Why do some people think that Science is the only source of knowledge?

[inocente]

ok I see it differently and don’t think its this

personally (i’m not much of a scientist myself and this view comes from my philosophy) I believe space and time have no real essense no real existence. It is simply a measurment of matter in the universe and how it interacts with objects around it. Time is merley a figment of our imagination. Light tends to move slower closer to bigger objects, its not that time actually slows down and some exsting thing called time actually is effected by gravity. Rather it appears that time is shifted because of the amazing size and depth of the universe and how gravity effects the speed and travel of everything.

The two clocks analogy or rule or something. AKA if you put a clock on the 100th floor and a clock on the 1st floor they will act differently, they will move at different rates. Someone who travels at the speed of light will age less then someone who is on earth. While I can’t explain this phenemon I don’t think its because space and time have real existence in the world.

This is kinda a tangent to the thread but it kinda went with your post. I’m trying to show that I think matter is kinda the basis, or atoms or string or something is the basis of all science. There is something in the universe that is the constant in all thing and that is what science studies theorizes observes, etc. This thing is finite and not infinite. Everything must have a sufficent reason either initself or in something else. Everything finite can’t have its reason inself because it would be impossile for that thing to exist if it had to cause itself. (how can something non existing cause itself to exist, its absurd to think its possible)

so the analogy

what is the orgin of matter?

you have two options

its either matter (which would be absurd)

or something outside of matter (which by the process of elimination is necessitated) you would be outside the realms of science.

Matter may not be the most basic thing in the universe maybe in science all things can be reduced to space and time. If so all I would change in my question to you is what is the orgin of space and time.

My whole point to this long post is that Science can’t be the only knowledge. There must be other areas of knowledge. Science can’t explain everything because it can’t explain the origin of the thing it studies.

People like Dawkins Hitchens, etc. (the new atheist) are scientific reductionist and they fail to realize that science can’t explain everything known to man, but they think it can. They are great scientist but they don’t know philosophy.

There is something called psychological time, which is our perception of time, and it’s far from clockwork (it goes faster when we’re having fun, etc.).

Since space, time, energy and mass are linked in E = mc[sup]2[/sup], they must all be as real as each other. Alberti can correct me, but logically I think their appearance in that same equation means that at some level they must all be the same, in other words in the singularity of the big bang they were all one kind of “proto-stuff”.

But I think we need to learn more about these things before asking the bigger questions, and I believe we should admit that plainly.

Whether a speculation comes from philosophers or scientists, if it can’t be tested it can remain no more than speculation, it’s not really knowledge.

Our children or great-grandchildren will know more, but meanwhile I’ve always liked psalm 131:
*
My heart is not proud, Lord,
my eyes are not haughty;
I do not concern myself with great matters
or things too wonderful for me.
But I have calmed and quieted myself,
I am like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child I am content.

Israel, put your hope in the Lord
both now and forevermore.*

 

[inocente]

To think **love **is unrelated to whether science is the only source of knowledge is yet another reflection of Luther’s irrationalism considering that you referred to the parable of the good Samaritan and asserted that it’s highly unreasonable of God to **love **us…

What is this with you and this Luther guy? I’ve no interest in the dude, except without him maybe we would never have had Martin Luther King Jr:

When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, ‘Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!’

 

[inocente]

To think **love **is unrelated to whether science is the only source of knowledge is yet another reflection of Luther’s irrationalism considering that you referred to the parable of the good Samaritan and asserted that it’s highly unreasonable of God to **love **us…

And on the Good Samaritan and why God loves us gig, in Charles H. Gabriel’s words:

*I stand amazed in the presence
Of Jesus the Nazarene,
And wonder how He could love me,
A sinner, condemned, unclean.

Chorus: O how marvelous! O how wonderful!
And my song shall ever be:
O how marvelous! O how wonderful!
Is my Savior’s love for me!

He took my sins and my sorrows,
He made them His very own;
He bore the burden to Calvary,
And suffered and died alone.

Chorus

When with the ransomed in glory
His face I at last shall see,
’Twill be my joy through the ages
To sing of His love for me.

Chorus*

 

[Alberti_Devoveo]

But wasn’t he a logical positivist, and wasn’t logical positivism rejected? I’d propose that “our” logic arises in us from deciding such things as fight or flight, i.e. it is an adaptation which originally had to be learned, or is something we learn for ourselves based on what works. Whether it preexists is then moot.

