Science: It's Roots, Role, & Value

Has science taken a wrong turn? If so, what corrections are needed? Chronicles of scientific misbehavior. The role of heretic-pioneers and forbidden questions in the sciences. Is peer review working? The perverse "consensus of leading scientists." Good public relations versus good science.

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Grey Cloud
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Re: Science: It's Roots, Role, & Value

Unread post by Grey Cloud » Sun May 11, 2008 11:04 am

Solar wrote: <snip>

Alfven looked back through history:
But let us return to the theory of relativity and its direct impact on scientist. The four-dimensional presentation of the special theory of relativity was rather innocent. This theory is used every day in laboratories for calculating teh behaviour of high-energy particles, etc. As experimental physicists have a strong feeling that their laboratories are three-dimensional, firmly located in a three-dimensional world, the four-dimensional formulation is taken for what it is: a nice little decoration comparable to a cartoon or a calendar pinup on the wall.

3. General Relativity and the universe
3.1 Revival of Pythagorean Philosophy

On the other hand, in the general theory of relativity the four-dimensional formulation is more important. The theory is also more dangerous, because it came into the hands of mathematicians and cosmologist, who had very little contact with empirical reality. Furthermore, they applied it to regions which are very distant, and counting dimensions far away is not very easy. Many of these scientist had never visited a laboratory or looked through a telescope, and even if tehy had, it was below their dignity to get their hand dirty. They accepted Plato's advice to "concentrate on the theoretical side of their subject and not spend endless trouble over physical measurements". They looked down on observers and experimental physicists whose only job was to confirm their high-brow conclusions. Those who were not able to confirm them were thought to be imcompetent. Observing astronomers came under heavy preassure from prestigious theoreticians.

...Once again it was believed possible to explore the universe by pure mathematics."Cosmology: Myth or Science?" - Hannes Alfven
<snip>
http://thunderbolts.info/wp/forum/phpBB3/v ... t=15#p5162
StephanR wrote:I find this an intriguing qoute you give here. Does anyone know where exactly Plato made such advise?
I too was intrigued by the Plato quote - it was what made me read the Alfven piece. At a guess I would suggest that Plato is alluding to the unreliability of the senses. I am more or less convinced that when Plato uses the word 'reason' he uses it to describe the activity of both the lower and higher mind (in Plato's terminology). Or, put another way, sometimes he uses the word in the sense of contemplation or meditation rather than logic, analysis.

What I find difficult is in what way the conclusion from Quantum Mechanics about the observer/observation influencing the experiment is related to this. Does anyone know more about that?
I don't know more about it but it always crosses my mind whenver I hear a scientist making authorative claims. ;)

Thank you for bringing the Mirandola book to my attention, I think I will give it a read. I do not see any great difference between Plato and Aristotle. They were both, after all, initiates into the Mysteries. I have my theories about what happened but they would take us way off-topic. I would be willing to air them in a different thread or via PM.

I think that you are correct about prickles and goo (this too fits in with my 'theory').
If I have the least bit of knowledge
I will follow the great Way alone
and fear nothing but being sidetracked.
The great Way is simple
but people delight in complexity.
Tao Te Ching, 53.

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Solar
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Re: Science: It's Roots, Role, & Value

Unread post by Solar » Sun May 11, 2008 11:55 am

Ah, thank you Grey.

I see. That is a rare trait to be a scientist yet recognizing and obviously working with or from That aspect of existence. I was so focused on the science aspect that I didn't see that connection and am just as guilty. But that's because I purposefully keep that 'side' of things to myself and decided long ago not to post my 'connections' and 'perceptions' of same so it caught me off guard. Rest assured that they are there though.

I think you make a valid point, but that is the 'dispassion' of science and of *some* scientist. I think, within context, that it's impossible to know whether or not Alfven was writing with 'dispassion' to those he needed to address as such while maintaining his own personal "beliefs". I make no excuses for the man and I guess I don't even want to speculate on that, even though I just did - but such a thing probably occurs more than we would think. It's kind of like traditional science and the EU. Doubtless there are innumerable scientist who find it a perfectly fine hypothesis. But not many of them will let on to it in any way, shape, form, or fashion.

