> On 6 Sep 2019, at 22:06, Philip Thrift <[email protected]> wrote: > > > via John Horgan @Horganism > > > The Delusion of Scientific Omniscience > > As time passes, the claim that science can comprehend everything looks > increasingly nutty > > By John Horgan on September 4, 2019
Science is not a person, but an attitude, often related to some methods. Horgan has a “religious” (I mean a pseudo-scientist) conception of science, probably inherited from the separation between religion and science, which makes them both “pseudo-religious”. We know since 1931 that, even just on etc 3p arithmetical reality, we (the finite creature) can only scratch n the surface. But we can try theories, and as long as we don’ believe to get the whole truth, we can progress toward it. Science as begun with Pythagorus in -500, and ended with Damascius in +500. But in arithmetic, there are infinite line of progress, and with some luck, we will follow those lines … in some futures. Assuming Mechanism, science has fundamentally regress, despite the wonderful discovery in biology and physics, and mathematics. We have even forget the original questions which started science. But there are plausible general theories, although none can be complete or even completed. Any theory which allows for the existence of a universal machine can be completed. Such theories have been called “essentially undecidable” by Tarski. You cannot add axioms to complete them effectively. Now, the beauty of science is that it can study its own limitation, and get a more and more precise idea of its intrinsic, necessary (and gigantic) ignorance. Theology was the science aimed at the study of that ignorance, notably because we can get altered state of consciousness which, like Descartes systematic doubt, ensure the existence of a fixed point for the doubt, and the immensity of our ignorance. Today, we are in the materialist paradigm, but it is inconsistent when it assumes also Mechanism, and the evidence favours mechanism, at least until now. To progress, we have to backtrack at the starting point. Pythagorus. We have to understand that the genuine debate is not on the existence of a creator, but on a creation, and assimilate well the difference between Aristotle (what is real is what I see) and Plato (I don’t know if what I see is the real thing). Horgan does not describe science. He describes the type of necessarily fake science that you get when you separate theology, or metaphysics if you prefer, from reason. Bruno > > Does anyone still believe that science can explain, well, everything? This > belief was ascendant in the 1980s, when my career began. Bigshot scientists > proclaimed that they were solving the riddle of existence. They would soon > explain why our universe exists and takes the form it does, and why we exist > and are what we are. > > For years I believed this claim, out of deference to scientists propagating > it and desire to believe. The vision of a revelation to end all revelations > thrilled me. Eventually I had doubts, which I spelled out in The End of > Science and other writings. Lately, I’ve begun to look at the vision of total > knowledge as a laughable delusion, a pathological fantasy that should never > have been taken seriously, even though brilliant scientists propagated it. > > Stephen Hawking was the most influential know-it-all. In his 1988 > mega-bestseller A Brief History of Time, Hawking predicted that physicists > would soon find an “ultimate theory” that would explain how our cosmos came > into being. He compared this achievement to knowing “the mind of God.” This > statement was ironic. Hawking, an atheist, wanted science to eliminate the > need for a divine creator. > > > I’ve often suspected that Hawking, who had a wicked sense of humor, was > goofing when he talked about an “ultimate theory.” The success of Brief > History nonetheless inspired lots of similar books by physicists, including > Theories of Everything by John Barrow (1991), The Mind of God by Paul Davies > (1992) and Dreams of a Final Theory by Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg. > > Weinberg, a deadly serious man, was definitely not kidding when he envisioned > a final theory. He argued that with the help of a new “supercollider” in > Texas (which ended up being canceled), physicists might soon “bring to an end > a certain kind of science, the ancient search for those principles that > cannot be explained in terms of deeper principles.” > > Like Hawking, Weinberg hoped that the final theory would crush, once and for > all, our superstitious faith in an all-powerful, beneficent deity. “It would > be wonderful to find in the laws of nature a plan, prepared by a concerned > creator in which human being played some special role,” Weinberg wrote. “I > find sadness in doubting that they will.” > > Physicists were not the only scientists bewitched by the dream of > omniscience. “I take the position that there is nothing that cannot be > understood,” Peter Atkins, a religion-bashing British chemist, stated in his > 1981 book The Creation. “Fundamental science may almost be at an end and > might be completed within a generation.” He added, “Complete knowledge is > just within our grasp. Comprehension is moving across the face of the Earth, > like the sunrise.” > > Then there was biologist Richard Dawkins, who declared in his 1986 bestseller > The Blind Watchmaker that the mystery of life had already been solved. Our > existence “once presented the greatest of mysteries,” Dawkins wrote, but “it > is a mystery no longer, because it is solved. Darwin and Wallace solved it, > though we shall continue to add footnotes to their solution for a while yet.” > > > One of those “footnotes” concerns the problem of consciousness. In the late > 1980s Francis Crick, co-discoverer