1
   

The Place and Value of Science

 
 
iconoclast
 
  1  
Reply Wed 3 Sep, 2008 06:55 am
@Khethil,
Khethil,

Are you not conflating psychology as therapy with the science of psychology where you say:

Quote:
I cannot get passed the absurdity of the notion. In this, one person who's trapped and boxed-in inside their own minds with all their filters, views, bias, subconscious influences and blissfully unaware of all the quadrillion factors influencing human behavior can diagnose someone else.


The science of psychology is the attempt to understand the way the brain works using scientific and experimental methods - whereas psychology as therapy may devolve into quackery for any number of reasons, though usually financial reasons, but also religious agendas and pseudo-spiritual fal-de-ra. The science is at least methodologically valid, but quackery follows from social application of the knowledge, and that, I'd argue, is because society is a big lame duck!

The motives for the application of scientific knowledge in a society described by religion, nation state and capitalism are less than scientifically valid - and this is what I'm trying to get across. You ask:
Quote:
Is there anyway to moderate/direct scientific means?


You wholeheartedly agree:

Quote:
Science is value neutral - there's no reason inherent to science for example, to apply alternative energy technologies and not apply biological warfare - one needs a goal to direct application of scientific knowledge.


and ackowledge:

Quote:
Survival of the species isn't something we can "deal with later"


Which is why I suggest:

Quote:
employing science for scientifically valid reasons - to the end of securing human survival


Given scientifically valid knowledge and the ethical objectivity of survival as a goal, on this basis, a whole political, economic and ethical system unfolds like a red carpet welcoming us to a bright and hopeful future.

And I can see it - but can't communicate it.

:brickwall:

iconoclast.
Khethil
 
  1  
Reply Wed 3 Sep, 2008 08:27 am
@iconoclast,
Thanks for your reply.

iconoclast wrote:
Are you not conflating psychology as therapy with the science of psychology...


This is quite possible; given the differentiation you've provided, on the whole I'd have to agree. Perhaps therapeutic psychology is the the face where my egg should have been aimed. Deserved or not, 'tis how I feel :bigsmile:

Thanks again, good wrap up.
iconoclast
 
  1  
Reply Wed 3 Sep, 2008 10:22 am
@Khethil,
:OK::bigsmile-sun:

iconoclast.
0 Replies
 
Aedes
 
  1  
Reply Wed 3 Sep, 2008 10:42 am
@Didymos Thomas,
Didymos Thomas;23383 wrote:
The boy is 4 months old. What sort of sport can he take part in?
He is an outstanding swimmer. He would have competed in the Olympics, but he hadn't been born yet during the trials.

We read to him a lot, though his interest is somewhat sporadic. Yesterday I read him "Gorgonzola: a Very Stinkysaurus".

This is what happens when I try to read philosophy to him:

http://www.pbase.com/drpablo74/image/98554663.jpg
iconoclast
 
  1  
Reply Wed 3 Sep, 2008 11:16 am
@Aedes,
Aedes,

The doorstep bottom lip. Max makes a very good argument. It's difficult not to agree - even though, at the same time, one has to wonder if he's taken all factors into consideration, or would both dictate the terms and argue in those terms to force agreement.

okokokokok...

hahaha.

iconoclast.
0 Replies
 
paulhanke
 
  1  
Reply Wed 3 Sep, 2008 12:11 pm
@Khethil,
Khethil wrote:
It almost appears that we have some measure of concensus that science has brought good and ill. If that be the case - to any extent - I'm wondering if we could re-direct back to the topic and ask: Is there anyway to moderate/direct scientific means? I don't think there is - the cat's out of the bag, the eggs have been broke and humpty-dumpty lays on the ground in a thousand pieces. Like everything else, humans will use any tool they can grab for their own purposes...


... I'm not sure that that's the exact question that started this thread, but it sounds like an important question in its own right ... and in response to it, let me tell you about a group of people on the southeast side of town - these people, unlike the majority of the rest of the community who couldn't care less, are finding ways to protect the land, to make sustainable use of it ... they've surveyed the archaeological and historical resources and are protecting them for posterity ... they've even built themselves a huge solar collector so that they can close in on 100% renewable energy and start selling energy back to the grid ... these people clearly demonstrate an ideology that the planet is worth saving - and this ideology has redirected a significant amount of their scientific investments ... so who are these people? - a bunch of tree-hugging hippies? ... (nope - the tree-hugging hippies live on the southwest side of town) ... these people are the U.S. Army! ... I'm talking about Ft. Carson! :shocked:

