= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
Bugmaster comments on How to Not Lose an Argument - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (409)
I would argue that our ability to "materially transform the world" (which is material) is a direct consequence of our ability to acquire progressively more accurate models of the world.
Yes. Do you disagree ? I am somewhat surprised by your question, because the answer seems obvious, but I could be wrong. Still, you say,
So... it sounds like you agree, maybe ?
This is, at best, an argument against technology, but not against science.
... you conviently do not address some of the examples I provide of the negatives of flight. I am not against either techology or science in moderation, which I do not think exists in the current state of things.
No, it is an argument against the ideology that endless minipulation/dominance of the material world is purely benefical. Science is as much an attempt to dominate/minpulate reality as technological development.
Oh, I agree that there are negatives, I just think that the positives outweigh them. I can defend my position, but first, let's clear up this next point:
I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "dominate/manipulate". As I see it, science is an attempt to understand reality, and technology is an attempt to manipulate it. Do you have different definitions of "science" and "technology" in mind ? Obviously, a certain amount of technology is required in order for science to progress -- microscopes and telescopes don't pop out of thin air ex nihilo -- but I think the distinction I'm making is still valid.
Science doesn't motivate itself. The social purpose of learning to make better predictions (science) is to be better at controlling the environment.
The fact that we can control an environment doesn't imply that we should control it that way, and Boyi seems to be conflating those points. But that doesn't change the social purpose of science.
ETA: Understanding reality is what science says it does. But from a functional point of view, it is irrelevant whether the model is "true" because all that matters is whether the model makes accurate predictions.
I agree with what dlthomas said. In fact, most scientists I know are pursuing science out of intrinsic interest, like he said -- though that's just my personal experience, which may not be representative.
What's your definition of "true", then, besides "makes accurate predictions" ?
I did say that I was doing a functional analysis. The social purpose of labeling a scientific statement as true is to differentiate statements that are useful in making accurate predictions from those that are not useful for making predictions. Also, see my response to dlthomas.
If we stop using functional analysis, the question of truth remains. Personally, I have a lot of trouble coming to a satisfying conclusion about the concept, because I think the hypothesis of the incommensurability of scientific theories is strongly supported by the evidence. Notwithstanding that incommensurability, I think that the ability of science to make accurate predictions is based on the regularity of phenomena. I wrote this earlier, which is a slightly more detailed version of the same point.
I may be exposing my ignorance here, but I don't understand what you mean by a "social purpose". The purpose you describe sounds like an entirely pragmatic purpose to me; i.e., it's the one that makes sense if you want to discover more about the world -- but perhaps this is also what you meant ?
I read that comment, and I disagree with its premise: "It's like Aristotle [and Newton] wasn't looking at the same reality". Both Newton and Aristotle (ok, Aristotle not as much) explain not only their conclusions, but the evidence and reasoning they used to arrive at these conclusions, and it's rather obvious why they made the mistakes they made... it's because they were, in fact, looking at the same reality we now inhabit. You'd make the same mistakes too, today, if you knew nothing of modern science but tried to figure out how the world worked.
Furthermore, Newton wasn't even all that terribly wrong (again, Aristotle was a ways off). If I want to predict the orbit of our Moon with a reasonable degree of certainty, or if I simply want to lob a rock across the top of an enemy fortress's walls with my trebuchet, I don't need relativity.
You make it sound as though the "regularity of phenomena" is some kind of a trick that people invented so they could keep getting tenure, or something. I, on the other hand, would claim that it's simply the most parsimonious assumption, given our observations.
It's not a big deal. I was trying to be precise to avoid the appearance of a naive claim like "purpose is an objective property of things," which is clearly false. Purpose is only meaningful as a reference to something, and I'm referencing society.
The Aristotle / Newton comparison is meant to be evidence for the hypothesis of incommensurability of scientific theories. If it doesn't convince you, then I regret that I'm not a good enough historian of science to present additional evidence. (For example, the issues about phlogiston do not seem like compelling evidence for the theory to me, although experts in Philosophy of Science apparently disagree). The only other point in favor of incommensurability of scientific theories is something like "It's awfully lucky that scientific theories are commensurable, because theories of everything that are not scientific (i.e. moral theories) are definitely incommensurable."
