Post #134,413
1/8/04 10:09:28 PM
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Pardon me, but that'll be when pigs fly.
When Science meets Religion, yes. Science is model building. There is no "faith" involved (with a pedantic exception that certain Axioms be accepted as true in order to make the mathematics work that science uses as a tool for the refinement of its models). Religion is the pursuit of "ultimate truth", a spiritual belief. Science doesn't give a damn about "ultimate truth". It cares about making the best models possible. Ben will probably assail me, but whether he likes it or not, science is about model building, not "truth" finding. Shit, you can't even get to "complete truth" as long as science uses mathematics. Goedel showed us that, for crap's sake. bcnu,
Mikem
I don't do third world languages. So no, I don't do Java.
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Post #134,416
1/8/04 10:17:52 PM
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Why would I assail you?
Your description of science is correct. I can illustrate it by pointing out that it is scientific progress to find a truly useful approximation, even though the approximation clearly is wrong. The example that I like to refer to of that is boundary layers in fluid mechanics.
However I'll defend Wade's statement this far. I took the statement to mean that Wade believes that the models produced by science will someday come into agreement with things that his religion claims. That statement is technically possible to fulfill. Of course it is patently absurd if you know much about why science has come to the temporary conclusions that it has. But it is not a logical impossibility.
Cheers,
Ben
"good ideas and bad code build communities, the other three combinations do not"
- [link|http://archives.real-time.com/pipermail/cocoon-devel/2000-October/003023.html|Stefano Mazzocchi]
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Post #134,431
1/8/04 11:33:26 PM
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Okay, here we go.
Here's where you and I part ways if I understand you correctly. Without regard to whether you believe any religion can bring to an individual "the complete, whole and consistent truth", any science based upon our mathematics clearly cannot.
Let T be goal to find "the complete, whole and consistent truth".
I think we can agree that the purpose of Religion is T.
We, apparently, agree that the goal of science is not T.
Let's assume that Religion X has achieved T.
Science, as we know it today, can simply not achieve T. Science today relies upon our mathematics. Goedel's Thereoms imply that "there are some true statements which cannot be proved." Since T requires a complete truth that is consistent, I fail to see how science can ever cross paths with Religion X. And there is the rub. Every "religious" person believes that his religion is Religion X. Certainly this cannot be the case, but how to disprove it? Moreover, why attempt to disprove it? It is not a question for science.
Caveat. I'm not disagreeing with your read of Wade, nor with your position stated in your post. I can't really say that I know you well enough to make this assumption, but from previous postings I'd assumed that you believe that science can come to a complete, consistent view of reality. If that is your position, we disagree most strongly for the reasons stated here.
bcnu,
Mikem
I don't do third world languages. So no, I don't do Java.
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Post #134,438
1/9/04 1:30:19 AM
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Umm *cough* - I thought this had been "done": piecemeal
from IW --> Ez --> zIWE, in at least 3 installments.
First, while Ben is probably least likely of all, to need any assistance in clarifying his positions, I'm not sure you grok the essence of this particular contretemps (?)
Never mind your capital-T thingie, especially if it is meant to signify something like, "the final, complete and logically explicable map of (say) Reality".
(capital-T Truth is often taken to suggest such. Silly, that.)
I believe this moderate-scale argument was solely about a here & now actual National, Social and Political problem: the various whingings and manipulations and assorted orchestrated faux-logic spews - intended patently! to insert pure-distilled Christian Dogma\ufffd into the pabulum fed innocent young kiddies.
And to do so baldfaced, within a science curriculum!
Yes: here in the USA, courtesy of the same folk as brought us [fill in the faith-based blank].
This thread, I deem - a rather small subset of the HUGE Scale, Reality; is not about *any* cockamamie notions that 'we' are apt to eventually create The Spreadsheet and go into the material- Universe Building bizness. Via 'science' or any other little 'process'.
Please, let's not intermix practical questions about disingenuous propagandizing / evangelism with.. YAN try for parsing the ineffable, via our Western stone knives and bearskins. English hasn't the vocabulary even to try for beginner level. 'Ineffable' is about the sole entry within that 'vocabulary'.