I about fell out of my chair when I found all this out - this ain't the same U.S. Army that I did my service in twenty years ago! ... now, if the ideology of the U.S. Army can change this drastically in just twenty years, isn't there hope for the rest of us? ... heck, we've seen cultural paradigm shifts before - the 60's, the 80's ... aren't we about due for another one? ... all it takes is for the old-school thinkers to retire and fade away and be replaced by the next generation ... are our children that next generation? ... and if we raise enough of a ruckus, can they help but listen?
0 Replies
 
paulhanke
 
  1  
Reply Wed 3 Sep, 2008 01:18 pm
@iconoclast,
iconoclast wrote:
Given scientifically valid knowledge and the ethical objectivity of survival as a goal, on this basis, a whole political, economic and ethical system unfolds like a red carpet welcoming us to a bright and hopeful future.

And I can see it - but can't communicate it.

:brickwall:



... you communicate your vision just fine - and I admit that it has its intellectual appeal ... but when you start fiddling with the idea of establishing a collective of scientists to run the world, the specter of Stalin appears ... he had high hopes that science would carry Russia to world dominance - so he nationalized science ... the result? - when you politicize science, scientists become politicians ... you end up with the intellectually weak but charismatically strong (e.g., Lysenko) interfering with legitimate science in order to expand their own power base.

Do you think the separation of church and state is a good idea? Well, I think the separation of science and state is an even better idea - not to protect the state from science; but to protect science from the state!

But by separation of science and state I in no way intend that politicians should not lean heavily on science for generating viable options for a sustainable long term future of humankind and the planet ... it just requires beating the politicians over the head with a reality stick ... but to get there, we need to educate the voters that it's time to pick up that stick ... and who should we target with such an educational program? (see previous post).
0 Replies
 
Zetetic11235
 
  1  
Reply Wed 3 Sep, 2008 01:43 pm
@cupofcoffees,
cupofcoffees wrote:
It's not the example; it's the logic applied to it. The recurring pattern seen in "pseudoscience" can be applied to any "science". There is no cherry-picking or bias here.


It is an induction, it is not a logical truth as you have not proven it to be a tautology.

cupofcoffees wrote:

Don't be reluctant to show some facts. Yes, more comedy and irony is that it's the west that feeds the 3rd world out of "charity" acts. Where Ethiopia once took care of itself, and let natural disaster do its dirty business, we've stepped in and "helped" so that they can die by the millions in the next drought.

Feeding Africa

"The begging bowl for Ethiopia is being passed around to us, yet again.

It is nearly 25 years since Ethiopia's (and Bob Geldof's) famous Feed The World campaign, and in that time Ethiopia's population has grown from 33.5 million to 78 million today. By 2050, the population of Ethiopia will be 177 million.

Indeed, we now have almost an entire continent of sexually hyperactive indigents, with tens of millions of people who only survive because of help from the outside world.

So why on earth should I do anything to encourage further catastrophic demographic growth in that country?"

As for population increase of only the 3rd world, have you forgotten China?

"Until the modern era, world population grew slowly. During the next eight milleniums, population grew at .05% per year, reaching 300 million in 1 A.D. During the following 16 centuries, the annual growth rate fluctuated, partly because of the Black Death, which ravaged 14th century Europe. Today, there are six times as many people alive as at the start of the industrial revolution, 13 times more than when Columbus set sail and 20 times more than during the Roman Empire."

Don't make uneducated claims.


None of this is news to me, China is not a developed country, it is developing, don't be presumptious. I am well aware that we are feeding the problem in Africa and infantilizing the people there. I do not think we should be there, but what does this have to do with anything? This is ill planned idealism. Here is another example. Rachel Carson's Silent Spring painted(falsely) the chemical DDT as a great threat. Although she did not demand a banning of the substance, she spurred the initiatives in many countries which subsequently lead to an increase of malaria deaths due to the lack of a cheap pesticide. All of this is due to reactionary measures taken by activists.

cupofcoffees wrote:
The use for neurology is not limited to medical fields of the brain. I didn't expect you to take one word out of context, and continually badger me about the definition, but then again, what else do you have to go by?


Not a good bit since up until this post you have included nothing but ranting hacks as your examples and are at best argueing from an extremely dogmatic and over-zealous position. By the way, there is only one definition on that link and it contradicts the sentence it is used in.

cupofcoffees wrote:
I refer to many words that can only "be gained by extrapolations upon empirical observations" as I can't travel back in time and erase my knowledge of such, but if you insist I speak olde english when in rome...

