Eastern philosophy says the self is an illusion

Doc Dutch said:
Which is the importance of the scientific method; it is used to verify perceptions are accurate and replicable.

Yes, Newton made erroneous assumptions but he also made correct ones such as the Laws of Motion. Einstein's theories are still being proven to be correct such as gravity lensing of light around a planet or star.
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Newton's laws are based on his assumption that time and space are uniform and static. Assumptions aren't always true, and laypersons generally aren't aware how much of scientific inquiry starts off with assumptions who's premises are just assumed to be true. You can't do science without making assumptions. It's the nature of the beast.

Newton's laws work perfectly well at less than relativistic conditions, that's why it took 400 years for anyone to notice that Newton's laws were not universal or technically true.

Observing a falling apple, a canal on Mars or ice sheets on Europa isn't technically science. Observation is a part of science,, but the meat and potatoes takes us far beyond observation into interpretation and explanation.


P.S. I think scientific inquiry is possibly human kinds greatest achievement. I just try to be honest and realistic about it.
 
Cypress said:
Observing a falling apple, a canal on Mars or ice sheets on Europa isn't technically science. Observation is a part of science,, but the meat and potatoes takes us far beyond observation into interpretation and explanation.
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But science is at its heart observation based. Without that component it is just mental masturbation.
 
BidenPresident said:
How does science define truth and give proof of its definition being correct?
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Truth is the actual answer.

What temperature does water boil at at sea level on earth? That's a truth. Science seeks to measure and observe and learn what that truth is.

Truth is simply the goal. The accurate and non-erroneous answer.
 
BidenPresident said:
No, that is accuracy. Just a fact.
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No. It is a truth. A fact would be a truth.

How about another one? Does an apple fall at the same rate as 1000lb weight when dropped from a height? A truth. Yes or no.

Science observes, measures and determines the truth.

In fact it was because of science as opposed to just simple "reasoning" that we know the truth.
 
Cardinal Carminative said:
No. It is a truth. A fact would be a truth.

How about another one? Does an apple fall at the same rate as 1000lb weight when dropped from a height? A truth. Yes or no.

Science observes, measures and determines the truth.

In fact it was because of science as opposed to just simple "reasoning" that we know the truth.
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Accuracy is not the same as truth. You can state all the physical facts and still not have truth.
 
Cypress said:
Newton's laws are based on his assumption that time and space are uniform and static. Assumptions aren't always true, and laypersons generally aren't aware how much of scientific inquiry starts off with assumptions who's premises are just assumed to be true. You can't do science without making assumptions. It's the nature of the beast.

Newton's laws work perfectly well at less than relativistic conditions, that's why it took 400 years for anyone to notice that Newton's laws were not universal or technically true.

Observing a falling apple, a canal on Mars or ice sheets on Europa isn't technically science. Observation is a part of science,, but the meat and potatoes takes us far beyond observation into interpretation and explanation.


P.S. I think scientific inquiry is possibly human kinds greatest achievement. I just try to be honest and realistic about it.
Click to expand...

Isn't forming a hypothesis and confirming it's truthfulness or falsity part of the scientific method?

As for Newton; are you saying the laws of motion don't work the same on an exoplanet as they do on Earth? Or are you saying that, at the quantum level or inside a black hole, they change? If the latter, I agree. Change the conditions of the variables and the results will change too.

Agreed on observation. Still, results count. Making a pulley is applied science. Understanding the fundamentals of how gravity works is a much deeper dive. Both are valid.
 
Cardinal Carminative said:
But science is at its heart observation based. Without that component it is just mental masturbation.
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Plato, Aristotle, and Confucius were keen observers of human behavior, societies, social interaction and they used that knowledge in their projects to attempt to percieve moral truths and to understand the nature of an ideal society.
 
Cypress said:
Plato, Aristotle, and Confucius were keen observers of human behavior, societies, social interaction and they used that knowledge in their projects to attempt to percieve moral truths and to understand the nature of an ideal society.
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Sounds like the start of scientific inquiry. They were all observing the system and attempting to "model" it. It is literally no different from how science operates every single day on every single item it focuses on.

Any "truth" they discovered would have arisen from their observations.

And not all truths arrived it through "pure reason" (whatever that is) turn out to be "true".

Early scientists were called "Natural Philosophers" for a reason.
 
Cypress said:
Plato, Aristotle, and Confucius were keen observers of human behavior, societies, social interaction and they used that knowledge in their projects to attempt to percieve moral truths and to understand the nature of an ideal society.
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An ideal human society. That may not necessarily apply to the Tralfamadorians, the Vogons or any other alien species. :)
 
BidenPresident said:
Accuracy is not the same as truth. You can state all the physical facts and still not have truth.
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Disagree. Given that truth, qua truth is often unknowable in some perfected form, the BEST we can achieve is an estimation of truth. How likely is it that this is true?

The value science brings is not only can it estimate truth but it can, in many cases, even give you a quantitative estimate of how likely that errors have been included.
 
Cardinal Carminative said:
Disagree. Given that truth, qua truth is often unknowable in some perfected form, the BEST we can achieve is an estimation of truth. How likely is it that this is true?

The value science brings is not only can it estimate truth but it can, in many cases, even give you a quantitative estimate of how likely that errors have been included.
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Science is just a description of physical processes.
 
Cypress said:
Plato, Aristotle, and Confucius were keen observers of human behavior, societies, social interaction and they used that knowledge in their projects to attempt to percieve moral truths and to understand the nature of an ideal society.
Click to expand...


Are those the guys that used to run that Greek restaurant with the blue mirror décor in Lowell, Massachusetts?
I believe so. Aristotle was one of them for sure, but maybe not the other two guys.

I was never a lamb guy, but their leg of lamb was absolutely delicious.
Haven't been there since the late 1970s, though.
Who knows if it's still open?

ps: not crazy about Greek wine, though.
 
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