If the question is finding a more eco-friendly fuel then science is the best method.
If the question is how to find internal peace, contentment and love then spirituality is the best method.
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If Not Science...
- Thread starter Nakosis
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If the question is how to find internal peace, contentment and love then spirituality is the best method.
I'd change the word from science to empiricism, and there is no other way to learn anything. Empiricism is the interpretation of evidence in an effort to make decisions that effect desired outcomes. This is what scientists do, but it's also what every creature able to sense his world, generalize on experience (induction), and make decisions accordingly (deduction) does, and can be called informal science. By this method, I can discover what foods give me pleasure (personal knowledge), and also where and how to get them (public knowledge). This is empiricism, whether done in an observatory or laboratory, or daily life. If a question can't be answered empirically, it can't be answered at all, answers being useful propositions as described above.
Sure it can, just not all of it. That's the chief value of empiricism - to predict outcomes. The value of knowledge is to inform decisions and drive actions. Those actions then influence events in the external world, and those effects lead to objective consequences that modify experience in predictable ways if we do it correctly. We should expect similar decisions made under similar circumstances to lead to similar outcomes. It is in this way that we predict the future continually.
In fact, it is this ability of an idea to be useful for predicting outcomes that justifies us calling it correct, truth, knowledge, or an answer. The ultimate measure of a true proposition is the capacity to inform decisions under the expectation of desirable consequences. And this describes both formal science and the empiricism of daily life, like looking both ways before crossing a street to effect the desired outcome of crossing safely.
RestlessSoul
Well-Known Member
That rather depends on the question. If it's "Who was the greater musician, Franz Schubert or Miles Davis?" science won't be a lot of help there.
What is the question? If it's about the objective world, then science. If it's about the meaning and purpose of life, then it's the spiritual realm.
RestlessSoul
Well-Known Member
Do you think sociology is a science? How about psychoanalysis?
Before you answer, consider that Karl Popper's principle of falsification was in response to what he considered the erroneous labelling of these disciplines as sciences..
The results of psychoanalysis, psychotherapy in general, can be measured and thus falsified. Google Scholar
Also sociology Google Scholar
As biological evolution teaches us, something need only be "good enough" and "better" is unnecessary.
questfortruth
Well-Known Member
In the famous double-slit experiment it is not possible to predict the impact-place of the individual shot. Only statistical distribution. Why? The Einstein was wrong about Quantum world, the Nobel Prize of 2022 has showed it.
PureX
Veteran Member
We can "measure" the degree to which we don't like peas by asking people how much, from 1 - 10, they don't like peas. That doesn't make the measurement "scientific". Nor does it make the information being measured "objective". And doing this 10 times in a row does not "falsify" the results.
We need to be careful not to imagine that everything that involves quantification or repetition is "science". Nor imagining that every use of logic or reason is "empirical". There seems to be a strong inclination these days to do this; and in so doing to imagine that science is some sort of arbiter of all reason and reality (this is called "scientism"). And it's especially important to be aware of this wrong-headed habit because it appears to be a kind of self-entrenching bias that, once one falls under it's spell, they become unable see themselves engaging in it, nor able see any reason not to continue doing it.
As an example; 'medicine' as a human endeavor is not strictly speaking "science", even though it employs and depends on the scientific process heavily for it's methods and treatments. The same is true of psychology and sociology. Just because they sometimes rely on scientific methods and observations does not make them "science". They are and remain their own set of focus and methodology.
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RestlessSoul
Well-Known Member
Popper's argument was that any new information or observations relevant to these disciplines could be interpreted in a manner which confirmed existing theories, therefore the theories themselves are not falsifiable. That's not to say that a scientific approach to the collection of data isn't valuable; only that data was consistently being interpreted in such a way as to validate, for example, Marx's theory of surplus production, or Jung's theory of the collective unconscious. Essentially, Popper observed that any new information could, and often would, be made to fit the theory.
osgart
Nothing my eye, Something for sure
If you regard spiritual truths then you'll put those into practice to answer questions about character, morality, and how those virtues, and principles should affect and influence actions, and desires. The scientific method is the only method for dealing with the physical world. Most everything else is a matter of spiritual values. There are realities that are not explainable by physical explanations.
Also philosophy is good for managing beliefs and convictions about reality. Much of philosophy is trash, but much of it is not. Philosophy can also answer questions, or help to formulate the right questions. In a lot of ways science and philosophy are married to each other. It's all a matter of how you employ it. Philosophy reveals hidden assumptions, and inferences that people make because it demands logical arguments. However one person's logic is another person's nonsense. That fact doesn't negate philosophy. Philosophy needs to be done better because it's necessary.
Bottom line is what categories of reality do you acknowledge. If you are solely a physicalist then that ignores a lot about reality.
Also philosophy is good for managing beliefs and convictions about reality. Much of philosophy is trash, but much of it is not. Philosophy can also answer questions, or help to formulate the right questions. In a lot of ways science and philosophy are married to each other. It's all a matter of how you employ it. Philosophy reveals hidden assumptions, and inferences that people make because it demands logical arguments. However one person's logic is another person's nonsense. That fact doesn't negate philosophy. Philosophy needs to be done better because it's necessary.
Bottom line is what categories of reality do you acknowledge. If you are solely a physicalist then that ignores a lot about reality.
questfortruth
Well-Known Member
Secret Chief
Veteran Member
Beat me to it!
syo
Well-Known Member
Science would be the first to point out that questions of æsthetics, value, purpose, &c are not within its magisterium.
Science generally stays on its side of the street. Religion, on the other hand, is constantly trespassing into science's territory; making unevidenced statements about mechanisms and physics.
S
Science never claimed to answer questions outside its purview. Purpose, value, morality, &c are not within its purview.Now that science has replaced God, ALL processes have become part of the "scientific process". And ALL results are now the gift of the gods of scientism.
ALL HAIL SCIENTISM!
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Ella S.
Well-Known Member
Logic. In my opinion, logic is the one and only reliable method for discovering truth.
The scientific method is merely one application of logic, under the critical rationalism of Karl Popper's philosophy of science. However, logic is also used in axiology, such as in the case of mathematics. Logic is also the basis of the historical method, which is a separate topic from the scientific method.
That's my issue with Scientism. It denies mathematical and historical truths or, at best, expands the definition of "science" too far to include logic as a whole. Science is the slave of logic, not its equal.
The scientific method is merely one application of logic, under the critical rationalism of Karl Popper's philosophy of science. However, logic is also used in axiology, such as in the case of mathematics. Logic is also the basis of the historical method, which is a separate topic from the scientific method.
That's my issue with Scientism. It denies mathematical and historical truths or, at best, expands the definition of "science" too far to include logic as a whole. Science is the slave of logic, not its equal.
Yes, perhaps I asked that made it difficult to object to but I was hoping to avoid the normal canned responses that have been heard 100s of times.
Still I was thinking some creative thinking might trip me up especially with all intelligent folks here.
Ok, how would you determine the facts used in logic?
I would say logic without science has no necessary basis in reality.
Sure you can use logic to determine the "truth" in whatever fantasy world you create but, is it really truth?
7x6?