Well, you can certainly allow the circumstances of the modern day dictate your tongue. Do as you wish, I enjoy writing in the style I see fit based on my audience;people interested in philosophy(and more often literary than analytic). This seems to me just further evidence of your selfish demand for the world to fit your preference due to your existential angst.

cupofcoffees wrote:

As for what I said about science being deemed the only root of thought, here is a prime example. Determinism doesn't need science plastered atop of it to exist; it's a philosophy itself.


Experience is the root of knowledge, not the root of all thought. Thought works through experience. Determinism is an induction over an open system and thus not provable. That it is an induction over an open system and falsifiable makes it a scientific observation. Determinism finds a possible counter theory in quantum mechanics. It may well be, however, that the probability based physics in quantum mechanics is a problem of measurement, it is unkown and cannot be proven necessarily true either. Science is a branch of philosophy and philosophy is a branch of thought and its domain is experience.

quote=cupofcoffees;23277]My stance on the environment and society is one I didn't come to overnight. It took a lot of opposition and thinking outside-the-box, or should I say, openness to the idea that patriotism is a 1-way street. I grew up many things, and I question them all.
Quote:



Good, then you'll fit in with the rest of us.


cupofcoffees wrote:

We are lead astray through impersonal, menial tasks. It's entirely too easy to separate man from world, as he is, but only in so far as his transcendental thoughts. When we perceive something, it's innately subjective and reliant on self perception. When this is combined with reality, it's subject to countless errors of one-sidedness, and if we can't "see the forest for the trees", cutting them down isn't going to improve our sight. We can observe and study the properties of reality and invent to control it in the name of progress, but this is still the basic act of taking objective existence into a subjective mindset and attempting to mold it for our personal gain with no anticipation of repercussions from the objectively unseen.

The real problem I see in describing anarcho-primitivism is that it's a concept that is amidst its enemy; it is the very machine revolting against itself proposed by those are wrapped up in it. I mean, here I am sitting in front of a pc. But within the system, I must follow it until I can leave it, and I remain a dependent under law. (By next month I am officially a legal adult..woo)

Reform is questionable for me as well, as this is an anarchist conjecture, but I would venture to say if it ever remotely became attainable, it would more than likely be of a violent disastrous overthrow. Anarchists believe there is no one right way for anyone to live, but primitivism is the default of modernity.


Why do you say that thought is necessarily trancendental?

What happens when our lack of technology is our undoing? When natural disaster kills us off? It is most certainly possible, look at the many extinct prehistoric creatures who fell prey to ancient changes in climate. Our species, if you are correct, is probably doomed to extinction either way. The simple fact is that science is a fearful reaction to the unknown. There is just as much potential danger to non-use as there is to misuse, so what will this societal transformation achieve? Some creatures will outlast even nuclear war, even if we don't. The earth is destined to be scorched to ruin.The only hope we have as a species for preservation is colonization of other planets, and there may not even be a permanent solution. There is a good chance our species is dead and we don't even know it and won't for thousands of years. The preservation of man might be an effort in futility, for it may well entail the total mastery of the physical universe when that itself conspires against us, and we cannot have that power. So what of television? Enjoy your time here and hope for the best. Let nature take its course and understand that no killing is justified by a set of ideals, your personal preference is not correct, niether is mine.

I have been convinced that man is doomed to ruin no matter what for a long time now, but why should we hope for racial immortality? We have lost hope for personal immortality when we have lost religion, and now it has been substituted by racial immortality? This is fear. Live by your preference not by the affairs and problems of others, death comes quickly enough without undue worry. All we have is our experience, even in pain we have somthing greater than death. This is what I believe. Deep down this is what I believe. And I am not saddend by it anymore, I am not really afraid. I enjoy my time here, and I would at best hope that we have as good a stay a possible while we are here. All tasks are meaningless if you don't ascribe some meaning to them, we are, after all, living the myth of sisyphus. The only thing I can say I am convinced of is that we have fellowship in this, and this is the spring from which compassion flows.
0 Replies
 
ratta
 
  1  
Reply Wed 3 Sep, 2008 01:59 pm
@Aedes,
i believe in thought as a one, and science coming from the knoledge of the one and its desire to impress by delving into its beauty and the fullness of its abilitiys to create everything. it is a rare occasion that the one gets to do this, but with further stress and thoughts on unmeaningfulness tomorrow will bring with it the knowledge and power to conquer the shadows that cloud or mind and one day may our souls be consumed with the desire to create more.
iconoclast
 
  1  
Reply Wed 3 Sep, 2008 03:13 pm
@ratta,
Paulhanke,

I understand your concern about scientific Stanlinism, five year plans and all that, but I ask you - what are the options? You can't be unaware that we are headed into some very serious trouble - present social, political and economic systems/bases of analysis are ill-equipped to address.

