Krimel writes (answering a question from Chris
Ivarson):
"I don't think the MoQ would change the way science
> is practiced so much as
> it changes our understanding of what science does.
> As a practical matter
> science already functions according to the MoQ.
> Scientists look for static
> patterns in their data. They look for patterns in
> the objects and forces
> they study and the relationships among those objects
> and forces."
Jorge: I'd like to comment on Krimel's above
paragraph. First, about the MOQ "changing our
understanding of what Science does" . I wouldn't say
that Science "does", scientists 'do'; much in the same
vein that Art doesnt do something, artists 'do'. What
scientists 'do' is not necessarily looking for static
patterns in their data; scientific research, as an
occupation, is extraordinary varied and multifaceted
and to reduce it to just looking for static patterns,
seems to me extreme reductionism.
I'd rather say that what scientists (laboriously)
do is to try to increase their understanding of
restricted regions of the external world (the regions
they select for their research). This pronouncement is
sufficiently vague to cover the wide variety of
aspects of scientific research; it stresses rather a
motivation than a particular procedure; they do this
within the constrains of a certain set of "rules of
the game" which takes the name of the scientific
method.
Admittedly some scientists may be looking for
patterns "in the objects and forces
they study" but many more are not concerned with
objects and forces at all. Or, let me put it some
other way, to consider the external world merely in
terms of objects and forces may have been a good
description of the mechanicist outlook of the world
prevalent in Science up to, say, 80 years ago, but not
the prevalent outlook now.
I was far happier with the approach in your former
Posts of thinking of the scientist's activity as a way
to reduce Uncertainty ( to reduce, not to eliminate
it). Conforming a process or event to a pattern is
not, as you well know, the only way to reduce
uncertainty.
Try to put yourself, for a moment, in the case of
Ivarsson's scientist friend (let's call him Mr.X) who
was asking how could MOQ help Science. You presume to
tell Mr.X. that MOQ knows better than him what he does
at work: he's supposed to be looking for 'static
patterns'.
Problem is, as you yourself said in another
post, that 'the terms static and dynamic do not have
special meaning in the MOQ" . I've just emerged from a
long discussion on Patterns, with the impression that
the meaning of patterns in the MOQ is also rather
diffuse. Suppose Mr.X. is trying to understand, say,
the role of a certain enzyme in a biochemical process,
how can this new system of thought you propose to him
be of some use?
In former conversations I kept asking a
question which, I think, is a relevant one --- Does
the MOQ need Science? --- Because, if it doesn't, why
not leave Science alone for the time being? Perhaps
later on, when the MOQ is more firmly established as
a Metaphysics, the time would arrive to change
Science's numerous shortcomings.
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