Yes he was a logical positivist (did you Wiki-search him?), but by saying that, are you trying to discredit him? Einstein believed in an eternal universe, so since he was wrong on that, his other theories should be discredited? I do not think so. Holding an erroneous position does not mean that one is wrong on all counts.

1 + 4 = 5 (or 1010, if you want to use binary) regardless of physics or any other science. Physics works because pure mathematics works; chemistry et al work because physics works. Pure mathematics works because our universe is intrinsically rational/ordered. If q, then p works because of the rational universe. Both pure mathematics and logic are fundamental to the universe, much as space-time is a fundamental structure of the universe.

Yes, and some call technology or theology science too. My argument is that any discipline which is supposed to build knowledge about the concrete as opposed to the abstract must in some way be based on the concrete (on observation, sense experience, empirical evidence or however we want to put it).

To me this is the basic problem with the ivory tower approach to philosophy, where somehow knowledge about the world is supposed to arise purely by thinking really hard. It obviously doesn’t or philosophers would not disagree as much as they do.

And I believe that this is the disagreement between you and everyone else: you reject building up knowledge of the abstract (because one can get 1000 different answers if you ask 1000 different people about some abstract “thing”) while everyone else accepts knowledge of the abstract.

I understand that position, it is difficult to prove one theory right over all others in all aspects, but what if, say 1000 years from now, philosophers do find that one theory. What then? Would you then say, “Yes, philosophy is good because there is one way to get the right answer and everyone can agree on that one right answer.”?
That is what philosophers are trying to do: find that one correct philosophy. And it’s being done one step at a time: invent a philosophy and then try having people punch holes in it to try discrediting it. Sounds a bit like the scientific method to me .

Yes, but the questions of whether evil exists objectively, and whether it is absolute or varies with culture, have been debated for many a long year without getting anywhere. By instead leaving that question aside we can make progress by investigating how people define evil and how they think of it.

So what progress has been made by thinking of the question this way?

 

[catholictiger]

There is something called psychological time, which is our perception of time, and it’s far from clockwork (it goes faster when we’re having fun, etc.).

Since space, time, energy and mass are linked in E = mc[sup]2[/sup], they must all be as real as each other. Alberti can correct me, but logically I think their appearance in that same equation means that at some level they must all be the same, in other words in the singularity of the big bang they were all one kind of “proto-stuff”.

the above stuff is a little above my knowledge of science and stuff, but I think I know what you are getting at.

you make a good point but simple question for you can you point to something that is actually space time. Can you point at an object a phenomenon and say that is time and space really existing and having an impact on the universe.

But I think we need to learn more about these things before asking the bigger questions, and I believe we should admit that plainly.

I disagree it is a normal part of our life to ask the big questions. Why should we not ask them just because we don’t know enough science?

Whether a speculation comes from philosophers or scientists, if it can’t be tested it can remain no more than speculation, it’s not really knowledge.

for science yes but not for philosophy. Philosophy validity is based on its logic and how well it goes with reality. Ex: you can’t test to see if there is an unmoved mover a uncaused cause, etc. But philosophy using good reasoning can show that in fact this thing must exist for us to exist.

Our children or great-grandchildren will know more, but meanwhile I’ve always liked psalm 131:
*
My heart is not proud, Lord,
my eyes are not haughty;
I do not concern myself with great matters
or things too wonderful for me.
But I have calmed and quieted myself,
I am like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child I am content.

Israel, put your hope in the Lord
both now and forevermore.*

of course

to sum up my point

philosophy and science are two different fields and you shouldn’t hold philosophy to the same standards as science. Nothing in philosophy be empirically tested. Can you “test” to see if a man has a soul? Can you test Love? Can you make a scientific experiment centered around the nature of the love between a man and a women? etc. No you can’t science isn’t the answer to everything.

 

[inocente]

Yes he was a logical positivist (did you Wiki-search him?),

Of course, never heard of him before, wouldn’t know him from Adam.

but by saying that, are you trying to discredit him? Einstein believed in an eternal universe, so since he was wrong on that, his other theories should be discredited? I do not think so. Holding an erroneous position does not mean that one is wrong on all counts.

No, perhaps wrongly I associated the quote with his views of logical positivism. The wiki article quotes him writing “Philosophy is to be replaced by the logic of science – that is to say, by the logical analysis of the concepts and sentences of the sciences, for the logic of science is nothing other than the logical syntax of the language of science.”