The way I see it billions of people are going to die if we carry on the way we are - and it's quite possible the human race will become extinct if we run into the brick wall of the energy crisis as nations in capitalist economic competition, divided by religion and politics, armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons.

For me, it's not the politicians as such - they do more or less of what's dictated by the social, political and economic dynamics - as they play out both domestically and internationally. Like Bush at Kyoto: 'I walked away from Kyoto because it would damage the American economy, you bet...'
It's not the personalities but the social, political and economic dynamics - which is why I suggest a global government constitutionally bound to a scientific conception of reality.

We don't face the same problems the Soviet Union did in 1925 - science and technology have moved on considerably, and we are not building an industrial society from scratch. It's only a matter of taking the best solutions arisisng from the test-bed of the indutrialized societies and rolling them out globally.

Otherwise, with good captain capitalism at the helm, it's going to be the cheapest dirtiest technologies applied globally, as the 3.5 billion people in India, China and South America aspire to western lifestyles.

In the west, on the other hand, it's going to be mass unemployment, high energy and food costs - spiralling inflation, debt, repossession and bankruptcy, until we're the third world. And the politicians won't bat a fcuking eyelid, because it makes no difference to them whether it's you and me or africans and indians starving to death. It's just the dynamics of the system.

It's those dynamics that have to change - and science is both the tool box and instruction manual we need to fix this thing.

iconoclast.
Zetetic11235
 
  1  
Reply Wed 3 Sep, 2008 03:28 pm
@ratta,
There is much talk of goals, of what we should do, of what is wrong and what is right implicit in this conversation. At the same time progress has been shown to be a mockery of what it is held to be, but the truth of progress isn't realized here yet, though I do not know why.

In order for progress to exist, a direction must be chosen. In order for a direction to be chosen, one must have an overarching goal in mind. To choose a goal, one must appeal to their individual dogmatisms and preferences implicitly,i.e. there is no overarching goal which is logical, logic is a device by which we attempt to follow the path we ahve chosen, it is our compass, but we have to first choose a direction for it to be of any use. Once we choose a direction, logic can supply a route to the end insofar as we can use it properly and in an unbiased form, or so we suppose(in actuality logic might fail us at some point, certainly binary logic does). We come to points of ideological transit where logic holds no influence, and we must work around it. Here is a question which we have not yet treated; "Assume there is a system, and you have a set of actions in this system which, if you follow, you gurantee man's survival indefinitely, but you must submit totally until you die, would you do so?". Well, would you? Would you give freedom up for survival? Is it not the case that in the end we are slaves to survival anyway, or can the urge to be free overcome the urge to survive? Is it better to die free or live forever a slave? If there is a system by which we can gurantee our survival, then we would indeed be slaves to it if our goal is to survive first and foremost. There may be some leeway, some room for choice, but ultimately we would be slaves to a mechanical god who gives us ultimate security for total submission.

Is it worth all of this to preserve the race? To ensure our immortality? What about to ensure that we live the longest possible time as a species? Is it better to die out as nature would dictate, or to fight to survive as best we can? Why? Well, because of a consensus at best.

There is no gurantee for the ultimate survival of humanity, but we are a species driven by instinct and fear, as all beasts are. We cling to our conventions and our contructs and they crumble to dust as we struggle to hold them up. We build our towers of gold and they melt in the hot fires of truth for they are false. We run from the abyss for it is black and we do not know it. We cannot know it. We build ships to sail above it but they rot and splinter with time for they are false. We all fall into the abyss in the end. None of us knows, but we need to know, fear makes it so. Man's fear runs deep, man's insecurities are many, man wishes for stability but is cast into chaos from birth.