HTH,
Ashton
(Surely the ineffable deserves its very own thread? however doomed to futility in most expected wordage.)
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Post #134,460
1/9/04 6:31:28 AM
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"Silly that"?
Hardly. The capital T thingie is what man has sought since the ape was first capable of thought. Surely you'd grant that "why are we here?" has been asked for at least several generations, no?
I haven't been in a serious religious discussion, at least I don't recall having been in one, in quite some time. It is "silly" to discuss religion imo. Too personal, entirely subjective, etc.
As an aside to this longish debate about whether mythology and science belong in the same classroom, I thought I'd point out the idiocy of believing that the two can ever cross paths to Scott (as I'm sure Ben would agree, but not necessarily for the same reasons). In past discussions in other forums, my interpretation of Ben's remarks is that he believes there is a true, reliable relationship between the laws of mathematics and reality.
If science were ever to "come close enough" to modeling T so that the "models were consistent with religious convictions" as has been suggested by both parties in this thread, at best that would make science a subset of religious convictions. At worst, that would mean that science was fundamentally flawed. But science simply cannot ever get close to T because of the ambiguity of the relationship between the laws of mathematics and reality. Is that relationship close? Yeah, well, kinda. We tend to ignore things that bother us too much, like yeah, we kind of cheat in physics (1/n = 0 for sufficiently large n, and such) Is that relationship certain? No.
If T is ever to be achieved, and contrary to what you might think it will continue to be sought for as long as there are humans, it will not come from science, but from religion. That, in a nutshell, is the statement I think Ben would argue with.
Science and mathematics are very interesting games, and nothing more. It may well be argued that T is the only thing worth using our brains for.
bcnu,
Mikem
I don't do third world languages. So no, I don't do Java.
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Post #134,462
1/9/04 6:38:40 AM
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Re: "Silly that"?
Science is most definitely something more than a "game". There nesting of theories has very little arbitrariness. The symbolic representation of reality in math is a remarkable TRUE thing about existence. Anyone who has ever struggled through it will understand.
-drl
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Post #134,480
1/9/04 9:34:24 AM
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Unless they look too deep.
Throw out the Choice Axiom, contemplate Goedel's Theorems and much of it is a game. A truly outstanding game, rigorous, absolutely. An excellent way to explain and predict human observations of reality. But a good approximation of "true" reality? Who knows? And why is that even important? That's religion's domain.
bcnu,
Mikem
I don't do third world languages. So no, I don't do Java.
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Post #134,500
1/9/04 11:24:57 AM
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? It's right on the surface
Even the Ptolemaic system of epicycles has a certain beauty. The very act of looking for patterns seems to be a survival instinct. What I originally meant by "reasonable" is that the patterns are there and they are permanent. They are part of the real world, as much as a tree is.
-drl
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Post #134,565
1/9/04 3:10:51 PM
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Concur.
bcnu,
Mikem
I don't do third world languages. So no, I don't do Java.
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Post #134,503
1/9/04 11:26:54 AM
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You have to know what is relevant
The pieces of mathematics that you are focussing on (Choice, Goedel, etc) are of little importance in the practice of science, and are highly arbitrary.
For instance there is no absolute truth upon which one can say that the Axiom of Choice should be included in our math, and it has been proven that any result that you can prove about integers using ZFC can be proven without choice as well. Since integers can model computing which can model all of our scientific results, right there is a proof that Choice doesn't matter to science.
Math is a fun game. The application of mathematical techniques to science is not a game, and as Ross says, Anyone who as struggled through understanding it will understand (that).
Cheers,
Ben
"good ideas and bad code build communities, the other three combinations do not"
- [link|http://archives.real-time.com/pipermail/cocoon-devel/2000-October/003023.html|Stefano Mazzocchi]
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Post #134,684
1/10/04 6:35:37 AM
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Re: "Silly that"?
