[Kees]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Omega /img/forum/go_quote.gif For the sake of argument, I can assert: "Science is, in every way, able to do what he thinks." and I am just as convincing as you on this point! I'm not just trying to be a PITA, but again referencing the fact that the main weapon of science is data. To convince me (or any other good science-minded soul), you'll have to wield some data and wrap a good hypothesis around it.

Do I have to prove my statement just because he made his first?
He doesn't prove his statements. They are not even credible.
I think it is so evident that I'm not even going into this debate. Why take the trouble? I have nothing to gain here. I have nothing to prove.
Science just gives us a crude working model, that allows us to predict some aspects of reality. Nothing more. And no scientist I ever knew will ever claim more.

 

[nick_charles]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kees /img/forum/go_quote.gif Science just gives us a crude working model, that allows us to predict some aspects of reality. Nothing more. And no scientist I ever knew will ever claim more.

It is possible for a model to be crude and incomplete and yet be incredibly useful. As these models get tested, refined and/or rejected we get better (or perhaps I should say potentially more useful) models, sometime we may go backwards and get worse models but over time many of these will be challenged.

We may still be a long way from models that are terribly accurate but without these models we really are stymied, we cannot describe, explain or predict.

Also these models can exist at divers levels of granularity, we need not fully understand combustion to be able to pragmatically apply our current models, better models may lead to better pragmatic applications...as we stretch the bounds of our models the weaknesses become apparent.

 

[Kees]

Quote:

Originally Posted by nick_charles /img/forum/go_quote.gif It is possible for a model to be crude and incomplete and yet be incredibly useful. As these models get tested, refined and/or rejected we get better (or perhaps I should say potentially more useful) models, sometime we may go backwards and get worse models but over time many of these will be challenged. We may still be a long way from models that are terribly accurate but without these models we really are stymied, we cannot describe, explain or predict. Also these models can exist at divers levels of granularity, we need not fully understand combustion to be able to pragmatically apply our current models, better models may lead to better pragmatic applications...as we stretch the bounds of our models the weaknesses become apparent.

I completely agree with you.
I was not trying to put science down. Just putting it back in the right perspective and proportions again....

 

[asher7323]

Science will absolutely be able to do all those things, the only question is really how long it will take.

There is no point trying to convince you of this either, your other comments in this thread just leave me feeling that you are mentally deficient on too many levels to grasp any points I could make on this matter.

I'll stick to discussing this with people who actually care about the science of sound, and have a rational understanding of it. Don't bother replying here because I won't read it. I don't have time to waste in petty arguments with deluded people.

 

[JadeEast]

Quote:

Originally Posted by asher7323 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Science will absolutely be able to do all those things, the only question is really how long it will take. There is no point trying to convince you of this either, your other comments in this thread just leave me feeling that you are mentally deficient on too many levels to grasp any points I could make on this matter. I'll stick to discussing this with people who actually care about the science of sound, and have a rational understanding of it. Don't bother replying here because I won't read it. I don't have time to waste in petty arguments with deluded people.

Your personal attacks are unwanted and unwelcome here.
Please hold yourself to a higher standard.

 

[Kees]

Quote:

Originally Posted by asher7323 /img/forum/go_quote.gif There is no point trying to convince you of this either, your other comments in this thread just leave me feeling that you are mentally deficient on too many levels to grasp any points I could make on this matter. I'll stick to discussing this with people who actually care about the science of sound, and have a rational understanding of it. Don't bother replying here because I won't read it. I don't have time to waste in petty arguments with deluded people.

Really Nice.

 

[Publius]

Most Asinine Topic Ever.

Seriously, I'm expecting one of you to argue how many angels fit on the head of a pin any second now.

 

[wavoman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Publius /img/forum/go_quote.gif Most Asinine Topic Ever. Seriously, I'm expecting one of you to argue how many angels fit on the head of a pin any second now.

