Can critical thinking explain why we are here?

[FrostyBoy]

Why do you believe any of that? What convinced you of those things?

I need to create ideas/theories in order to make sense of reality. I'm willing to accept if I am off course, but so far I feel comfortable with my theory.

I'm just not happy with the ending... uh.. beginning.

[FrostyBoy]

This makes almost as much sense as the rest of your posts in this thread, ****

I am so not ****ing surprised this went over your head. ****BALLS

[Kuciwalker]

I need to create ideas/theories in order to make sense of reality. I'm willing to accept if I am off course, but so far I feel comfortable with my theory.

Multiverses, cosmic inflation, etc. aren't going to provide you with any sense about reality. They are completely irrelevant to your life.

[Jon Miller]

Jon: yes, but you were making a stronger statement. I just wanted to make it clear that there is still science to be done, even in the face of empirical limitations which would confound the classical scientific method.

And yes, things like "non-repeatibility" and a lack of parameter-twiddling type of control are unsatisfying...but it makes rigorous, sophisticated data analysis a much more important part of the job (rather than simply using a "take more data" approach)

Well, once more, it depends on what you mean by science.

And even observational science still requires assumptions about the probes and the states on the other side.

Maybe I read too much SF, but imagine that the rest of the universe follows vastly different rules then ours follow. Yet light/etc when entering into our part of the universe changes to present some set behavior (and to show some set figure).

How would we be able to actually probe the part of universe that obeys different rules than what our area does? We would see everything as expected, all our probes would give 'correct' results.

I agree that we can do science where we don't get results that can be repeated on the time scales of our experiments. But we still assume that they would be repeated, if experiments ran long enough/conditions became the same/etc.

Now imagine that a sentient can change probes however it wished. Other then 'sentient wishes to be known by our probes' or 'sentient wishes to be undetermined by our probes' what can we scientifically know?

JM

[Kuciwalker]

How would we be able to actually probe the part of universe that obeys different rules than what our area does? We would see everything as expected, all our probes would give 'correct' results.

Functionally, does it matter as long as our theories accurately predict what we see? (No.)

[ZEE]

Who cares?

^^ this.

it matters not why we are here, but how we deal with the fact that we are. Thats what makes each of us unique, and when people stress out thinking too much about why we are here instead of enjoying the fact that a stress-free day is a good day no matter the outcome of the day then you have inadvernantly figured out the "why" anyway... because life is supposed to be enjoyable based on how we create that for ourselves.

your whole life can change just understanding this basic principle.

[Jon Miller]

If you a sentient (and not only sentient, but smarter than the researchers like an AI would be in the common SF singularity) and you control all means of communication (what gets sent/etc, even what communication means), it is entirely impossible to get any scientific measurements.

This is nonsense. There's no binary switch whereby if the communicator is above X smart then we get absolutely no usable information.

Psychologists study people who are smarter than them all the time. You can argue that as the intelligence of the subject increases the less accurate the psychologist's observations will be (assuming the subject is falsifying responses, either deliberately or subconsciously).

I agree that there is no binary switch.

But we well know that if we switch from micro to macro, that what was discrete behavior can be continuous (and visa versa). It does seem reasonable that in some limit we are left with no usuable information.

Also consider that responses can be tailor made for each researcher.

JM

[FrostyBoy]

^^ this.

it matters not why we are here, but how we deal with the fact that we are. Thats what makes each of us unique, and when people stress out thinking too much about why we are here instead of enjoying the fact that a stress-free day is a good day no matter the outcome of the day then you have inadvernantly figured out the "why" anyway... because life is supposed to be enjoyable based on how we create that for ourselves.

your whole life can change just understanding this basic principle.

You selfish bastard!

[FrostyBoy]

Multiverses, cosmic inflation, etc. aren't going to provide you with any sense about reality. They are completely irrelevant to your life.

Y'know I kind of said that, mate.

[ZEE]

You selfish bastard!

if you dont understand yourself first you will fail anyway

[Jon Miller]

How would we be able to actually probe the part of universe that obeys different rules than what our area does? We would see everything as expected, all our probes would give 'correct' results.

Functionally, does it matter as long as our theories accurately predict what we see? (No.)

This doesn't lead to any real understanding.

Did it matter that the earth orbits the sun, when we could use a system of epicylces to explain all motions of the planets/sun/moon to even a greater degree of acurracy?

JM

[Kuciwalker]

This doesn't lead to any real understanding.

Did it matter that the earth orbits the sun, when we could use a system of epicylces to explain all motions of the planets/sun/moon to even a greater degree of acurracy?

JM

He stated that his motivation was to make sense of his life.

My motivation or yours or Galileo's needn't be the same.

[KrazyHorse]

No, as long as the epicycles provided the same level of predictive power as classical gravitation has

[Jon Miller]

How is predictive power relevant when you leave behind repeatability as a requirement for what can be considered science?

And I consider science to be valuable in finding truth about the universe, not just in providing an explanation for observables. We can have all sorts of nonscientific explainations of observables which are logically consistent. Now I agree that these lose on predictive power, but the reason why science has the predictive power it does is because its method is reaching in to what is truth about our universe.

Part of that truth is that the universe follows mathematics.

JM

[Kuciwalker]

JM, you and I have been over this before. It boils down to the fact that there's no difference between "f(x) = x^2" and an infinite table of ordered ordered pairs (x,x^2).