Seeing the Delusion of Scientists (and in us)

[PepperBlossoms]

I think I finally see Leo's perspective of the delusion of science.

Science makes so many claims of knowing and describing things - "the history and science of xyz" but yet we can't ever fully know anything so it is chasing something and presenting something and getting us to think we know or are closer to knowing - -

You tell someone that and then they say with the rebuttal: "Oh but this person has worked in the university or has researched in the field for 30 years or has written 10 books or whatever."  They are then missing the point that it doesn't matter what the so called credentials are.  We won't ever know anything other than that we won't ever know anything so credentials then don't mean anything other than what we imagine them to mean.  But sure it can be fun to see what ideas people have come up with and sure I can presume that one who has studied more in an area may have more things to say about it than one who has not.  It will just be basically a faith/religion that they are spouting.  

BUT then the hypocrisy/paradox of me writing this POST is that I am then deluded in saying ANYTHING as my opinion is basically the same as a scientist saying what their opinion is.  So the mirror goes right back at me/you.  (But I may have more awareness of the delusion than the scientist...)

[Johnny Galt]

@BenG We're amazing mimicking creatures and those who are capable at memorization they can appear to be intelligent and yet, just as you described, intelligent self reflection is not a subject taught to these supposed greats minds.

A nation of people go through Liberal Arts "schools" and yet we have yet to be introduced to an education which, liberates, or, instructs on what Art actually means.  I went to music school, elm to college, and I was taught to be a technician (like sports). Collectively, we are not as "progressive" as we claim; we are like the fake apples in the grocery stores. 

Edited October 26, 2021 by Johnny Galt

[Tim R]

Be careful not to turn anti-science.

There's a difference between meta-scientific and non-scientific and many (I'm almost inclined to say most) people fall into the trap of confusing the latter with the former. They watch Leo's videos on science and then turn anti-science because they don't even know what most of science is actually all about to begin with. 

Most scientists are not in the business of metaphysics or philosophy and that's perfectly okay. The vast majority of people have a completely naive and utterly inaccurate idea of what the average scientist does or what the scientific community is up to in most faculties and fields. And unless you have experience with scientific work or doing science yourself, you can be pretty damn sure that you're one of them. 

[Harlen Kelly]

@PepperBlossoms This is a highly convoluted distortion of Leo's ideological position on science. 

[Johnny Galt]

@BenG You're beginning to see the Truman world for what it is. Note though, it is a lonely path and yet more and more are awakening to the false world we live in - it's presented as one thing, and yet another thing entirely as it is. With that said, I see an awakening in all fields, and so in time we may return back to what I would call, real science. With this you would have an education that deals with the "outside" and "inside" world and in turn we would graduate "full time scientists", as I call it.

If you want to further understand the institute of "education",  I would have a look into Murray Rothbard, John Gatto, and the woman in the following video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sEoaQztU1c&t=425s

 

[PepperBlossoms]

37 minutes ago, Tim R said:

Be careful not to turn anti-science.

There's a difference between meta-scientific and non-scientific and many (I'm almost inclined to say most) people fall into the trap of confusing the latter with the former. They watch Leo's videos on science and then turn anti-science because they don't even know what most of science is actually all about to begin with. 

Most scientists are not in the business of metaphysics or philosophy and that's perfectly okay. The vast majority of people have a completely naive and utterly inaccurate idea of what the average scientist does or what the scientific community is up to in most faculties and fields. And unless you have experience with scientific work or doing science yourself, you can be pretty damn sure that you're one of them. 

 

43 minutes ago, Harlen Kelly said:

@PepperBlossoms This is a highly convoluted distortion of Leo's ideological position on science. 

@Tim R @Harlen Kelly Ah thanks for pointing that out.  Good points.  Feel free to elaborate.  

There is the one side where we may not be able to fully prove, trust, or know anything and then there is the other side where even though we may not, we can try our best anyway but also have awareness of what we are using as evidence and assumptions and be more open to questioning past discoveries, methods, stuff we consider trustworthy, etc.  Science can be cool in that it has seemingly aided in the evolution of many things for medicine, engineering, mechanics, biology, psychology, computers, models, equations, etc.  I guess the part to be weary of is when people are not questioning the validity of the science at all and taking it as religion/dogma instead of as an ongoing, evolving, organic form.  Instead of "this is how it is", it can be framed as "this is how it seems currently from x perspective with y data."    

