Knowledge and subjectivity. Origin of life

a) I agree!
b) And to continue with my thoughts regarding how life as chaotic random chemical reactions can be linked to chaos theory, I think that countless chemical reactions that continue happening can at some point reach some properties of a dissipative system, thus avoiding major structural changes, chemical equilibrium, and thus eventually leading to forms and structures we see now, with the help of chemical reaction natural selection….
 
Science has gradually eaten, digested and defined, more of what used to be attributed to non-scientific causes, eg. gods. The boundary of science expands constantly, what is above science now, may not be in 50 years.
 
notanumber said:
Science has gradually eaten, digested and defined, more of what used to be attributed to non-scientific causes, eg. gods. The boundary of science expands constantly, what is above science now, may not be in 50 years.
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True. But science will never expand to the point of asking non-scientific questions.
 
notanumber said:
Agreed. But it will - and has done, again and again - taken non-scientific questions, and rephrased them in scientific terms.
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Examples please.
Or do you mean "It has rephrased questions that originally weren't posed as scientific questions"?
 
Or do you mean "It has rephrased questions that originally weren't posed as scientific questions"?
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Multi-universe and other dimensions are theories within physics which stem from religions; realms of heaven, earth and Hades were separate. The gods of mythology could transport into our dimension, according to ancient theories. Originally, modern science, at the age of enlightenment was only concerned with the physical or earth realm and not all the other dimensions that had been speculated to exist at that time, that allow spontaneous generation. This was recycled and is called science, now.

Chaos and random theory also recycles from the past. From the middle ages, back in time, the gods were not considered predictable, rather humans were subject to the whims of the gods. The age of reason and enlightenment, which modernized science, assumed there was no whim of the gods, but rather we lived in a world of cause and effect subject to reason and logic. The whim of the gods was recycled in the early 20th century, with the lord of chaos resurrected. The main difference was mythology broke down chaos into a range of characters, while science is lumps this into one abstract character; monotheism. One might assume the next logical progression will differentiate chaos.

An interesting effect of old, which still exists today, can be seen with an example. When astronomy was called astrology, the scientists of the day were still able to plot the paths of planets and stars with excellent accuracy, based on the tools they had. The question is how could they collect data and make accurate plots, while still having weak theory? These are two separate things, that can be made to overlap subjectively by traditions and conventions.

One can collect good data, but the explanation may not be as good as the data collection, but through social subjectivity and other prestige effects, is can be accepted as connected. The theory of multi-universes is not supported by hard and direct data and therefore exists apart from data. Collecting data to prove this is sort of self serving with engineering contrivance needed to complete the magic trick. The magician can contrive an experimental test; saw the assistant in half, that the audience can verify.

Another way to make this subjective bridge, apart from contrivance, is connected to math. Math can model anything, including fantasy. Modern physics game engines, can assume any properties of materials and forces of nature and allow dynamic simulations. If we play the game, based on math, we can fly and change into other materials or move in and out of multi-universes. We can even tweak chaos, itself, so this god become more or less predictable. One has to be careful since how can you factor this out when theory is math driven?
 
wellwisher said:
Multi-universe and other dimensions are theories within physics which stem from religions
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No they don't.

The gods of mythology could transport into our dimension, according to ancient theories.
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Nonsense.

Originally, modern science, at the age of enlightenment was only concerned with the physical or earth realm and not all the other dimensions that had been speculated to exist at that time, that allow spontaneous generation. This was recycled and is called science, now.
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Utter crap.

Chaos and random theory also recycles from the past. From the middle ages, back in time, the gods were not considered predictable, rather humans were subject to the whims of the gods.
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No.
Please go away and learn something.
The unpredictability of gods was predicated on us not having a clue: chaos theory etc are precise mathematical formulations. There is no relationship between the two.

while science is lumps this into one abstract character; monotheism
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Bullshit.
Science doesn't deal in monotheism. Or theism of any sort.

The question is how could they collect data and make accurate plots, while still having weak theory?
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That's not even a sensible question.
You don't need a theory to look at things and jot down what you've seen.
 
river said:
The thing is , is that knowledge can be ...well ...difficult to find
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It's far more difficult to find, when one has a serious bias against anything mainstream, and automatically rejects it, and conjurs up some highly unlikely unevidenced crap, just for the sake of being different.
 
Dywyddyr said:
Examples please.
Or do you mean "It has rephrased questions that originally weren't posed as scientific questions"?
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Yes, both. It has been science's job, largely, to take all of the crap people believe in and, piece by piece, find out how true it is. That means the frontiers of science expand constantly. Sometimes it looks at accepted belief (in certain quarters). Sometimes it takes up a commonly asked question about unknown things, eg. "what is out there?"
 
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notanumber said:
Yes, both. It has been science's job, largely, to take all of the crap people believe in and, piece by piece, find out how true it is. That means the frontiers of science expand constantly. Sometimes it looks at accepted belief (in certain quarters). Sometimes it takes up a commonly asked question about unknown things, eg. "what is out there?"
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With respect, I do not think that is how science works at all. It proceeds from empirical observation of phenomena which are not fully understood, in response to Man's curiosity about nature. It does not go round listing what people believe and then subjecting these beliefs to test. That would be a way to waste an enormous amount of time on tomfoolery and is not science's job. Science follows its own logic: in the process, superstitious or otherwise false beliefs may get demolished, but that is a side effect, not the purpose.
 
