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Dr. Conway: It is my firm belief that we will always discover new things and new understandings of the way the world works and do so in a way that always expands the sum total of scientific understanding of the universe.

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Doc, I agree with the quoted statement, my only question is whether science has a geometric progression or not. I am not saying it does, but the possibility is clear in my mind that it may have a well defined limit.

According to the Theorem of geometric progression:

The sum S of an infinite geometric progression a, ar, ar^2, …,ar^n exists if r<1 and this sum is defined to be S=a/1-r

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In theory, there are phenomena that may forever stay beyond human brain-power and human science.

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But if science can't explain something, it doesn't mean we can "explain" it using some other method.

This would be contrary to Doc assertion that

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Dr. C: Saying that to me is like waving a red flag in front of a bull, because it presupposes an inherent limitation to human capability to determine nonsupernatural explanations for phenomena.

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Andy, let's go one step at a time. Let's see if we can agree that it is possible that some phenomena will never be explained by science and the "Scientific Method".

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And I'm not sure that Dr. Conway is saying science will be able to explain every single thing in the universe. Theoretically the answers to everything are out there somewhere, but it's up to humans to put all of the pieces together. That takes a long time. In any case, science won't explain everything in our lifetime, and maybe humans will be wiped out before it even gets close.

[ August 03, 2002: Message edited by: Andy Social ]

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We are talking about the inherent potential of science to provide explanation for all humanly obeservable phenomena.

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Okay, suppose science can't explain everything. Does that mean something else can explain the rest? What is that something else?

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Okay, suppose science can't explain everything. Does that mean something else can explain the rest? What is that something else?

Often people suggest "faith," but what is faith? It just means you make up a story and pretend that it's true.

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Which is why I say that if people are going to take the defeatist position that there are just some things out there that can't be explained by science, ever, then we could just go back to assuming Zeus threw down bolts of lightning for all the progress that has been made in getting vast numbers of humans to accept the idea that humans themselves are meant to be able to discover non-supernatural explanations for things out there.

Even quantum mechanics doesn't depend on the existence of a supreme being. It just depends on your willingness to accept a description of the world that makes sense on scales too small for us to perceive readily.

If science is supposedly going to be forever unable to unearth rational explanations for psychic phenomena, then we might as well just do what Andy Social says and rely on faith and stories and wave amulets and beads.

I'm sorry, but I refuse to wilfully accept blinders on my capacities to determine what makes the universe and everything in it tick.

There will always be limits to what we can know with certainty. For phenomena where information is irretrievably lost or is simply unavailable, for example, there will always be competing explanations whose validity can't be tested.

For example, to run experiments regarding “Superstring” theories, we would need a particle accelerator 1,000 light years around.

Do you think we will ever be able to build it? To say 'yes' without suggesting a possible approach is no different than 'blind faith' religion is accused of.

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The biggest problem with the scientific method is that it assumes all things are knowable. I find that incredably arrogant considering the size of the universe and the size of our time in it.

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All things are knowable given an infinite amount of time. That condition nearly exists given two things, one an assumption and the other a reasonably determinable fact.

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Do you think we will ever be able to build it? To say 'yes' without suggesting a possible approach is no different than 'blind faith' religion is accused of.

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I recall reading of an interesting "shortcut" that someone developed. As I vaguely recall, it involved the use of high-intensity lasers to get the same results as what you would get in large particle accelerators.

The Random House definition is: “a method of research in which a problem is identified, relevant data are gathered, a hypothesis is formulated from these data and the hypothesis is empirically tested”

My contention is that the “Scientific Method” has a limitation built right into it, that will not allow science to go beyond a now fairly visible limit.

My expertise is in theoretical physics and computer science. So it is easier for me to draw my arguments from these disciplines. But I have read and learnt enough about other sciences (evolutionary biology and neuroscience in particular) to see the same pattern.

In theoretical physics, physicists have been turning to mystical analogies, meditation, arguments of symmetry, harmony, elegance and beauty both for inspiration and ‘proof’ of their theories that become more and more ‘empirically un-testable’.

The question is: if we abandon the ‘Scientific Method’, can we still talk about science? Or maybe we have come full circle where the task of ‘taking things apart’ is completed and the task of ‘putting it all back together’ has just begun?

