to come up with a philosophically sound logically consistent explanation for natural phenomenon which isn't unified and connected at a fundamental level Well, one could come up with some kind of model of "infinite complexity", different models of different aspects of the universe can never be unified because of stretches of "infinite complexity" "between them", like imagine a model of particle physics with an infinite number of ever "smaller" particles and no fundamental particles/forces, things made of smaller/deeper things ad infinity. I guess our current mathematics is even capable of describing such a thing. But since "more knowledge" means "more advantages / chances of long term survival" for a species, it wouldn't matter if there is no finite upper bound of understanding, we will still pursue science. And such a point of view would only support theories that violate Occam's razor and the principle of parsimony, it wouldn't really help. ...but it would make for interesting philosophy, if the people smart enough to formulate such a theory mathematically would wast their time doing metaphysical philosophy :) And I don't even want to imagine how such a theory could be bent and twisted by popular interpretation and cult leaders looking for scientific support for whatever new "religions". But overall I think some paths of thought, like this one, are better let unexplored - too many dark and weird areas and too little of use for the advancement of science: we'd better keep our Occam's razors sharps and minds aimed at simple and consistent explanations ;)
- richardjordan 13y ago
  The problem is consistency with your approach. I am referring to theories that are consistent enough with each other to have useful predictive power. As you get bigger disconnects between theories their predictive power falls away.

sillysaurus2 13y ago

It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to come up with a philosophically sound logically consistant explanation for natural phenomenon which isn't unified and connected at a fundamental level. Two incompatible sets of natural explanations are vastly less likely than one unless we're falling back on superstition again. Really? Ancient philosophers argued that it's vastly less likely for there to be such a huge distance separating celestial bodies than whatever their pet theory of the day was. Or that it's vastly less likely for planets to travel in ellipses, because circles were "so perfect." Throughout history, time and time again, humans seem to have a problem accepting that the imagination of nature is far greater than that of man. Plus because it's so specialized and inaccessible to the layman, the degree to which there's already tremendous consistency and unification in our theories of the underlying nature of things is dramatically underappreciated by most people. I'm trying, but unfortunately you've given no examples.

asveikau 13y ago
> Ancient philosophers argued that it's vastly less likely for there to be such a huge distance separating celestial bodies than whatever their pet theory of the day was. Is it me or is that a bit handwavy? The Greeks or whoever else got things awfully right and other things terribly wrong. We have the benefit of hindsight so we can point at the latter category. It doesn't negate the former. Seems like you could take any statement and say "oh yeah? well the ancients got stuff wrong!"
- Natsu 13y ago
  I think that's a bit of a strawman. The pattern described was that we are often wrong because there's some factor about which we do not yet have the slightest clue. Given for how long we've thought that we knew everything, it should hardly be surprising to find out that there's more to things than we know.
- richardjordan 13y ago
  You're not comparing apples to apples when you compare ancient "theories" and modern scientific theory. Predicting that the sun will come up tomorrow, and why the sun will come up tomorrow are two very different levels of detail and granularity. The latter will have far more predictive power than the former. No ancient theories had anything like the predictive power of modern theories, so were far less powerful. So when we talk about how the ancients had theories for this - we're talking orders of magnitude less complexity. An analogy: when we were kids my brother took part in a guess the weight of the cake. The answer was 1.010 kg. My brother had guessed 1.005 kg and another boy had guessed 1.04 kg. They tried give it to the other kid - well his difference was "3 different" whereas my brother's was "5 different". Obviously anyone with a brain could see there was an order of magnitude difference in the precision of the two predictions. Ancient theories are like that. Orders of magnitude less precise and therefore less predictive than modern theories. The differences tend to lead to dramatic differences in outcome making them fail to interweave in ways that are useful for us in the modern world - this is why, after all, we moved to the modern theories and they led to everything we have today. Ancient theories didn't tend to connect in philosophically logical ways as do modern theories - this is reflected in their lack of predictive power. So when I say that the problems with tying theories together that modern physicists have are vast in our minds, but really amount to splitting hairs when we compare them to the differences between theories that preceded them, this is why.

nnq 13y ago

> It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to come up with a philosophically sound logically consistent explanation for natural phenomenon which isn't unified and connected at a fundamental level Well, one could come up with some kind of model of "infinite complexity", different models of different aspects of the universe can never be unified because of stretches of "infinite complexity" "between them", like imagine a model of particle physics with an infinite number of ever "smaller" particles and no fundamental particles/forces, things made of smaller/deeper things ad infinity. I guess our current mathematics is even capable of describing such a thing. But since "more knowledge" means "more advantages / chances of long term survival" for a species, it wouldn't matter if there is no finite upper bound of understanding, we will still pursue science. And such a point of view would only support theories that violate Occam's razor and the principle of parsimony, it wouldn't really help. ...but it would make for interesting philosophy, if the people smart enough to formulate such a theory mathematically would wast their time doing metaphysical philosophy :) And I don't even want to imagine how such a theory could be bent and twisted by popular interpretation and cult leaders looking for scientific support for whatever new "religions". But overall I think some paths of thought, like this one, are better let unexplored - too many dark and weird areas and too little of use for the advancement of science: we'd better keep our Occam's razors sharps and minds aimed at simple and consistent explanations ;)

richardjordan 13y ago
The problem is consistency with your approach. I am referring to theories that are consistent enough with each other to have useful predictive power. As you get bigger disconnects between theories their predictive power falls away.