Thus, man does what is instinctual. He uses his environment to survive and tries to understand it better so that he can see how it might suit him. He is leery of what is new and not understood, but is quick to accept a percieved safety. Away from the jungles he secures his fate in a tower of stone because he can, because he craves control, because he is afraid. All we have is derived of our animalistic tendencies, and adherence to logic is another one of these, though the degree to which we submit to it is unique to us as far as we know. We are a fearful bunch, weaker than our predators but we have an advantage, we have our wits and we can make ourselfs powerful, so powerful, beyond imagniation. When we have become beyond all of the animals, the apex predator of our entire ecosphere, we turn on each other for things trivial and superfluous. We raise concerns for things which once would have not been considered yet now we cannot live without them. We fight and bicker over innane drivel and kill over words spoken by fools. We create our own corruption, in this sense we are pure, yet we have lost perspective, we have become slaves to comfort along with fear and we create our own prisons.

An idea:There is freedom in insanity, true, stark raving lunacy. If it is of the right type. If it give release from our fears by locking us into our minds, where all things are and many more become at the snap of our finger. When a joyus madness hits, we have fun day in and day out and not a care in the world, and we sit docile in our straight jackets free from our external ties, free to roam our self created worlds which we can change as we see fit. This is ultimate freedom, as close as we can get anyway.
iconoclast
 
  1  
Reply Wed 3 Sep, 2008 04:04 pm
@Zetetic11235,
Zetetic11235,

The concept of freedom has always seemed somewhat illusory to me - and in this context I don't see the relevance at all. Freedom is a peculiarly American obsession - but aside from political independence from your former colonial masters, what's freedom?

You have a political ideology, a constituion, laws, religion and an economic system that defines your place within society, and then a host of unwritten rules and expectations within your social circle that leave you hardly any scope at all to act freely. Do we ever act freely?

If you read my reply to Paulhanke - (i think we must have been writing at the same time) governments don't act freely either - so what's freedom? Do you mean economic liberty? Religious freedom? If it's freedom from sanity then I'm only with you up to a certain point. haha. Please explain - because I really don't understand.

iconoclast.
0 Replies
 
paulhanke
 
  1  
Reply Wed 3 Sep, 2008 05:17 pm
@iconoclast,
iconoclast wrote:
... which is why I suggest a global government constitutionally bound to a scientific conception of reality.


... okay, let's follow this ideal (in the scientific sense) path where it leads ... let's assume that we've instantaneously achieved this global government and it's Day 1 of the new regime ... first order of business: given that our ideology consists of the single statement "Save Humanity!", we turn to the scientists and ask "What should we do now?" ... the head of the scientists, Mr. Spock, gives a puzzled look and responds, "You're going to have to be a little more specific than that - while there are an infinite number of ways for the human race to die, there are also an infinite number of ways for the human race to survive. For example, a bazillion variations of primitivism would work; a bazillion variations of capitalism; there are about a bazillion more ways to make a totalitarian dictatorship work; we can drop nukes everywhere to cause a near-extinction event and create for humankind the opportunity to biologically evolve to better tolerate industrial waste; and on and on and on. The future is wide open - we can't possibly investigate the infinity of options. But we can investigate a handful of options once we have enough direction to narrow down the investigative paths. So come back and ask us again when you've worked out your ideology in more detail."

So what's our next cut at an ideology? And our next? And our next? That is, how specific does our ideology need to be before the task of scientific option generation becomes tractable?

Now let's follow another ideal path ... let's assume that Aedes instills in Max (big lower lip and all) an ideology that the planet is worth saving and that to save the planet we must work together to develop scientific options for a sustainable future ... and Kethil in his children ... and Zetetic in his ... and cupofcoffees in his ... ad infinitum ... and these children grow up talking to one another about the fact that the planet is worth saving and no argument over "-isms" is worth getting in the way of this ... and our children grow older and mature this ideological seed and become scientists and politicians ... and before you know it this well-debated ideology is driving policy decisions all over the globe, effectively constituting a global federation of states that work together to create a sustainable existence for humankind.

Are either of these paths anything more than ideals? Is one less ideal than the other? Even if it is realistic to presume we could instantaneously constitute a global government such as you propose (highly questionable), wouldn't we spend something like the next generation developing an ideology (i.e., arguing amongst ourselves over values) capable of feeding science with a tractable option-generation problem? Or is it more realistic (and more in accordance with human history) to try to plant an ideological seed and let it grow and flower organically over the next generation?
Didymos Thomas
 
  1  
Reply Wed 3 Sep, 2008 05:53 pm
@paulhanke,
Quote:
Freedom is a peculiarly American obsession


Not really. It's more of a peculiarly western obsession; in particular, British, French and American. All three nations can boast monumental thinkers who spent a great deal of time writing about freedom and massive popular movements for the sake of freedom and liberty.
Even then, it seems to me that as nations move into the modern era, and move towards a more (relatively) capitalist economy, the population becomes increasingly concerned with their individual liberties.
0 Replies
 
iconoclast
 
  1  
Reply Wed 3 Sep, 2008 06:36 pm
@paulhanke,
paulhanke,

Very amusing, but okay.