My contention is the latter. In my view any new basic progress in science will come from synthesis and integration of all we have learnt from taking it apart.

For this process we will need all our mental and ‘spiritual’ capacities, including science, art, religion, history anthropology, ESP and the ‘paranormal’. We may want to call it science if we want to, but it will go way beyond what science was meant to accomplish before.

To back up my claims, here are a few quotes from leading Physicists (most of them Nobel Laureates) of the last few decades:

.........

Nicholas Rescher: “We can only investigate nature by interacting with it…regions of higher density, lower temperature or higher energy…there is a limit imposed on science by the limits of human resources”. (University of Pittsburgh, 1992)

Sheldom Glashow (Nobel Laureate) “Science is certainly slowing down….for the first time since the Dark Ages we can see how our noble search may end, with faith replacing science once again.”

Edward Witten (Field Medal in math, 1990) when pressed on the issue of testability: “I don’t think I’ve succeeded in conveying to you its wonder, its incredible consistency, remarkable elegance, and beauty” – in other words, superstring theory is too beautiful to be wrong.

David Lindley: “Physicists were no longer doing physics because their theories could never be validated by experiments, but only the subjective criteria such as elegance and beauty. Particle physics was in danger of becoming a branch of aesthetics. “

Steven Weinberg (Nobel Laureate) acknowledged that : “…nor any other earthly accelerator could provide direct confirmation of a final theory; physicists would eventually have to rely on mathematical elegance and consistency as guides….might not reveal the Universe to be meaningful in human terms…all our ‘whys’ would eventually culminate in a ‘because’.”

Paul Davies, Australian physicist and author of “The Mind of God” – just received a million dollar prize for “advancing public understanding of God or spirituality”

Hans Bethe (Nobel Laureate) when asked if “Could there ever be another revolution in physics like the one that accompanied quantum mechanics”? – “That’s very unlikely”.

Archibal Wheeler (Nobel Laureate) was one of the first prominent physicist to propose that reality might not be wholly physical,…the cosmos requiring the act of observation and thus consciousness itself, to exist.

Niels Bohr (Nobel Laureate) “the search for the ultimate theory of physics might never reach a satisfying conclusion; as physicists sought to penetrate further into nature, they would face questions of increasing complexity and difficulty that would eventually overwhelm them”.

David Bohm (Nobel Laureate) “He developed a philosophy, called “Implicate Order” that sought to embrace both mystical and scientific knowledge. He expressed hope that future scientists would be less dependent on mathematics for modeling reality and would draw on new sources of metaphor and analogy…that science and art would some day merge”. He had been a friend and student of the Indian mystic Krishnamurti. “Bohm was desperate to know, to discover the secret of everything, either through physics or through meditation, through mystical knowledge”.

Richard Feynman (Nobel Laureate) “The age in which we live is the age in which we are discovering the fundamental laws of nature, and that day will never come again. ..There will be the interest of the connection of one level of phenomena to another – phenomena in biology and so on”.

Robert Oppenheimer “The general notions about human understanding…which are illustrated by discoveries in atomic physics are not in the nature of things wholly unfamiliar, wholly unheard of, or new. Even in our own culture they have a history, and in Buddhist and Hindu thought a more considerable and central place. What we shall find is an exemplification, an encouragement, and refinement of old wisdom”.

Niels Bohr (Nobel Laureate) “For a parallel to the lesson of atomic theory … [we must turn] to those kinds of epistemological problems with which already thinkers like the Buddha and Lao Tzu have been confronted, when trying to harmonize our position as spectators and actors in the great drama of existence”.

I first ran across the style of thinking that says there is an end to science so therefore there must be something more in the book titled, oddly enough, End of Science. While the argument that we may reach a point where will only be forever filling in the details seems reasonable at face value, the next step in saying that we need ESP and more tea leaves to find out what else is there is a bit cockeyed.

Why must there be more? As understanding increases, superstition has receded farther and farther and know parks itself in a place where it can't be tested, in the "limits" of testable science. I see a trend, and that trend suggests something opposite to what is being suggested here.

I know we need to see beauty, we are drawn to mysticism, and the answer that we won't ever know is unsatisfying. But so what? There is a reason most astrologers don't make this kind of reading: you're ugly, you're stuck in a dead end job, you're not special, what you have now is the proverbial 'it'. One day you will wake up for the last time, and in another day not to far off from that, your entire existence will be forgotten. That is probably the safest reading an astrologer could do, yet I doubt any astrologer saying that will stay in business that much longer. And why is that? People don't want to hear it.