of the double helix (and another hard-core > atheist), proposed that consciousness, the subject of interminable > philosophical speculation, might be scientifically tractable. Science could > “solve” consciousness by finding its “neural correlates,” processes in the > brain that correspond to conscious states. > > In his 1994 book The Astonishing Hypothesis, Crick declared that “’you,’ your > joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of > personal identity and free will, are no more than the behavior of a vast > assembly of neurons.” That statement might have been the high water mark of > scientism and its corollaries, materialism and reductionism. > > Meanwhile, researchers were claiming that advances in computers and > mathematics were illuminating chaotic and complex phenomena that had resisted > traditional scientific analysis. These scientists, whom I like to call > chaoplexologists, were finding common principles underpinning brains, immune > systems, ecologies and nation-states. Economics and other social sciences > would soon become as rigorous as chemistry and nuclear physics. Supposedly. > > To be charitable, all this hubris wasn’t entirely unjustified. After all, in > the 1960s physicists confirmed the big bang theory and took steps toward a > unified theory of all of nature’s forces, while biologists deciphered the > genetic code. You can see how these and other successes, as well as advances > in computers and other tools, might have persuaded optimists that total > scientific knowledge was imminent. > > But the concept of scientific omniscience always suffered from fatal flaws. > Read Brief History and other books carefully and you realize that the quest > for an ultimate theory had taken physicists beyond the realm of experiment. > String theory and other major candidates for an ultimate theory of physics > can be neither experimentally confirmed nor falsified. They are untestable > and hence not really scientific. > > > Let’s say physicists convince themselves that string theory is in fact the > final theory, which encodes the fundamental laws from which nature springs. > Theorists must still explain where those laws came from, just as believers in > God must explain where He came from. This is the problem of infinite regress, > which bedevils all who try to explain why there is something rather than > nothing. > > As for life, Dawkins’s claim that it is no longer a mystery is absurd. In > spite of all the advances in biology since Darwin, we still don’t have a clue > how life began, or whether it exists elsewhere in the cosmos. We don’t know > whether our emergence was likely or a once-in-eternity fluke. > > Brain scientists still have no idea how our brains make us conscious, and > even if they did, that knowledge would apply only to human consciousness. It > would not yield a general theory of consciousness, which determines what sort > of physical systems generate conscious states. It would not tell us whether > it feels like something to be a bat, nematode or smart phone. As I argue in > my new book Mind-Body Problems, science appears farther than ever from > understanding the mind. > > There may still be a few true believers in scientific omniscience out there. > Big Data boosters indulge in hype reminiscent of the heyday of chaoplexity > (although the phrase “social science” remains as oxymoronic as ever). And in > his 2011 book On Being, Peter Atkins, who is now 79, reiterated his “faith” > that “there is nothing that the scientific method cannot illuminate and > elucidate.” But I doubt many scientists share this view any more. > > Over the last decade or two, science has lost its mojo. The replication > crisis has undermined the public’s confidence in scientists, and scientists’ > confidence in themselves. It has made them humble--and that is a good thing. > Because what if scientists had somehow convinced themselves, and the rest of > us, that they had figured everything out? What a tragedy that would be. We’re > better off in our current state of befuddlement, trying to comprehend this > weird, weird world even though we know we’ll always fall short. > > > The older I get, the more I appreciate what philosopher Paul Feyerabend said > to me in 1992 when I broached the possibility of total knowledge. “You think > that this one-day fly, this little bit of nothing, a human being--according > to today's cosmology!--can figure it all out?” he asked me with a manic grin. > “This to me seems so crazy! It cannot possibly be true! What they figured out > is one particular response to their actions, and this response gives this > universe, and the reality that is behind this is laughing! ‘Ha ha! They think > they have found me out!’” > > I’ll close with a quote from Philip Anderson, a Nobel laureate in physics and > leading chaoplexologist. When I interviewed him in 1994, Anderson derided the > claims of some of his fellow scientists that they could solve the riddle of > reality. “You never understand everything,” Anderson said. “When one > understands everything, one has gone crazy.” > > > ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S) > > John Horgan directs the Center for Science Writings at the Stevens Institute > of Technology. His books include The End of Science, The End of War and > Mind-Body Problems, available for free at mindbodyproblems.com. > > source: > https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/the-delusion-of-scientific-omniscience/ > > @philipthrift > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/9a41eef3-3584-43dd-b9b7-dd0034a78932%40googlegroups.com > > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/9a41eef3-3584-43dd-b9b7-dd0034a78932%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. 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