Inherent language problems aside (in any other than Sanskrit) - the word 'reality' is simply unuseable! in any serious, persistent effort towards that seeming impossibility: [somehow] viewing from a higher Scale, the totality of "this" scale (the physical universe | 'self' as self-aware creature). Yet that word gets tossed about -- as if we had more than an inkling of what it might connote.. Especially in 'the West'.
That said, most fantasy essays, extrapolating from recent techno- feats (such as have placed a significant part of the population into jobs of dreary paper-shuffling within horrifying pens called 'offices', and called that Progress) -- postulate that, "more of the same" might? Shall! "reveal the Process of Processes" (or whatever words you like). In time.
Then too, the idea that "religion" such as we see - is somehow a necessary (if not sufficient) entr\ufffde to such an imagined Process -?- fails equally to convince / or demonstrate.
If there is a universal theme to the (recorded) utterances of the handful of folk who have somehow 'Realized' what it is 'they are' - and what that signifies about the prospects for approaching reality (better, Reality - in this context):
These Sages (and a handful of 'Avatars') do the best with language as perhaps Can be done with language [?] in the way of giving hints, pointers to those sincerely desirous of knowing. Yet all say that, there is no process by which this realization may be induced.
In brief, the idea that a further quantity of new knowledge about the workings of the cosmos (ie physics - formerly termed 'Natural Philosophy') - shall lead to awareness of the Whole: does not appear any more likely than - an idea that intricate study of music composition might lead to one's achieving Mozartean abilities.
I'd call 'believing' otherwise: faith-based faith. Language (nor math) just isn't up to such a Task.
[Of course, many will settle for just a nice metaphor - which appears to be the assembly-language of our jelloware. WTF: it's a start..]
A.
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Post #134,507
1/9/04 11:42:35 AM
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I think that you misunderstood me then
Using your terms, I'm claiming that it is reasonable to believe that if the scientific approximations eventually converge to a good enough approximation of what is true, then they will start saying things that agree with what has been The Truth all along. Science cannot, of course, ever prove The Truth in all details, but it should eventually confirm parts of it.
This statement is unobjectionable so far. In fact beliefs like this one motivated scientists from start to finish. For all that we technically only have improving provisional knowledge, every scientist believes that they are trying to find out something more about what really happens, what is really true. And scientific theories with enough backing tend to get described, by professionals and laypeople alike, as true.
But I took this farther. I said, I took the statement to mean that Wade believes that the models produced by science will someday come into agreement with things that his religion claims. Which ascribes to Wade the belief both in the statement that I made above about The Truth (which I also believe), and adding the fact that Wade has faith that he already has hold of a piece of The Truth. And what is true won't contradict itself, so if the scientific process comes to its natural confirmation, it has to converge on what Wade believes.
I disagree with this belief, of course. But I don't say that he is trivially wrong, that he is expecting science to reach a point that it can never reach.
This is my interpretation. I have projected my own belief structure on what Wade actually said and come up with an interpretation that I then worked with. This is necessary, I can't read anyone's mind, and so have to come up with interpretations of what they likely mean to understand what they say. This is doubly true when, as with Wade, those people start with assumptions that differ sharply from mine.
However I have to point out that it is my interpretation simply because I could be wrong! I think that this is what Wade thinks. I don't really know. And I'm not going to go around putting words in his mouth if I can avoid it.
Cheers,
Ben
"good ideas and bad code build communities, the other three combinations do not"
- [link|http://archives.real-time.com/pipermail/cocoon-devel/2000-October/003023.html|Stefano Mazzocchi]
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Post #135,473
1/13/04 1:44:11 PM
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What we can agree to disagree on.
For me, science is the study of Plato's cave shadows and religion is the way out of the cave.
Several times over the past you've scolded me about the Choice Axiom having no consequence on the certain relationship between the laws of mathematics and reality. I don't buy it, and without proof I won't.
Your more recent claim that everything in science can be done with integers - I guess only the biology dependent upon e is gone with this view, as well as the insignificant impact pi has on scientific models, does not address the implications of Goedel's work (that was integer math he was talking about).
