Oh crap, I thought I did a complete backup of my harddrive and I hope I didn't. Because I'm missing all of my papers I wrote in school...crap.
The reason for this is that I saw a couple of my friends arguing about the philosophy of science on Facebook and they were getting it all wrong dammit. Science is wonderful, the method is damn near flawless because it doesn't give favouritism to any idea, only the one that is most right. People get so caught up in the word and feelings they have towards that big bad science without realizing what it truly is. It's just a method for understanding the world, based on observation of what's going on, making logical/causal conclusions from that, and taking baby steps. Those are some of the hallmarks of science, others are that a theory should only be considered if it has a counter-thesis, that being it is possible for an event to occur that would prove the theory wrong. Accuracy is important, it has to actually do something for you for you to start using a new theory over the one you are currently using. As we are getting down the chain of importance, aesthetics starts coming into play. I'd rather have a neat, pretty little theory than a big ugly mess, all things being equal.
The next problems is that people treat science like it is something ontological, i.e. out there independant of people. Well if you look at the formulation that I just proposed, science is intrinsicly linked to people. It is a result of how we are viewing the world, and trying to making a systematic way of understanding it. All you post-modernists, Nietchieans (however you spell it), and existentialists will cry, "But system is bad, Freddy claims that any system is flawed, I'm a big follower." Yeah bite me, read this: Click!
So what was Asimov getting at? Ok, a system may have a flaw in it, hell I'll buy that Godel showed that every system that could be modelled by first order logic (WITH IDENTITY!!!!) is incomplete. But that doesn't mean it's always the same fucking flaw now does it? If a system has a flaw that is unrelated to the problem at hand, who the hell cares it has this problem? In mathematics we deal with this all the time, unless you are dealing with foundational mathematics problems or specific Godel statements, you use Zermelo-Franco axioms because they WORK PRETTY DAMN GOOD.
That's what pisses me most off about post-modernists. They claim that they don't need perfection, that it's a fallacy, but they posit that everything else must have it or it's useless when they try to argue their position. Sure science may not be perfect, but it's a helluva lot better than anything else we have going for us. So think of that when you load up your iPod on the car ride or train ride to work, wearing clothes made half way accross the world, to work on a computer system that is umimaginably complex. Has anything else in the course of history given us such tangible results when it comes to understanding reality? I don't think so.
\rant.
The reason for this is that I saw a couple of my friends arguing about the philosophy of science on Facebook and they were getting it all wrong dammit. Science is wonderful, the method is damn near flawless because it doesn't give favouritism to any idea, only the one that is most right. People get so caught up in the word and feelings they have towards that big bad science without realizing what it truly is. It's just a method for understanding the world, based on observation of what's going on, making logical/causal conclusions from that, and taking baby steps. Those are some of the hallmarks of science, others are that a theory should only be considered if it has a counter-thesis, that being it is possible for an event to occur that would prove the theory wrong. Accuracy is important, it has to actually do something for you for you to start using a new theory over the one you are currently using. As we are getting down the chain of importance, aesthetics starts coming into play. I'd rather have a neat, pretty little theory than a big ugly mess, all things being equal.
The next problems is that people treat science like it is something ontological, i.e. out there independant of people. Well if you look at the formulation that I just proposed, science is intrinsicly linked to people. It is a result of how we are viewing the world, and trying to making a systematic way of understanding it. All you post-modernists, Nietchieans (however you spell it), and existentialists will cry, "But system is bad, Freddy claims that any system is flawed, I'm a big follower." Yeah bite me, read this: Click!
So what was Asimov getting at? Ok, a system may have a flaw in it, hell I'll buy that Godel showed that every system that could be modelled by first order logic (WITH IDENTITY!!!!) is incomplete. But that doesn't mean it's always the same fucking flaw now does it? If a system has a flaw that is unrelated to the problem at hand, who the hell cares it has this problem? In mathematics we deal with this all the time, unless you are dealing with foundational mathematics problems or specific Godel statements, you use Zermelo-Franco axioms because they WORK PRETTY DAMN GOOD.
That's what pisses me most off about post-modernists. They claim that they don't need perfection, that it's a fallacy, but they posit that everything else must have it or it's useless when they try to argue their position. Sure science may not be perfect, but it's a helluva lot better than anything else we have going for us. So think of that when you load up your iPod on the car ride or train ride to work, wearing clothes made half way accross the world, to work on a computer system that is umimaginably complex. Has anything else in the course of history given us such tangible results when it comes to understanding reality? I don't think so.
\rant.
posted by Poshy at 4:28 PM
2 Comments:
i finally figured out who agnes' mathematician father is in immortality...
... aiden bruen!
You are an old soul in a young body, how fortunate! You are correct...post-modernism is all about playing the jester, breaking the rules, fooling around with language..has little substance...glad you see it!
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