This is an easy question -- an infinite number. In medieval philosophy, angels take up no space -- zero volume in the physical world. This is important: if an angel is created every time someone (good) dies, and the angels are here with us (as they believed) then we would eventually run out of space on earth. (This was my problem with “I see dead people” in Sixth Sense – it gets crowded fast). Therefore, these philosophers reason, an angel – as a matter of logic – must take up no space.

Now the head of a pin has finite but nonzero area, therefore an infinite number of angels can fit. This is not the question they asked – a widely circulated mistake. No, they were smart and thoughtful. They asked “how many angels can fit on the point of a pin”.

This is interesting. A point is a limit concept: the sides narrow down and actually the point has zero area. Therefore can angels fit, or not? Quite a mind-bender. And in fact the answer lies in L’Hospital’s rule about the limiting value of ratios where the numerator and denominator approach zero and/or infinity at varying rates. L’Hosptial is usually taught as an afterthought in calculus, but in fact this mathematical work (most likely discovered by Bernoulli) was central to the teachings of Newton and Leibniz on calculus, c. 1690, when exposition of their ideas began. L’Hospital and Bernoulli’s reasoning was directly influenced by the thinking of philosophers at that time, as well as earlier Greek paradoxes on limits.

Without calculus you don’t have Maxwell, and without Maxwell you don’t have electronics or your stereo.

Be very careful when you call something “asinine”. It's all in the mind of the beholder.

By the way, it's "dance", not fit, on the pin. Or, as Aquinas put it, angles can work anywhere, on the point of a needle, or an entire continent.

 

[jonathanjong]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kees /img/forum/go_quote.gif Science is in no way, not even remotely, able to do what you think.

Once again, you seem happy to assert some proposition and refuse to provide evidence/arguments for your assertions. Yet you sometimes claim that others don't want to participate in rational discourse. I truly am perplexed. Like some of the other working, research scientists here, I've pointed out that (a) scientists are mostly scientific, critical realists (i.e., we believe that scientific theories progress towards true* theories and at least some unobservable entities postulated by science exist), and (b) there are robust defenses of scientific realism, though these go beyond the scope of this forum (e.g., Alan Chalmers, Alan Musgrave, etc.).

Now, you don't have to argue for your position. But we scientists are curious. We're critical realists, and we want to know if we should be anti-realists (i.e., there is no objective, observer-independent reality) or instrumentalists (i.e., science just generates useful predictions), instead.

*I'm working with a Tarskian "correspondence" theory of truth here.

 

[JadeEast]

Jonathanjong

Don't you think asking that Kees provide evidence for his reaction without expecting the same from the statement that caused the reaction a bit "unbalanced".

The statement "when it comes to the physical audio gear, our scientific understanding is complete." seems to me to overstate the case. The word "complete" I believe is the kicker here. I'm not sure that as written and unsupported that statement can be considered true.

I'm not trying to deny the power or strength of science methods. Just that I don't think that it would be correct to say that we're "complete".

 

[nick_charles]

Quote:

Originally Posted by JadeEast /img/forum/go_quote.gif The statement "when it comes to the physical audio gear, our scientific understanding is complete." seems to me to overstate the case. The word "complete" I believe is the kicker here. I'm not sure that as written and unsupported that statement can be considered true. I'm not trying to deny the power or strength of science methods. Just that I don't think that it would be correct to say that we're "complete".

I think we enter the boundaries of pragmatics here. If I am driving from Coventry to Edinburgh (I did this a lot) an AA Roadmap gives me a complete model at a high level - it does not represent toplogy terribly well but for the purpose it is intended for it is not incomplete, it gives me all the information I need.

If I wanted to go climbing/walking in the Dales I would take an Ordinance Survey map which does map topology rather better. Neither model is wholly complete as a representation of reality but both are more than adequate in a chosen context.

Even if you buy "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare" there is a certain - as far as we know - about it...

