Question: How, exactly, does philosophy underpin science? (page 5)

James Randi's fiery takedown of psychic fraud

18 min - Apr 20, 2010
Legendary skeptic James Randi takes a fatal dose of homeopathic sleeping pills onstage, kicking off a searing 18-minute indictment ...
ted.org - Related videos

notverylikely

It seems to me that I open the door far too many times just as she is turning into the driveway for it to be coincidental. I "feel" like she is near.

Ah, this is a perfect case. There are lots of reasons....it's very possible you are checking more often than you are consciously aware of, it's possible often know about what time she should be home and you have a heightened awareness around that time. It's possible you are picking up on cues that she is turning into the driveway and you just aren't aware of it.

It possible to check for all of these, for instance, start documenting how often you open the door or look out the window. The problem comes in because the act of trying to measure these things changes your behavior and it can't be proven your behavior is the same. The act of observation changes the thing being observed.

notverylikely

However, it is only this particular sister (I have 5 others); it happens time and time again, so can't be a coincidence.

I have two brothers and three sisters. Two of us think of each other more often than the rest. My older sister thinks of me far more often than I think of her. Not unusual. No rule that says all of you have to think about each other in equal parts :)

BurnTheShips

Bohm:

anyway, 1, 2, 3 and possible 5 seem to be imperical claims: It need not be so.

Could you please clarify?

This is Bohm's thread, we are going down various rabbit holes. It would be great if we could keep it narrow enough to discuss his question.

Just my desire, that's all. I've gone off topic here myself.

BTS

Terry

Assumptions give you a framework of expectations.

Interpretations fit what happens into that framework.

How could you do otherwise?

Terry

Science is about discovery and confirmation.

Testing confirmation leads to confidence in knowledge.

Nothing is wrong with guessing as long as you don't fall in love with your guess and bend the facts to conform.

If something is correct____it should be correct for everybody.

If something is only "true for you" it isn't knowledge, truth or fact. It is bias.

B-Rock

Sicence uses logic. Logic is philosophy.

notverylikely

Sicence uses logic. Logic is philosophy.

Branches of philosophy are concerned with logic, others, not so much. The parts that are what help to teach critical thinking skills and logic.

Terry

LOGIC is the art of non-contradictory measurement.

The red flag to any illogical statement is dissonance.

Eastern religions embrace dissonance and make a virtue of it! (The sound of one hand clapping.)

Contradiction disables the rational mind and makes it receptive to ANY suggestion thereafter!

If you want to sniff out an intruder breaking in like a burglar (into your mind) listen for words which cause you to doubt your own ability to distinguish fact from fiction. The brain burglar tells you what you cannot know and what "might" be true that can't be proved by science.

bohm

BTS:

1) Nature is orderly: regular in pattern and structure.

2) Humans can know nature. They can deduce laws describing its order.

3) Everything has a natural cause.

3) Claims must be subject to objective demonstration to be true: nothing is self-evident.

4) Knowledge can be derived empirically through the senses, whether directly or through augmentation.

5) The senses can be trusted to provide a true knowledge of reality (see number 2 and 4)

Suppose we found that some particle - the funnytrino - just popped into and out of existence without any pattern, interacted with matter in unpredictable ways, and had an entirely unpredictable charge, spin and other properties. However, it was quite rare.

It would not defeat science. But it would invalidate the first #3, and make exceptions to 1 and 2. About 5 - our brain can only be trusted to some degree. How much and when is mainly an emperical question.

Secondly, take #4: With a slightly different sentence structure it would be a definition of science rather than a founding principle.

B-Rock: How is logic philosophy? I thought logic was best described in mathematics, Im thinking about logic in the sence of eg. a boolean algebra.

Question: How, exactly, does philosophy underpin science?

Share this