You know what's interesting? When one does look into those aspects; stilling the 'auto-passions' of both mind and body is a 'Way' to those "experiences". So, perhaps this trait of 'scientific dispassion' is yet another 'aberration' of philosophia naturalis along the lines of 'seeing through a glass darkly'. But again, I usually keep such things to myself, even though, I just didn't.

StefanR, I don't think Plato ever uttered those words but that someone in the list of references for Alfven's paper 'summarized' a dialog as such and Alfven was amenable to the idea.

'I think that's all I'd like to say about that'; if indeed I've said anything at all.
"Our laws of force tend to be applied in the Newtonian sense in that for every action there is an equal reaction, and yet, in the real world, where many-body gravitational effects or electrodynamic actions prevail, we do not have every action paired with an equal reaction." — Harold Aspden

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StevenO
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Re: Science: It's Roots, Role, & Value

Unread post by StevenO » Sun May 11, 2008 12:47 pm

I am more or less convinced that when Plato uses the word 'reason' he uses it to describe the activity of both the lower and higher mind (in Plato's terminology). Or, put another way, sometimes he uses the word in the sense of contemplation or meditation rather than logic, analysis.

If 'reason' is a translation from the old-greek 'logos', then it refers to universal logic. (apologies for the Wikipedia quote):
Aristotle's rhetorical logos
Aristotle defined logos as argument from reason, one of the three modes of persuasion. The other two modes are pathos (Greek: πάθος), persuasion by means of emotional appeal, and ethos, persuasion through convincing listeners of one's moral competence. An argument based on logos needs to be logical, and in fact the term logic derives from it. Logos normally implies numbers, polls, and other mathematical or scientific data.

Logos has many advantages:
  • Data is hard to manipulate, so it is harder to argue against a logos argument.
  • Logos makes the speaker look prepared and knowledgeable to the audience, enhancing ethos.
Before Aristotle 'logos' referred to the dialectic: a method of exchanging arguments to find the thruth as e.g. used by Socrates.
First, God decided he was lonely. Then it got out of hand. Now we have this mess called life...
The past is out of date. Start living your future. Align with your dreams. Now execute.

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Re: Science: It's Roots, Role, & Value

Unread post by Grey Cloud » Sun May 11, 2008 2:22 pm

StephenO

What I meant to make explicit was that I am at the mercy of the translators of Plato, not reading Greek myself.

The word 'Logos' comes to us from Heraclitus, see:
http://web.engr.oregonstate.edu/~funkk/ ... logos.html
(Second para).
Though this Word is true evermore, yet men are as unable to understand it when they hear it for the first time as before they have heard it at all. For, though, all things come to pass in accordance with this Word, men seem as if they had no experience of them, when they make trial of words and deeds such as I set forth, dividing each thing according to its nature and showing how it truly is. But other men know not what they are doing when awake, even as they forget what they do in sleep.
Heraclitus Fragment 1.

It is wise to hearken, not to me, but to my Word, and to confess that all things are one.
Heraclitus Fr 50.
I think of 'Logos' as similar to the Vedic 'AUM'. It is the 'word' which causes the Universe to go, to run, to work. It is the basic vibration of the Universe - the carrier-wave if you will.
Methinks we are way off-topic here. :oops:
If I have the least bit of knowledge
I will follow the great Way alone
and fear nothing but being sidetracked.
The great Way is simple
but people delight in complexity.
Tao Te Ching, 53.

Plasmatic
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Re: Science: It's Roots, Role, & Value

Unread post by Plasmatic » Sun May 11, 2008 2:44 pm

The main difference to me between Aristotle and Plato is , their belief about the validity of the senses , and the differences in "oneness" and individuality or egoism. I might add he never formed a completely consistent philosophy. Also it is most wise to not interpret the philosphy based on common usage af a single word. We do indeed get our word Logic from Logos. However as with auhm apparently both originated in a reified context that loses the concrete referent it was originally formed in response to. This is why Logos was used to refer to certain "persons" as the living "logos" or "express image" which we get "icon" from in the greek. The "word" was the agent of "creation" in myth. None of this has anything to do with actual ex nihilio creation of matter or existence, but the celestial drama in the heavens in ages past.

Steve, I also have brought up the question recently about electron structure and observability. Its one of the things on my list to educate myself more clearly on.
"Logic is the art of non-contradictory identification"......" I am therefore Ill think"
Ayn Rand
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."
Aristotle

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StevenO
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Re: Science: It's Roots, Role, & Value

Unread post by StevenO » Sun May 11, 2008 2:51 pm

Grey Cloud wrote:StephenO

What I meant to make explicit was that I am at the mercy of the translators of Plato, not reading Greek myself.

