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There's an infinite variety of axiomatic systems, most of them not much different from, say, a set of beliefs in Santa Claus and magical elves living at the Nor
by azov 13y ago
There's an infinite variety of axiomatic systems, most of them not much different from, say, a set of beliefs in Santa Claus and magical elves living at the North Pole.
However the axiomatic systems we happen to use most have one important property: they are useful for acquiring new knowledge via scientific method. I.e. they serve as a foundation for theories that make correct predictions as verified by experiment.
That's the main difference.
- vinchuco 13y agoA story: "There's two scientists on lab coats observing a spider. They shout JUMP! and the spider jumps. They proceed to remove one of it's legs and repeat the procedure. They shout JUMP! and the spider jumps... After some time of repeating the procedure the poor spider has no legs. They shout JUMP! and it doesn't do a thing. The scientists then come to verify their useful hypothesis: ..spiders use their legs to listen..."
- Dylan16807 13y agoSpiders do in fact hear with their legs... Also the more complex a prediction is, the harder it is to get right by mistake. Example: GPS Satellite timekeeping.
- jlgreco 13y agoCute story, but don't mistake it for a second for any sort of casual indictment of the scientific process. ...the story does not even feature the scientific process in the first place (which goes a long way to explain why we find it silly).
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- spindritf 13y agoThere are beliefs which are useful for acquiring new knowledge via scientific method. Like that the laws of physics are universal (the same everywhere in the universe).