Appeals that there is something more will always be around. Doesn't make it any more right.

As for those quotes, some of them strike me as downright funny. I'm already arrogant, I guess, but you might as well call me pompous, too. For that Heisenberg quote, I wonder how awe-inspiring it would be for me to say that black culture is suited to making slaves, so that explains why black people were used as slaves.

David Bohm there just confirms what I've been saying: he was desperate to know everything and thus turned to mysticism. Strategies based on desperation aren't exactly the most sound.

In Wittens quote, the text, I'd wonder, is probably misleading. String theory might be beautiful, but because it's beautiful doesn't make a valid proof. Stephen Wolfram has a new book out saying the universe is algorithmic, and everything arises because of simple rules. Just as beautiful, in my estimation, and just as untestable. Is Wolfram right, too?

The Beth quote is a personal estimation. One that apparently is quite dominate. Does it mean anything? Or is it being used to imply something that was never said?

Paul Davies made a million from the God industry? Who would have thought!

Bohr's, Lindley's, Glashow's, Feynman's comments are something I agree with.

And with that, on the issue of quotes, I was once reading a "science and spirituality" site that had the audacity to quote Stephen Gould for some point or other. "Open minded" is a euphemism for crackpot, IMO.

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In recent times, the bulk of eminent physicists and a number of eminent biologists have made pronouncements stating that recent advances in science have disproved the older materialism, and have tended to re-establish the truths of religion. The statements of the scientists have as a rule been somewhat tentative and indefinite, but the theologians have seized upon them and extended them, while the newspapers in turn have reported the more sensational accounts of the theologians, so that the general public has derived the impression that physics confirms practically the whole of the Book of Genesis. I do not myself think that the moral to be drawn from modern science is at all what the general public has thus been led to suppose. In the first place, the men of science have not said nearly as much as they are thought to have said, and in the second place what they have said in the way of support for traditional religious beliefs has been said by them not in their cautious, scientific capacity.

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clockwork: As for those quotes, some of them strike me as downright funny. I'm already arrogant, I guess, but you might as well call me pompous, too.

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It is almost breathtaking how casually you dismiss half a dozen or so Nobel Laureates who have devoted their not entirely negligible intellectual powers and most of their waking lives to study science.

Oh well, if I fail one way, I always try another.

This is a joke, involving mental patients in a mental institution. I hope Apemantus won’t be offended, no disrespect intended.

There is a long pole in the middle of the yard of the institute. The patients affix a board to the top of the pole, with a note on it, and climb the pole every single day, one by one, read it, nod, then climb down. The doctors are burning with curiosity to find out what the note says. Finally, one night, after the patients retired, one of the doctors climbs up the pole, reads the note, nods and then climbs down. “What did the note say”? exclaims the other doctor waiting for him. “Oh, it said: ‘this is the end of the pole, don’t try to climb any further’” the first doctors replies. They both nod and go home.

And, er, I didn't realize that when people quote Nobel Laureates here on babble, we are to defer to their infinite wisdom as human beings (even though what they have won their prizes for might not be what they are talking about) and all discussion is to be ended. There is a lot more dismissing going on here.

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clockwork: and all discussion is to be ended. There is a lot more dismissing going on here. I guess I understand the moral. I'll go home now.

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And don't dismiss ESP and other similar phenomena, since as I mentioned before, Richard Feynman (of whom you seem to approve) extensively experimented with sensory deprivation and out of body experiences. There are a lot of other scientists who consider pursuing non-standard methods of inquiry, not all of them insane.

What seems to be a case here, as in certain political threads, is an automatic reaction to certain words some of us may have been 'conditioned' by our culture to reject.

Words like 'communism', 'social planning', 'superstition', 'para-normal', 'ESP', 'religion', etc. I usually go for meaning (definition) rather than automatic associations.

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clockwork: And, er, I didn't realize that when people quote Nobel Laureates here on babble, we are to defer to their infinite wisdom as human beings (even though what they have won their prizes for might not be what they are talking about)

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[ August 04, 2002: Message edited by: Zatamon ]

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There are a lot of other scientists who consider pursuing non-standard methods of inquiry...