Anyway, disbelieving the scientific incommensurability hypothesis (SIH) means that the point about phenomena is not all that interesting or insightful. But if you believe SIH, then the scientific nihilism (i.e. there is no objective reality at all) is very tempting. But scientific nihilism must be rejected because science keeps making accurate predictions. Not only that, the predictions keep getting better <i.e. once we didn't know how to build computers. Now, we do>
So even if we reject the idea of accurate scientific models based on the SIH, we still are committed to some sort of regularity, because otherwise accurate prediction is extremely unlikely. That's phenomena. Sort of the middle ground between scientific nihilism and a belief in the accuracy of scientific models.
Ah, yes, agreed.
I think I might be misunderstanding what the word "incommensurability" means. I thought that it meant, "the performance of theory A cannot be compared with the performance of theory B", but in case of Aristotle/Newton/Einstein, we can definitely rank the performance (in the order I listed, in fact). Aristotle's Laws of Motion are more or less (ok, closer to the "less" side perhaps, but still) useful, as long as you're dealing with solid objects on Earth. Their predictive power isn't great, but it's not zero. Newton's Laws are much more powerful, and relativity is so powerful that it's overkill in many cases (f.ex. if you're trying to accurately lob a rock with a trebuchet). Each set of laws was devised to explain the best evidence that was available at the time; I see nothing incommesurate about that. But, again, it's possible that I'm using the word incorrectly.
I am not convinced that they are. In fact -- again, assuming I'm using the word correctly -- how can theories be incommesurable and yet falsifiable ? And if a theory is not falsifiable, it's not very useful, IMO (nor is it a theory, technically).
As I use incommensurability, I mean that the basic concepts in one theory cannot be made to correspond with the basic concepts of another theory.
At bottom, Aristotelian physics says that what needs to be explained is motion. In contrast, Newtonian physics says that what needs to be explained is acceleration. I assert that there is no way to import principles for explaining motion into a theory that exists to explain acceleration. In other words, Aristotelian physics is not a simpler and more naive form of Newtonian physics. You can produce a post-hoc explanation of the differences like your invocation of the limits of observable evidence (but see this discussion). I find post-hoc explanation unsatisfying because scientists talk as if they can ex ante predict (1) what sorts of new evidence science needs to improve and (2) what the "revolutionary" new theories will look like. And yet that doesn't seem to be true historically.
There is some unfortunate equivocation in the the word theory ("Theory of Gravity" vs. "Utilitarianism: A Moral theory"). But something like Freudian thought is unified(-ish) and coherent(-ish). What is wrong with referencing "Freudian theory"? That doesn't reject Popper's assertion that Freudian thought isn't a scientific theory (because Freudian thought isn't falsifiable). On falsifiability more generally, I'm not sure what it means to ask whether utilitarianism (or any moral theory) is falsifiable.
Some people do seem to pursue science out of intrinsic interest, however.
I'm sure many people do intrinsically enjoy science. Nonetheless, the reason society pays for science research is because it leads to being able to make more accurate predictions.
I think that's pretty clearly the case, yes.
Edited to add: On reflection, I think this is not at all clear. Surely some science funding is so directly motivated, but a lot seems to be more related to signaling.
I'll concede that the Enlightenment did more to relieve human suffering (or whatever measure you prefer) than the advance of science. <Again, I don't think this a a majority position in this community.>
Will you concede that the Enlightenment's continued viability is reliant on the increase in wealth it caused, including the increase in wealth from scientific progress?
You don't need to believe post-modern thought to be an environmentalist. Nor does being post-modern guarantee that you are an environmentalist. (or any other critique of human application of "scientific" domination of nature).
In short, you are overstating the usefulness of post-modern analysis. Economists (whether or not they think Kuhn was saying something useful) already have language for the types of problems you identify with the social application of scientific prediction.