[PepperBlossoms]

16 hours ago, BenG said:

When I was at university and acutely sat down and talked to scientists and picked their brains, I was surprised to find that many of them are honestly a bit thick, lol. Ask them deeper questions about their metaphysical assumptions and they’ll look at you funny. It’s honestly a little sad. I appreciate Leos videos on deconstructing science so much because it’s like, finally people are calling this out.

@BenG Can you elaborate on this?  I'd be interested in hearing what you have experienced.

16 hours ago, Johnny Galt said:

@BenG We're amazing mimicking creatures and those who are capable at memorization they can appear to be intelligent and yet, just as you described, intelligent self reflection is not a subject taught to these supposed greats minds.

A nation of people go through Liberal Arts "schools" and yet we have yet to be introduced to an education which, liberates, or, instructs on what Art actually means.  I went to music school, elm to college, and I was taught to be a technician (like sports). Collectively, we are not as "progressive" as we claim; we are like the fake apples in the grocery stores. 

@BenG Many of us can be guilty of the memorization to a degree.   We may hear something that we like and then we may add it to our book of things that we may utilize and then tell others.  We both have seemingly memorized the abc's and language.  One could say that Art has whatever meaning we come up with and there could be so many different ways to think about it.  There may be utility in both learning suggestions about how to make art as well as suggestions for how to define/think about art.

16 hours ago, BenG said:

@Johnny Galt

It’s genuinely disheartening though. That moment when you fully realize this supposed “institution of truth seeking” won’t go nearly deep enough and is also consumed by dogma. Not so different from a religion. I guess I feel something similar to what an ex-Christian feels when they finally leave the church. I wont bash science too hard though. I can’t argue with its usefulness.

@Johnny Galt If teachers spent the whole lecture giving suggestions on how to question the dogma in lieu of suggestions for memorizing the dogma - that could be interesting.  One could say that it seems all knowledge is consumed with dogma and to a degree, it seems that the dogma can be helpful in terms of having some things to go off of - like yes we will say this is yellow and this is red - and then when I say yellow, you have a general idea of what I am referring to.  The dogma seems to create some tips and rules that otherwise, there may be a blank slate and we may not be able to do all that we can do as easily.

It seems that we are wanting to deconstruct science, tear it down, reject it before seeing how we want to accept it.  It may be the unquestioning dogma that we are wanting to tear down and the utility of science exploration that we are seeking to accept (and not truths).

For institutions to go deeper, they may need to integrate the questioning with the acceptance of not fully accepting anything.

16 hours ago, BenG said:

And I can’t even voice my real opinion on this in almost any circle because I know people will misunderstand. That’s also quite frustrating. Anyway, Pardon me for turning this thread into a platform for venting.

@BenGSome may not misunderstand as much - - there will be some that may greatly appreciate your opinion.  But many may as can be seen by their avoidance/disinterest of the topic or the answer that does not align with a response that would have otherwise seemed more like had they understood.  It could be that they have no interest or that they are not aware of the questioning of epistemology of information and are just so used to social norm topics based on whatever they are accustomed to that they may have no idea that this range of vision of reality exploration exists.

[Gesundheit2]

20 hours ago, PepperBlossoms said:

Science makes so many claims of knowing and describing things

When and where exactly did you see "science" claiming such things?

[Mason Riggle]

@Gesundheit2 great question. This type of language drives me nuts.  Science is a method of investigation. It has it's limits.. but to say 'Science makes claims...' is like saying, 'looking out your window makes so many claims about what's going on outside'.  No.. it doesn't. 

Edited October 27, 2021 by Mason Riggle

[DocWatts]

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn is a good resource in this regard, as it deconstructs the simplified notions of what science is presented as in the culture.

Most prominently, it corrects the naive misperception that science is an accumulation of Facts and Theories building towards 'The Truth' like a someone building a house lays down bricks.

As the author describes it, how science actually works is as a dialectical process of shifting paradigms that are incommensurable  with one another.

No disrespect to Leo, but an actual scientist and historian with a lifetime of professional experience has insights that someone outside of the scientific profession wouldn't have access to.

