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Comment by gottebp | Hacker News Reader

The axioms at the foundation of modern science are also accepted by faith. How do you prove an axiom?

Follow the philosophical tree a little deeper and see if you can prove the foundation.

I think you're talking about the axioms which form the modern foundation of mathematics, but mathematics isn't a science, at least not in the sense I'm referring to. Mathematics is a tool; it does not aim to describe the world, but rather provides a toolbox useful for doing so. It doesn't work the same way science based on observation does. There is no faith involved, but rather just arbitrary choices that result in a useful end result. That's good enough. It's like a protocol standard we all use because it makes our life easier. You don't need faith in HTTP to use it.

If you mean the foundations of the scientific method, e.g. things like trusting your perception of the world (to some extent), that indeed crosses over from science into philosophy. But that does not invalidate the scientific method, not does it mean all of science is faith-based; it just means we had to make some assumptions to be able to accomplish anything at all. Those assumptions are still something we can and should question, we just don't have any good way of testing them.

More towards the latter portion of your writing. Science is a branch of philosophy after all. It has axioms such as: "The world is objective, orderly, and comprehensible." It assumes the existence of the laws of logic, and their immutability.

Take those away and the whole edifice collapses.

https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/48844/axioms-...

It doesn't really 'collapse'.

You just have to put "everywhere the universe acts consistently, which it has in 100% of tests," at the start of everything you say.

To even do a "test" you are assuming the truth of the axioms already. There is really no escape from epistemology. Axioms are simply accepted on faith, and everything is built on top of them.

I don't need to assume axioms to tell you if a measurement I remember taking is consistent with them.

You are assuming the very logic applied at the time of measurement was, is, and remains true. What if the laws of logic change every few minutes?

Perhaps your are not aware of how low level we are talking. Epistemology relates to how we know what we know.

> You are assuming the very logic applied at the time of measurement was, is, and remains true.

No, I'm not assuming that.

> Epistemology relates to how we know what we know.

That's why I added "I remember".

If I can't trust my memory at all, then it doesn't really matter what I do.

But I can put that as a disclaimer over everything if I really want to. I don't have to assume.

And I feel like you've gone way beyond the original scope at this point. If I don't feel like considering the "brain in a jar also the brain only started existing 2 seconds ago" theory right now, my decision to ignore it comes long before I even start worrying about science. If my decision is wrong, it's not a problem with science.

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