 

[JadeEast]

I agree on the territory & map division and the pragmatism of practicality...

*Warning # of angels on a pin ahead.

but if my map is judged by it's utility then does it have to have any relation to truth or reality?

Let's say that in my mind there are brown spirits that run through one side of an electrical outlet and blue spirits that run through the other. When these spirits meet they fight a battle, this battle is what make electricity. I also believe that if these spirits enter my body at the same time they will
kill me. It works as long as I'm making toast and keep my fork out of the
toaster but you don't want me to design your amplifier.

Certainly the map of a earth that is flat worked for many years.

 

[jonathanjong]

Quote:

Originally Posted by JadeEast /img/forum/go_quote.gif Jonathanjong Don't you think asking that Kees provide evidence for his reaction without expecting the same from the statement that caused the reaction a bit "unbalanced".

Not really. Critical realism is an intuitive belief, and a well-accepted one among working scientists. We believe that there is an objective reality out there, independent of our observations and beliefs. We also believe that science (rather, the scientific methods) aims to and progresses towards forming true theories about this reality. We approximate true explanations, sometimes by positing actually existent albeit unobservable entities. That's the position I'm defending, as opposed to a "perception is reality" claim. So, I think Kees needs to raise arguments for his position because he's attempting to change status quo (so to speak). He is making a claim about science, and the scientists are asking why he (a non-scientist, non-philosopher or science, recall) claims such things. Secondly, while I have no explicitly defended my views, I did point to the direction of such defenses, to be considered by all and sunder. I can be more specific with my references if you like.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JadeEast /img/forum/go_quote.gif The statement "when it comes to the physical audio gear, our scientific understanding is complete." seems to me to overstate the case.

I have no truck with this kind of scientific optimism. So yea, it's over-stating the case, but this is not a proposition I've ever defended here or elsewhere.

 

[jonathanjong]

Quote:

Originally Posted by JadeEast /img/forum/go_quote.gif but if my map is judged by it's utility then does it have to have any relation to truth or reality?

Very astute. We can be utilitarians with respect to science and say "Scientific theories make useful predictions, but should not be believe to be true or nearly true." So, we should not believe electrons actually exist (just that the world is as though they did), that evolution actually occurred (just that the world is as though it did), etc. Why not? Because belief in electrons (etc.) represents extra ontological commitments, which is unparsimonious if unnecessary.

People like Pierre Duhem and more recently Bas van Frassen hold this sort of "anti-realist" or "intrumentalist" view of science.

How is the realist to respond? Most of us point to the success of science and ask, "Does instrumentalism explain that?" And (and this takes argument, of course) we mostly arrive at the conclusion that scientific realism explains scientific success better than anti-realism or instrumentalism.

 

[Kees]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jonathanjong /img/forum/go_quote.gif Not really. Critical realism is an intuitive belief, and a well-accepted one among working scientists. We believe that there is an objective reality out there, independent of our observations and beliefs. We also believe that science (rather, the scientific methods) aims to and progresses towards forming true theories about this reality. We approximate true explanations, sometimes by positing actually existent albeit unobservable entities. That's the position I'm defending, as opposed to a "perception is reality" claim. So, I think Kees needs to raise arguments for his position because he's attempting to change status quo (so to speak). He is making a claim about science, and the scientists are asking why he (a non-scientist, non-philosopher or science, recall) claims such things. Secondly, while I have no explicitly defended my views, I did point to the direction of such defenses, to be considered by all and sunder. I can be more specific with my references if you like. I have no truck with this kind of scientific optimism. So yea, it's over-stating the case, but this is not a proposition I've ever defended here or elsewhere.

I find your use of the word "we" rather presumtuous for someone who has himself made no real contribution to any of this.
You position yourself in an ivory tower, hiding behind references to others and incomprehensible language.
Have fun there.

My professor used to say: If you want to know things for certain, ask a twenty year old. They know everything for certain.