Edited October 27, 2021 by DocWatts

[Leo Gura]

@DocWatts Thomas Kuhn was on the right track, but he himself had no clue how deep the problem of science goes.

Science is imaginary.

Good luck finding a single scientist in the world who understands that.

[Mason Riggle]

@Leo Gura everyone is a scientist any time they make some observation, for some idea about that observation, and perform some experiment to test that idea. 

If I look outside and see raindrops, and think, 'it's raining', and I look again to confirm this.. I have done science. 

You are a scientist whenever you do science. 

[IAmReallyImportant]

In society there is so much bullshit available, it is not possible to put this in words if you just became 10^(-3) % aware of it.

Edited October 27, 2021 by IAmReallyImportant

[Gesundheit2]

@Mason Riggle

16 minutes ago, Mason Riggle said:

@Gesundheit2 great question. This type of language drives me nuts.  Science is a method of investigation. It has it's limits.. but to say 'Science makes claims...' is like saying, 'looking out your window makes so many claims about what's going on outside'.  No.. it doesn't. 

Which is why there are concepts like: theorem, hypothesis, theory, a priori, assumption, objective, subjective, proof, evidence, etc... within science.

An amateur scientist might not be aware of these concepts or their metaphysical deeper meaning or implications. That's probably because modern science is mostly focused on the practical branches on the expense of the more theoretical and fundamental ones, like philosophy and linguistics and others. I would say this bias is understandable, given our increasing need for technologies that can extract more value out of our current resources.

But to throw all scientists in one category just because they don't explain these things in mainstream media is nonsense. I don't know Stephen Hawking's depth with metaphysics, but I don't assume that he's as clueless as the popular belief says around here. He's mainly done materialist science, but so what? He could have been secretly enlightened. Can't a basketball player be enlightened?

[DocWatts]

The validity of the idea that science is imaginary is going to be context dependent upon how we define 'imaginary', and also upon the metaphysics one is using as a frame of reference.

If 'imaginary' is taken to mean not having a separate ontological existence apart from us, then sure science is imaginary (as is every other conceptual category we project out on to the world).

If 'imaginary' is taken to mean 'lacks validity because it's not ontologically separate from us', then it's here I would end up disagreeing.

Sure science is born out of human conceptual categories and it's truths are contextual, but that's totally fine. Contextual truth is still truth after all 

Edited October 27, 2021 by DocWatts

[Quader]

@Tim R so it's better to accept science as is, as the facts, than to disregard it, throw it out as subjective or speculative for the sake of the dogma that science is inherently false? If the cat's out of the bag are you sure that cat will return? Isn't science only applicable to the eye of the beholder anyways?

What difference does it make to state the obvious, it's not that deadly of a dogma unless a fool uses it (though what a fool says doesnt change their status much as said fool) which apparently you see in the sentiment of anti science. 

[Tim R]

3 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Science is imaginary.

Good luck finding a single scientist in the world who understands that.

@Leo Gura Lol. There are many scientists who are into metaphysics and spirituality who know that science, like anything else that is of the world, abstract and conceptual, isn't real. Count me one of them. I think there are even a few scientists on this forum who know just exactly that.

[PepperBlossoms]

5 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Science is imaginary.

I had this topic in another discussion.  Because we can't ever prove anything fully, there is no way to tell the difference between real and imaginary.  Real is imaginary.

Real = imaginary = unknown = known.

We are all seemingly part of a dream/reality and we just try to make the best of it (or not).

We tend to keep on wanting to analyze stuff (and have curiosity) (and survive) despite the idea that nothing could ever be absolutely known.

We know nothing and yet we keep on trying to know everything.  Nothing = everything.

But within the dream we see stuff and play around with that.

[Mason Riggle]

@PepperBlossoms well said. 

Science has it's limits, but when it comes to my ability to make relatively accurate predictions about reality, it seems unmatched. 

If there's a better method, I'd love to hear it. 

 

Edited October 27, 2021 by Mason Riggle

[Jodistrict]

1 hour ago, Mason Riggle said:

@PepperBlossoms well said. 

Science has it's limits, but when it comes to my ability to make relatively accurate predictions about reality, it seems unmatched. 

If there's a better method, I'd love to hear it. 

 

Science tells you how the machine works.  But it doesn't tell you why there is a machine.