Hi Russ, Steve, et al., I should tell you that I am reading John Horgan's *The End of Science: Facing the Limits of Knowledge in the Twilight of the Scientific Age* (2015 edition). Such an ominous title! I know. But here Horgan concludes for many scientific endeavors the job is finished [link to a critique of the book] <http://www.nytimes.com/1996/06/30/books/the-job-is-finished.html?pagewanted=all> for all practical purposes.
Horgan thinks that we aren't likely to see any new Kuhnian paradigm shifts like with quantum mechanics or general and special relativity anytime soon, if ever. We will likely only see gap-filling activities, so to speak, like with the Higgs particle in helping to complete the standard model of particle physics. But this is all good too. It is just not *new *knowledge. Eh? In the meantime, Horgan coins the term *ironic science* to classify what we seem to be doing now in science like, for example, in physics and its close cousin cosmology, where science is becoming untestable. *Beauty *[e.g., mathematical elegance] seems to be the current standard for verification--it begs the issue as to whether we are discovering or inventing Reality. To falsify String Theory--the leading candidate for the *Theory of Everything*--we would need a super-conducting super collider the size of the galaxy ... well, larger than we could practically make or even afford at least--and that is becoming an issue as well. What we would be looking for is something that is neither matter nor energy: a multi-dimensional string that gives rise to properties found in our universe depending on the frequency of the vibrations. So, is this a reasonable priority when the returns are ever diminishing, as Horgan contends? I read this very clever analogy for these strings. Imagine God as a Cosmic Rocker playing his ten- or eleven-string guitar as the cosmos unfolds from his Big Bang amplifier. Here's the compelling question: Is God playing to a particular musical score? One that ultimately gives rise to humans and substance for consciousness? Strong anthropic principle anyone? There was a thought-provoking argument I read somewhere recently about the federal grants given to scientific research. Given that science research like with Super-String Theory is and has been arguably bleeding over into metaphysics, philosophy, or even religion (e.g., Edward Witten), we may need to amend the US Constitution to include a clause [or intention] for the separation between science and state. This action would imply that any and all scientific research would need to stand on its own. This might be overkill, but the objective is kind of in the wheelhouse for the newly emerging Center for Open Science <https://cos.io/>--an institution that arose with the expose of bad science studies in medicine <http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/11/lies-damned-lies-and-medical-science/308269/> found in science journals and reported <https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiM3e3rhuLMAhVX3mMKHZxNBE8QFgguMAI&url=http%3A%2F%2Fjournals.plos.org%2Fplosmedicine%2Farticle%3Fid%3D10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.0020124&usg=AFQjCNGnlrRZK18zALFoV13bVKFpywymjg&sig2=erIO_WZ6jK3DgZsqfdLu2w&bvm=bv.122129774,d.cGc> by Dr. John Ioannidis last decade. I still like John Horgan as a skeptic and science writer and I appreciated the link provided by Steve for the Science of Consciousness Conference that I could not attend and which Horgan describes as not having come very far since his first visit in 1994. Ironic science? It would seem so IMHO. Oh. Here is SciAm's From Complexity to Perplexity <http://www2.econ.iastate.edu/tesfatsi/hogan.complexperplex.htm> outside the paywall. I hope I haven't hijacked this thread, which seems to be more about consciousness and ... monism (?). But, in that context, I *have *long been hoping that we could crank up the energy in the Large Hadron Collider to find the *mind particle* and *prove *folks like the recently turned panpsychistic and American neuroscientist Christof Koch correct. 😎 Cheers, Robert On Tue, May 17, 2016 at 12:42 PM, Russ Abbott <[email protected]> wrote: > Steve, > > Thanks for the pointer to the John Horgan posts > <http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/dispatch-from-the-desert-of-consciousness-research-part-1/> > about the Consciousness conference in Arizona. (I can't find your post to > reply to. I thought it was in this thread.) > > I had dismissed Horgan after his posts saying something like science was > dead. But this redeems him in my view. > > On Tue, May 17, 2016 at 8:19 AM glen ⛧ <[email protected]> wrote: > >> >> On 05/16/2016 07:55 PM, Nick Thompson wrote: >> > Pfft? >> >> Sorry. That's my attempt to write a raspberry ... I don't know the >> emoticon... =P maybe ... :-r ? Of course, pfft is a "dry" raspberry. To >> get the right effect, you have to stick your tongue out ... but you can't >> do that in polite company. Plus, a dry raspberry is like throwing up your >> hands or shrugging. "Pfft, I don't know where to go from here." A wet >> raspberry is more playful, more context- and less content-driven. >> >> -- >> ⛧ glen >> >> ============================================================ >> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College >> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com >
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