The word 'Logos' comes to us from Heraclitus, see:
http://web.engr.oregonstate.edu/~funkk/ ... logos.html
(Second para).
<...>
I think of 'Logos' as similar to the Vedic 'AUM'. It is the 'word' which causes the Universe to go, to run, to work. It is the basic vibration of the Universe - the carrier-wave if you will.
Methinks we are way off-topic here. :oops:
I think yours is very good description. I was just hoping I could put these endless years of Greek reading at school to some use. Still in shock from realizing we spend 6 months on translating 50 lines of Heraclitus, but then discussing his philosophy somehow made it all worthwhile. The only time I managed to get a positive grade for this course... :oops:
First, God decided he was lonely. Then it got out of hand. Now we have this mess called life...
The past is out of date. Start living your future. Align with your dreams. Now execute.

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Discipline
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Re: Science: It's Roots, Role, & Value

Unread post by Discipline » Sun May 18, 2008 1:42 am

Grey Cloud,
When science stops polluting the land, the sea and the air, and my food and water then I might begin to have more respect for it.
And when you buy the newest microprocessor for your computer and use your solar heated water you might have more respect for it.

No respect for science, yet you are communicating with people thousands of miles away all in an instance.

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Re: Science: It's Roots, Role, & Value

Unread post by Grey Cloud » Sun May 18, 2008 5:40 am

Discipline wrote:Grey Cloud,
When science stops polluting the land, the sea and the air, and my food and water then I might begin to have more respect for it.
And when you buy the newest microprocessor for your computer and use your solar heated water you might have more respect for it.

No respect for science, yet you are communicating with people thousands of miles away all in an instance.
I can live without my pc and broadband and other 'neat gadgets', but I can't live without clean land, sea or air, let alone food and water.
As for solar power the raw materials still have to be extracted and transported; manufactured and transported etc.
Science is part of the problem not part of the solution.
When science stops polluting the land, the sea and the air, and my food and water then I might begin to have more respect for it.
If I have the least bit of knowledge
I will follow the great Way alone
and fear nothing but being sidetracked.
The great Way is simple
but people delight in complexity.
Tao Te Ching, 53.

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StevenO
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Re: Science: It's Roots, Role, & Value

Unread post by StevenO » Sun May 18, 2008 6:12 am

can live without my pc and broadband and other 'neat gadgets', but I can't live without clean land, sea or air, let alone food and water.
As for solar power the raw materials still have to be extracted and transported; manufactured and transported etc.
Science is part of the problem not part of the solution. When science stops polluting the land, the sea and the air, and my food and water then I might begin to have more respect for it.
Science provides both the means to pollute and clean. It is the "modern" society that indivualizes profits and socializes costs that causes the simple sum of cost and benefit of a technical solution not to be part of the same equation...
First, God decided he was lonely. Then it got out of hand. Now we have this mess called life...
The past is out of date. Start living your future. Align with your dreams. Now execute.

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Discipline
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Re: Science: It's Roots, Role, & Value

Unread post by Discipline » Sun May 18, 2008 9:39 am

Good day to you, Grey Cloud.
I can live without my pc and broadband and other 'neat gadgets', but I can't live without clean land, sea or air, let alone food and water.
As for solar power the raw materials still have to be extracted and transported; manufactured and transported etc.
Science is part of the problem not part of the solution.
When science stops polluting the land, the sea and the air, and my food and water then I might begin to have more respect for it.
This is true, but at the same time you cannot commend something you utilize every day, day in and day out, and depend on it for your livelihood as well. It is hypocritical.

Cars get you to your job; medicine keeps you alive well past what nature most likely had planned for you, the internet lets you speak your mind, and homes give you shelter from the elements. These are all forms of technology and science.

Life of one thing must come at the cost of the destruction of another. Or the use of materials from some source, which is what it means to be alive. Life is a balancing act of destruction and salvation.

Science is a tool, not a problem. You commend and complain then use and crave it all at once, you have to realize like any tool it comes with the bad and the good. Life is not so black and white.

When people start to realizes that there is a grey area, the more possibility that we will get some astounding accomplishments with science.

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