Mr Spock says 'The energy crisis is the most immanent threat and so first we should establish a sustainable energy basis for human civilization. That'll also address the anthropocentric element of climate change - however big or small that may be.'

Good old uncle Joe Stalin says: 'But what about handing out identical denim overalls and banning religion.'

'Let's concentrate on addressing the imediate threats to human existence, and see where that leads us, eh Joe?' says Spock.

Establishing a sustainable energy basis and the infrasturucture to employ that technology doesn't require any immediate or major changes, but it's the project that makes everything else possible. It's do-able from a scientific perspective, and necessary, but cannot be delivered either by national governments or by the market.

The legislative framework necesaary to establish sustainable energy technology globally is the basis of global government. Rather like Britian in the EU - global law would take precedence over national law, and soverignty would be conceded on the basis of the necessity for securing survival.

Like you say - future generations will be brought up with the idea, and be easier with it, so much so perhaps, that addressing population issues will not seem so intractable, but that's a problem for 20 years from now, not this next decade. Or else...

iconoclast.
paulhanke
 
  1  
Reply Wed 3 Sep, 2008 06:54 pm
@iconoclast,
iconoclast wrote:
Mr Spock says 'The energy crisis is the most immanent threat and so first we should establish a sustainable energy basis for human civilization. That'll also address the anthropocentric element of climate change - however big or small that may be.'


... how unscientific of Mr. Spock - that single statement is up to its eyeballs in implicit ideological assumptions Wink ... for example, that we're not just interested in saving humankind from extinction, but that we want to save human civilization, as well ... and maintain the quality of life associated with current levels of energy usage ... and save the planet while we're at it ... and ... ... ...
0 Replies
 
iconoclast
 
  1  
Reply Wed 3 Sep, 2008 06:58 pm
@iconoclast,
Perhaps Didymos,

I mean I see your point, but Libertines through to Rousseau nothwithstanding, it would seem bizzare in the extreme for a modern European leader to bang on about freedom in the way Americans do.
Certainly, there's concern about civil liberties here, but largely due to government activities in relation to the 'war on terror.'

I don't see how it's economic, because France is essentially a socialist democracy in the way that America is a liberal democracy. Britian is somehwere between the two but moving steadily toward American capitalism and away from European socialism.

iconoclast.
BrightNoon
 
  1  
Reply Wed 3 Sep, 2008 07:15 pm
@iconoclast,
Science as description is false but useful; science as explanation is false, useless and ugly.
iconoclast
 
  1  
Reply Wed 3 Sep, 2008 07:27 pm
@iconoclast,
paulhanke,

Well...okay, but we have to start from where we are, and it's as well to let things carry on as they are as to turn the whole civilization upside down in the attempt to wipe the slate clean. Both are ways to kill ourselves...

'But what about tearing down the parlimanets and the banks?' cries Bill Godwin.

'Fcuk that.' says Spock, 'There'd be chaos.'

'But people must return to the rural idyll, a state of naturalism' howls Kaczynski.

'That's as much a betrayal of humankind as extinction, to let scientific knowledge and advancement founder. We're not doing that either.'

'We're not?' they ask in unison.

'No, global government must take a minimum necessary approach - but at the same time have the power to do what's necessary to secure survival. It's not in the buisness of dictating cultural development - that's only a part of the argument to establish the philosophical legitimacy of the proposal.'

'Kinda takes the fun out of being a dictator.' mutters Stalin.

iconoclast.
Aedes
 
  1  
Reply Wed 3 Sep, 2008 07:30 pm
@BrightNoon,
BrightNoon;23489 wrote:
Science as description is false but useful; science as explanation is false, useless and ugly.
Descriptions can explain a whole lot. I can explain to you why you ought to quit smoking using scientific descriptions. I underline ought, because it's the central variable of ethics. In this case, the only part about it that science may miss is the assumption that you don't want to suffer and die from cancer or emphysema, though science could justify that assumption by showing that virtually no one desires this fate.

And how pray tell is science false? Is it false because it doesn't answer the ultimate question, i.e. the final why or what at the end of an infinite regress? I'd argue that that ultimate question itself is the most useless and misleading of all, because it can deceive one into thinking that the billion intermediate whys and whats are suddenly all understood.
 

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