So, in summary, I will leave you to your shadows.
bcnu,
Mikem
I don't do third world languages. So no, I don't do Java.
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Post #135,475
1/13/04 2:06:05 PM
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If you need actual proof...
then you are going to have to learn some logic than I have not. I've merely quoted an often-quoted fact from logic.
The result that I am quoting is a consequence of Goedel's "constructible universe" construction. The purpose of that construction was to prove that if ZF is consistent, then ZFC is consistent. A side-effect of the construction is that every arithmetical statement provable in ZFC turns out to be provable in ZF.
However I haven't personally been through that construction, so I can't give you any details other than "ask a logician". If you post what I said above on sci.math and ask for recommendations on where you can learn about the construction, it is likely that someone will have a good answer.
As for the sufficiency of integers for questions of physical interest, integers are sufficient to model classical computers. Any aspect of reality that can't be modelled with a good scientific theory and a good enough computer is unlikely to ever be amenable to scientific analysis. That is a statement of belief on my part, but it is a belief that I think most will accept.
Cheers,
Ben
"good ideas and bad code build communities, the other three combinations do not"
- [link|http://archives.real-time.com/pipermail/cocoon-devel/2000-October/003023.html|Stefano Mazzocchi]
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Post #135,540
1/13/04 8:27:55 PM
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Ah...
I've merely quoted an often-quoted fact from logic.
So you do take some things on faith.
I'm only kidding, Ben. But it does remind me of something I heard long ago. I was watching Asimov being interviewed on television and, although I can't quote him exactly now, he said something along the lines of "Science is of higher moral ground than religion. If science discovers something that does not agree with its most valued theories, the theories are thrown out - or modified. When religion discovers something inconsistent with its dogma, the evidence is destroyed." So, you'd be right, imho, to be more willing to accept at face value a "widely held scientific/mathematical truth" than any religious truth.
IMO, there is damned little sacred about organized religion. The religion I spoke of in this thread is a personal religion, which can neither be taught, explained, nor discussed. True religion comes from within. Even discussing religion is a fool's errand. There's an old Taoist saying, "Those who know do not speak. Those who speak freely do not know." That'd apply to darned near every "professional" religious zealot (preachers,priests,mullahs,rabbis,etc.) I know.
bcnu,
Mikem
I don't do third world languages. So no, I don't do Java.
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Post #135,581
1/14/04 12:42:54 AM
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Depends on which mathematical truth...
I'm willing to take on faith something which is a widely known theorem in logic, the proof of which I know is understandable and has been widely examined.
However something like the classification of finite simple groups which I know is big, complex, and has not been reviewed? Well when the authors publically say that they don't believe their own proof, I'm not inclined to believe it either.
Incidentally Asimov was being seriously unfair to religion. Yes, there are religious groups which act like he described. There are also groups of religious people who definitely don't. Religion itself doesn't act in any consistent way.
Cheers,
Ben
"good ideas and bad code build communities, the other three combinations do not"
- [link|http://archives.real-time.com/pipermail/cocoon-devel/2000-October/003023.html|Stefano Mazzocchi]
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Post #135,625
1/14/04 8:07:49 AM
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IMO 'religion' is oft a sub-set: religiosity
As practised in these parts, anyway. It's a language problem because 'metaphysics' arguably -- needs no such social construct. (And most Murican 'religion' is far more a social experience than, anything resembling solitary contemplation)
I believe most of the interminable threads from IW --> zIWE + the fulminations of Nick et al: derive from this very confusion of er aims, methods and imagined 'results'. Language problems.
ie Not all cultures suffer in the way our locals do; why some.. manage almost the sublime, with some regularity.
Now as to whether Asimov was 'unfair' to relig(iosity)? Nahhh.
(But he ascribed to science wrongly, anyway - that which science is unsuited to deal with, by definition. Bad Isaac.)
Ashton
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Post #135,757
1/14/04 5:05:32 PM
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Einstein's thought on that:
The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge. Alex
The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled. -- Plutarch
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