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That example of 'paranormal' phenomenon I gave you on the other thread (my mother sensing death of close relatives hundreds of miles away, minutes after they died) is one such phenomenon. The testing method nonesuch facetiously suggested, and got both you and Doc upset with, was *good science*. That is exactly how the scientific method would be applied if we allowed ourselves to consider murder (many scientists in many places and times did -- see "Hitler's doctors")

Obviously none of us suggests anything like that, so if we want to understand the phenomenon, we have to consider other then experimental ways of studying them.

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And don't dismiss ESP and other similar phenomena, since as I mentioned before, Richard Feynman (of whom you seem to approve) extensively experimented with sensory deprivation and out of body experiences. There are a lot of other scientists who consider pursuing non-standard methods of inquiry, not all of them insane.

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He did not like psuedo-science, and if he were alive and here on babble, he'd eviscerate some of the nonsensical claims here.

When you are saying he studied out-of-body experiences, I doubt he was trying to figure out where the mind was physically going. He was trying to figure out what goes on within the body that gives rise to these experiences. And although I am talking about something with I'm not well versed in, I'm pretty sure, from his outlook that I know of, that he didn't think anything else besides the interactions within the body explained the experience. He just didn't know what was going on, but that was the point of his experiments.

Maybe I'm making this automatic association for which you talk about, but when you repeat this, you seem to trying to be a vague as possible about it. A lot of sceptics study unconventional phenomenon but that is not a wholesale endorsement of what the mystics think is going on.

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With due respect clockwork, I have quoted theoretical physicists who were talking about theoretical physics. I think they were qualified.

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My purpose in this thread was to reach a consensus on the possibility that there are phenomena that science (as defined by the Scientific Method) can not handle. Do we have this consensus? I still have not heard from Doc regarding this claim. You, Trisha and Andy seem to be ready to agree.

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I will respond to them (probably tomorrow) in a new thread you ‘challenged’ me to start “on the limits of spirituality and superstition”.

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As for will we ever know all there is to know? Well, depends how much you actually think there is to know. Some people seem to think the universe is this vast cavern of knowledge and 'stuff', but others, it is just an infinite amount of atoms - the rest is just fancy dress for the benefit of arrogant humans who cannot believe there is no purpose to their existence, who yearn for a God because then they would not be the absolute irrelevance they are, or at least, their irrelevance was part of a pre-ordained masterplan!

Maybe humans need less arrogance on the science front, maybe they need it less on the religion front, maybe humans need to realise an ant doesn't spend time thinking about why because there is no why. The universe is infinite and also infintesimally small compared to others, it came from a dot, will end as a dot, maybe I am God and I invented all this to keep myself amused cos it is boring sat here all alone in the spacetime continuum (and before anyone gets offended by such 'heresy', well, I just invented the religion of Apemantusism, and it has but one commandment - never worship the one true God!)

Everything, in religion and in science actually seems (to me) to lead to the same conclusion, it is a phrase, a means of saying nothing and everything, and favoured by cartoonists...:

"Example. I'm in Las Vegas, suppose. And I meet a mind reader, or, let's say, a man who claims not to be a mind reader, but more technically speaking to have the ability of telekinesis, which means that he can influence the way things behave by pure thought. This fellow comes to me, and he says, "I will demonstrate this to you. We will stand at the roulette wheel and I will tell you ahead of time whether it is going to be black or red on every shot."

I believe, say, before I begin, it doesn't make any difference what number you choose for this. I happen to be prejudiced against mind readers from experience in nature, in physics. I don't see, if I believe that man is made out of atoms and if I know all of the -- most of the -- ways atoms interact with each other, any direct way in which the machinations in the mind can affect the ball. So from other experience and general knowledge, I have a strong prejudice against mind readers. Million to one.

Now we begin. The mind reader says it's going to be black. It's black. The mind reader says it's going to be red. It's red. Do I believe in mind readers? No. It could happen. The mind reader says it's going to be black. It's black. The mind reader says it's going to be red. It's red. Sweat. I'm about to learn something. This continues, let us suppose, for ten times. Now it's possible by chance that that happened ten times, but the odds are a thousand to one against it. Therefore, I now have to conclude that the odds that a mind reader is really doing it are a thousand to one that he's not a mind reader still, but it was a million to one before. But if I get ten more, you see, he'll convince me.