1 + 4 = 5 (or 1010, if you want to use binary) regardless of physics or any other science. Physics works because pure mathematics works; chemistry et al work because physics works. Pure mathematics works because our universe is intrinsically rational/ordered. If q, then p works because of the rational universe. Both pure mathematics and logic are fundamental to the universe, much as space-time is a fundamental structure of the universe.

I’m a fan of xkcd but that cartoon is plain wrong, there’s no way you could get to psychology from chemistry, far less from math. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts - xkcd can’t be a fan of emergence.

I would put your point differently (btw 5 is 101). Arithmetic works because there are countable objects, it doesn’t exist independently.

*And I believe that this is the disagreement between you and everyone else: you reject building up knowledge of the abstract (because one can get 1000 different answers if you ask 1000 different people about some abstract “thing”) while everyone else accepts knowledge of the abstract.

I understand that position, it is difficult to prove one theory right over all others in all aspects, but what if, say 1000 years from now, philosophers do* find that one theory. What then? Would you then say, “Yes, philosophy is good because there is one way to get the right answer and everyone can agree on that one right answer.”?
That is what philosophers are trying to do: find that one correct philosophy. And it’s being done one step at a time: invent a philosophy and then try having people punch holes in it to try discrediting it. Sounds a bit like the scientific method to me .

Sounds like the scientific method on crack cocaine - surely a random number generator would have more chance of finding the Ultimate Answer (it’s 42). Philosophers haven’t even worked out the Ultimate Question yet.

If, a thousand years from now, some philosopher works out which of substance dualism, property dualism, predicate dualism, occasionalism, behaviorism, functionalism, emergentism, idealism, neutral monism, supervenience physcialism, reductive physicalism, epiphenomenalism, and however more -isms there are by then might be correct, she will find that science got there a darned sight quicker. Arguably science has found out more about how we tick from a couple of decades of fMRI and a few more decades of behavioral psychology than philosophers have in five thousand years.

So what progress has been made by thinking of the question this way?

Seriously? The anthropologist finds societies have completely different concepts of evil (some have none at all), the psychologists find the roots of caring, helping, altruism, bullying, genocide, sadism, submissiveness …through to diagnosis and treatment of disorders (DSM etc.).

 

[Alberti_Devoveo]

Of course, never heard of him before, wouldn’t know him from Adam.

No, perhaps wrongly I associated the quote with his views of logical positivism. The wiki article quotes him writing “Philosophy is to be replaced by the logic of science – that is to say, by the logical analysis of the concepts and sentences of the sciences, for the logic of science is nothing other than the logical syntax of the language of science.”

I have his book that I quoted from. While his philosophy was wrong, his philosophy of physics is entertaining.

I’m a fan of xkcd but that cartoon is plain wrong, there’s no way you could get to psychology from chemistry, far less from math. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts - xkcd can’t be a fan of emergence.

Obviously the comic is greatly simplifying, a better representation that somewhat captures the emergence can be seen here–note that the poster itself says it is an over-simplification still. I do not know if Randall Munroe (the author of xkcd) does or does not believe in emergence, but it is a webcomic .
I doubt that anyone could trace the origins of psychology through biology and chemistry.

I would put your point differently (btw 5 is 101).

I never was any good at binary addition

Arithmetic works because there are countable objects, it doesn’t exist independently.

But this property of countability exists independently in everything. Mathematics employs this intrinsic property and physics uses (or abuses, depending on what you are doing) the mathematics based on that property.

Sounds like the scientific method on crack cocaine - surely a random number generator would have more chance of finding the Ultimate Answer (it’s 42). Philosophers haven’t even worked out the Ultimate Question yet.

Just as there a multitude of branches in physics, there are a multitude of branches in philosophy. Each branch is asking a different “why” question, just as each branch of physics is looking at a different piece of the universal puzzle.

If, a thousand years from now, some philosopher works out which of substance dualism, property dualism, predicate dualism, occasionalism, behaviorism, functionalism, emergentism, idealism, neutral monism, supervenience physcialism, reductive physicalism, epiphenomenalism, and however more -isms there are by then might be correct, she will find that science got there a darned sight quicker. Arguably science has found out more about how we tick from a couple of decades of fMRI and a few more decades of behavioral psychology than philosophers have in five thousand years.