With respect, I do not think that is how science works at all. It proceeds from empirical observation of phenomena which are not fully understood, in response to Man's curiosity about nature. It does not go round listing what people believe and then subjecting these beliefs to test. That would be a way to waste an enormous amount of time on tomfoolery and is not science's job. Science follows its own logic: in the process, superstitious or otherwise false beliefs may get demolished, but that is a side effect, not the purpose.
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The way science trains its experts to look at the universe can be inferred by looking at PhD thesis. The initiation rites of the most educated and advanced students of scientists; PhD, whom will be given final authority over science, is based on tiny perturbations at the margins of specialization. A PhD thesis will rarely, if ever, be connected to a global challenge to bulk theory. The rules of the game are set not allow global changes in theory but only changes at the margin. This could be one enzyme at one condition; magnified.

In science forums, people often speculate about the bulk theories of life and the universe. This is not at the margin but at the core. This can be taboo. What would be acceptable is talking about one enzyme and then pile that high and deep like a thesis. Once you get too broad based, like I do with water and life, since the system is not set up for changes in core theory, there is less and less collective data, by default. One will have to apply indirect data and inference. The system does not like this approach, but prefers you have resource to generate direct data, but at the margin.

Wit water and life, the lack of stress on water and life, compared to organic centric life, shows there is a conceptual flaw in the current approach. But with science trained at the margin this does not reach consciousness or if it does, the impact of the truth may not be acceptable to a status quo trained at the margins.
 
exchemist said:
It proceeds from empirical observation of phenomena which are not fully understood, in response to Man's curiosity about nature. It does not go round listing what people believe and then subjecting these beliefs to test.
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I'm not saying anyone goes around listing people's beliefs (although sometimes they do). Most often, "I imagine" the curiosity about something has long been satisfied by some popular belief or vague notion; and the scientist who tackles it is aware of it in some personal way and wants an answer, or it has grown in his consciousness from a lot of small things in the culture and in common discussion over many years, and that motivates his curiosity; or some external body funds a study, and their motivation comes from similar things. So with that happening to scientists all the time, science as a whole responds to cultural beliefs and questions, applying scientific method to cultural ideas. Not "tomfoolery", but a genuine process of addressing issues of the day.
 
notanumber said:
I'm not saying anyone goes around listing people's beliefs (although sometimes they do). Most often, "I imagine" the curiosity about something has long been satisfied by some popular belief or vague notion; and the scientist who tackles it is aware of it in some personal way and wants an answer, or it has grown in his consciousness from a lot of small things in the culture and in common discussion over many years, and that motivates his curiosity; or some external body funds a study, and their motivation comes from similar things. So with that happening to scientists all the time, science as a whole responds to cultural beliefs and questions, applying scientific method to cultural ideas. Not "tomfoolery", but a genuine process of addressing issues of the day.
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What seems to happen in most cases is a scientist tries to join a research team working in a field that he or she is interested in, and then carries out studies the subject of which is decided in conjunction with his or her supervisor. The head of the team sets the direction.

In 99% of research work there is no awareness whatsoever, outside the science community, of the subjects of the research. Science journalists pick up on the 1% or fewer of papers that seem to be of wider interest to the lay public.
 
Regarding this:
notanumber said:
That surprises me. Not even by the team leaders? - or would you reverse the percentage for them?
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exchemist said:
exchemist said:
In 99% of research work there is no awareness whatsoever, outside the science community, of the subjects of the research. Science journalists pick up on the 1% or fewer of papers that seem to be of wider interest to the lay public.
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So I guess that would depend on whether or not the team leaders (of the scientific research) are part of the scientific community.
 
exchemist said:
The head of the team sets the direction.
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So who is the team leader responding to - his own instincts, or an external body? And how are those directions formed?

exchemist said:
In 99% of research work there is no awareness whatsoever, outside the science community, of the subjects of the research. Science journalists pick up on the 1% or fewer of papers that seem to be of wider interest to the lay public.
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Yes, most of science's work goes into papers published within the scientific community. The results only feed back into society very slowly, through "popular science", small items eg. in popular quizzes and general knowledge, research by TV programmes, etc. But my point is that society's questions of the day often set the direction for scientific study. Sometimes with long delays, eg. in forming opinions and points of curiosity in childhood; and sometimes through quick responses to current issues.

A perfect example has been JK Rowling's "Invisibility cloak". It was a sci-fi pipe dream before Harry Potter. Now, every few months we see rapid progress. I don't know who is pushing that - maybe the military?

Another example is the gradual assimilation of herbal remedies over a much longer timespan, from Gerard's Herbal, to modern synthetic substances. Originally it wasn't science. Now it is.

The weather was the ork of gods. Now science has explained it, the gods have moved onto other things ;)
 
notanumber said:
A perfect example has been JK Rowling's "Invisibility cloak". It was a sci-fi pipe dream before Harry Potter.
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Huh what?
What, specifically, what do you mean "sci fi pipe dream before Harry Potter"?
Did HP turn it into a reality?
Apart from the fact that a "cloak of invisibility" dates back to (at least) the 11th century and other items of clothing that confer invisibility go back even further (hats in Greek mythology), Potter dates from 1997: the military (various nations) have been working on adapative (active) camouflage since at least WWII.
Harry Potter had bugger all to do with it.
And it's STILL much of a pipe dream (as a viable battlefield measure).
 
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