Not quite. One must always allow for alternative theories. There is another theory that I should have mentioned before. As we went up to the roulette table, I must have thought in my mind of the possibility that there is collusion between the so-called mind reader and the people at the table. That's possible. Although this fellow doesn't look like he's got any contact with the Flamingo Club, so I suspect that the odds are a hundred to one against that. However, after he has run ten times favorable, since I was so prejudiced against mind reading, I conclude it's collusion. Ten to one. That it's collusion rather than accident, I mean, is ten to one, but rather more likely collusion than not is still 10,000 to one.

How is he ever going to prove he's a mind reader to me if I still have this terrible prejudice and now I claim it's collusion? Well, we can make another test. We can go to another club. We can make other tests. I can buy dice. And we can sit in a room and try it. We can keep on going and get rid of all the alternative theories. It will not do any good for that mind reader to stand in front of that particular roulette table ad infinitum. He can predict the result, but I only conclude it is collusion.

But he still has an opportunity to prove he's a mind reader by doing other things. Now suppose that we go to another club, and it works, and another one and it works. I buy dice and it works. I take him home and I build a roulette wheel; it works. What do I conclude? I conclude he is a mind reader.

And that's the way, but not certainty, of course. I have certain odds. After all these experiences I conclude he really was a mind reader, with some odds. And now, as new experiences grow, I may discover that there's a way of blowing through the corner of your mouth unseen, and so on. And when I discover that, the odds shift again, and the uncertainties always remain.

But for a long time it is possible to conclude, by a number of tests, that mind reading really exists. If it does, I get extremely excited, because I didn't expect it before. I learned something that I did not know, and as a physicist would love to investigate it as a phenomenon of nature.

Does it depend upon how far he is from the ball? What about if you put sheets of glass or paper or other materials in between? That's the way all of these things have been worked out, what magnetism is, what electricity is. And what mind reading is would also be analyzable by doing enough experiments.

Anyway, there is an example of how to deal with uncertainty and how to look at something scientifira11y. To be prejudiced against mind reading a million to one does not mean that you can never be convinced that a man is a mind reader. The only way that you can never be convinced that a man is a mind reader is one of two things: If you are limited to a finite number of experiments, and he won't let you do any more, or if you are infinitely prejudiced at the beginning that it's absolutely impossible. "

[ August 05, 2002: Message edited by: Zatamon ]

An open minded and rational human being:

1./ Does not reject anything out of hand
2./ Always maintains doubt to some degree
3./ Gives himself a chance to experience the unusual
4./ Investigates it from different angles
5./ Aware of his own prejudices
6./ Willing to change his mind and admit it openly
7./ Curious about the unknown
8./ Gives a fair chance even to suspects
9./ Maintains his objective rationality
10./ Does not make unwarranted assumptions

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An open minded and rational human being:

1./ Does not reject anything out of hand
2./ Always maintains doubt to some degree
3./ Gives himself a chance to experience the unusual
4./ Investigates it from different angles
5./ Aware of his own prejudices
6./ Willing to change his mind and admit it openly
7./ Curious about the unknown
8./ Gives a fair chance even to suspects
9./ Maintains his objective rationality
10./ Does not make unwarranted assumptions

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Remember the Random House definition of the 'Scientific Method': “a method of research in which a problem is identified, relevant data are gathered, a hypothesis is formulated from these data and the hypothesis is empirically tested”

The essence of the scientific method is "empirical testing" of a hypothesis.

The essence of an open mind is those 10 points I listed.

Granted, there is an overlap, but not as big an overlap as I would like to see. Scientists can be maddeningly conservative and dogmatic. I have seen very few scientists as open-minded, honest, clear-thinking and clear-writing as Richard Feynman. No wonder I chose him as one of my heroes.

PS. You don't need to be a scientist to satisfy the 10 point-requirement of an open mind. Any humn being can qualify regardless of occupation, intelligence, education or religious beliefs.

[ August 05, 2002: Message edited by: Zatamon ]

I can understand being a bit more open about something like the existence of the universe, but in the details of life, I wish there were more people like Richard Dawkins in this world.

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Scientists can be maddeningly conservative and dogmatic.

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PS. You don't need to be a scientist to satisfy the 10 point-requirement of an open mind.

