Comment by crankylinuxuser | Hacker News Reader

Comment by crankylinuxuser | Hacker News Reader

crankylinuxuser

Science and scientism tend to go hand in hand.

Science has saved us from the plagues of gross superstition. Did many of those have kernels of truth? Well, sure. But how do we analyze them as to why? More superstition doesn't cut it. One needs a set of thought tools that can systematically tear it apart carefully. And physical tools facilitate that. And then add in measuring and reproducibility, and there's science.

But taken too far, and #5 of their list is violated. Not everything can be analyzed. And some things, I would dare say, shouldn't be analyzed.

Although, with the more we see IoT, internet tied hardware, machine learning, neural nets, and the like, the more our gross matter doesn't appear to follow science. Why does the IoT thing do X? Well an update last night no longer does that. Or, why does Google searches act completely different between 2 people? Once matter was programmable and reprogrammable, it becomes much more difficult to perform science on them.

One might as well complain that when that one kilogram pile of protons, neutrons and electrons flaps and squawks like a chicken, it no longer "follows science". It's just that biology is a better, higher level tool for getting meaningful than particle physics for explaining the trajectory of a chicken.

And it's a well-known aphorism that "in carefully controlled conditions ... the experimental animal will do as it damn well pleases". And yes; it becomes more difficult to reason about the trajectory of that chicken when its internal motivations and factors like hunger, tiredness etc. are opaque to us. And I think that's directly analogous -- DNA and the processes of life have programmed and reprogrammed matter, and does make reasoning about them harder.

And it highlights the importance of metaphorically aseptic technique in the analysis of malware and computer interaction; and in doing so highlights the problems of "laboratory conditions" being distinct from real world ones since malware might detect the abnormal sterility...

(I'm not even sure whether I'm agreeing with you or disagreeing. But your post was thoughtprovoking.)

And that I think is that what we're discussing is the crossroads of science, metrology, philosophy, logic, and mathematics.

What is a kilogram? Is the idea the same as the base object? Should it have a physical representation at all? What happens when the kilogram changes? Can it change? What does it mean when/if it does? If we change it, are we still conducting science?

Of course, that sphere of metal is easy to pick on. But what about the "constant" of C, which we've seen other science studies showing it itself changes - which possibly indicates Planck's constant changes. But the solution was to state by fiat that C is an exact speed and move on. To me, this smacks as unscientific as Indiana defining pi as 3.

And as the meme goes, psychology > biology > chemistry > physics > mathematics. And yet each layer has its own findings and studies, but rarely do each group talk to each other. And such studies come into conflict.... But they're both right. What do we do then? More science? Less?

And there's falsified science. We don't talk much about that. It doesnt win studies. It doesn't get grants. Nor do failed studies get acolades and tenure positions. They should, but they don't. Knowing what areas don't have connection is just as important as those that do. It represents a map of understanding positive and negative.

And I don't think this is one of those agree/disagree.. at least I never took it that way. This is just one of those topics that goes to the root of our world. And we each are just a piece of it.

Science saved the humanity? The assumption that unlimited human dominance can save humans is wrong. That's not human progress. The human progress is in balanced evolution that fits well into the ecosystem. Science has failed to keep that as the main goal.

that's a great point! tech seems to lead to magical voodoo incantations to get things done vs principled understandings

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