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It really sounds to me that your beef is with certain scientists, not with science itself.

[ August 05, 2002: Message edited by: Andy Social ]

Here is more on it from "The Character of Physical Law" by Richard Feynman:

"There are other phenomena, such as extra-sensory perception, which cannot be explained by our knowledge of physics. However, that phenomenon has not been well established, and we cannot guarantee that it is there. If it could be demonstrated, of course, that would prove that physics is incomplete, and it is therefore extremely interesting to physicists whether it is right or wrong. Many experiments exist which show that it does not work.... That is the reason that there is some skepticism among scientists with regard to those ideas.

On the other hand, in the case of hypnotism, at first it looked as though that also would be impossible, when it was described incompletely. Now that it is known better it is realized that it is not absolutely impossible that hypnosis could occur through normal physiological, though as yet unknown, processes; it does not obviously require some special new kind of force. "

Feynman published this book in 1965. Since then hypnotherapy is a recognized branch of medicine and, under some circumstances, covered by medicare. Still, it is not a science, and it is still unknown how and why it works.

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clockwork: There are people that would read excerpt above and try and claim that, "See, science says it's possible to read minds!"

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If you read the excerpt carefully, science (via Feynman) says: "it's not proven to be impossible to read minds. If someone claimed he could, this is one possible way I would investigate it."

[ August 05, 2002: Message edited by: Zatamon ]

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Feynman had the honesty to admit that, in spite of negative results (in 1965) regarding ESP, the phenomenon still may prove to exist once it is known better, just like hypnosis did. I can't help but love that guy for his intellectual integrity.

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Nobody denies the possibility that such things may one day be explained conclusively via use of the scientific method using varying lines of inquiry. I do not, and no self-respecting open-minded person would reject it out of hand.

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Dr. C: these sorts of things are somehow mystically "forever unexplainable" and thus should be taken on faith rather than reason.

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All I said that science has its limits...

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Just because scientists haven't answered every single question in the world yet doesn't mean that there's some other valid shortcut to those answers.

Call it reasoning!

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To deny that possibility is the same arrogant 'blind faith' religion is accused of.

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If anyone rejects even the possibility that some things in an (for all practical purposes) infinite univers(es) may be beyond human brain-power to comprehend, it is the exact same arrogance and blind faith religion is accused of

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Okay, this is twice you have said this. I really don't have much of a problem with what you are saying, but the way you say it strikes me as very chameleon like. And to repeat the same phrase twice suggests to me that you are trying to say more than you really are saying.

This is why I keep responding. I'm trying to figure out what you are trying to get at. Are you accusing someone like me of "blind faith"? Is that why you've repeated that twice to me?

“My purpose in this thread was to reach a consensus on the possibility that there are phenomena that science (as defined by the Scientific Method) can not handle. Do we have this consensus? I still have not heard from Doc regarding this claim. You, Trisha and Andy seem to be ready to agree.”

I got Doc’s reply a bit later:

“Dr Conway: What I do reject, and most vigorously, is the anti-science view that these sorts of things are somehow mystically "forever unexplainable"

I am too lazy to hunt through all the threads discussing the same issue. I know that there were many other statements similar to Doc’s.

I was arguing with those statements, not with you clockwork, if you mean what you said about having no problem with what I said.

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Once we have an agreement about the possibility that our brain power may be limited as opposed to infinite, then we can take the next step.

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However, I have learnt the hard way to go one step at a time on Babble, or I would end up going around the same circle over and over without any resolution.

What I am up to, you will find out soon. Not today, because I am completely exhausted due to the marathon babbling I have been doing since 6:30 this morning.

Trust me, I won’t keep you guessing too long. Nothing dramatic or earth-shattering, I promise.

There is no question with the amount of time that the government takes to ban anything as being dangerous for health that that additive is dangerous. The same arguments might be made about banning private for profit surgical facilities. However, in that case, harm (except to the pocket book, and the person who was next in line) would be harder to prove. Chapter 11 does not just limit the power of governments against corporations with harmful chemicals, but against any corporation out to make a buck.

And the Fraser Institute and Fronteer whatsit called will be full of "science" as good and complete as the first of the two menstral articles Audra posted. Science is like one big Quebec referendum, where the results depend on how one decides to frame the question and which variables one looks at.