To be fair, philosophers are not as interested in “how” we tick as they are in “why” we tick, so of course science can discover more about “how” we tick in 10 years than philosophers could in a million: the two are asking and answering different questions.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

inocente
**
Arguably science has found out more about how we tick from a couple of decades of fMRI and a few more decades of behavioral psychology than philosophers have in five thousand years.**

It is fashionable in our day for shallow thinkers to exalt science and denigrate philosophy. The efforts and successes of science are certainly impressive. What we must avoid most of all is making a god of science. Bad philosophy has produced plenty of bad science. Had we had good or better philosophy in the 1940s we might never have engineered weapons of mass destruction capable of annihilating most life on the planet. Those who gloss over this fact, that science has produced a good deal of fear and misery along with great benefits to humanity, will stop thinking of science as so much more important than the philosophy that guides scientists toward good or evil.

 

[tonyrey]

inocente
**
Arguably science has found out more about how we tick from a couple of decades of fMRI and a few more decades of behavioral psychology than philosophers have in five thousand years.**

It is fashionable in our day for shallow thinkers to exalt science and denigrate philosophy. The efforts and successes of science are certainly impressive. What we must avoid most of all is making a god of science. Bad philosophy has produced plenty of bad science. Had we had good or better philosophy in the 1940s we might never have engineered weapons of mass destruction capable of annihilating most life on the planet. Those who gloss over this fact, that science has produced a good deal of fear and misery along with great benefits to humanity, will stop thinking of science as so much more important than the philosophy that guides scientists toward good or evil.

The fundamental weakness of science lies in its amorality and total lack of guidance with regard to what is right and wrong. Such is the “Brave New World” created by science - with all its atrocities…

 

[tonyrey]

philosophy and science are two different fields and you shouldn’t hold philosophy to the same standards as science. Nothing in philosophy be empirically tested. Can you “test” to see if a man has a soul? Can you test Love? Can you make a scientific experiment centered around the nature of the love between a man and a women? etc. No you can’t science isn’t the answer to everything.

I wonder how science tests the teaching of Jesus - and I wonder which is more important?

 

[tonyrey]

*To think **love ***

is unrelated to whether science is the only source of knowledge is yet another reflection of Luther’s irrationalism considering that you referred to the parable of the good Samaritan and asserted that it’s highly unreasonable of God to **love **us…
What is this with you and this Luther guy? I’ve no interest in the dude, except without him maybe we would never have had Martin Luther King Jr:

When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, ‘Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!’

I’m delighted you believe science is not the only - or even most valuable - source of knowledge. The example, teaching and love of Jesus are paramount.

 

[SoylentGreen]

I wonder how science tests the teaching of Jesus - and I wonder which is more important?

I can say for myself that science has absolutely nothing to tell us about Jesus and his teachings, but I can tell you what Richard Dawkins, now I think the world’s most notorious atheist would say.

Science is the True God and Jesus was a grotesque joke foisted upon those gullible sections of humanity that have no brains for science.

Science is the new God of the secularized world, and it functions as the substitute God for atheists. Richard Dawkins admits to a life long love affair with science.

I would argue that Dawkins suffers from what many lovers suffer from. In their complete infatuation with the object of their desire they lose all touch with reality, and what really matters.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Soylent

**
I would argue that Dawkins suffers from what many lovers suffer from. **

Many scientists suffer from infatuation with their own genius. Dawkins is typical of the breed. He cannot think outside the scientific box. Hence the atheism that makes a god of himself.

 

[Jaysuitical]

I can say for myself that science has absolutely nothing to tell us about Jesus and his teachings, but I can tell you what Richard Dawkins, now I think the world’s most notorious atheist would say.

Science is the True God and Jesus was a grotesque joke foisted upon those gullible sections of humanity that have no brains for science.

Science is the new God of the secularized world, and it functions as the substitute God for atheists. Richard Dawkins admits to a life long love affair with science.

I would argue that Dawkins suffers from what many lovers suffer from. In their complete infatuation with the object of their desire they lose all touch with reality, and what really matters.

Dawkins would not say that science is the true God, because a real belief in the limits of science would oblige one to be a bit more modest before the universe, or, as a true lover, modest before one's own grasp of the subtlety and immensity. The true lover is a suppliant before what is loved, especially when the beloved doesn't, in the long run, favor the self-promoting.

 

[tonyrey]

I can say for myself that science has absolutely nothing to tell us about Jesus and his teachings, but I can tell you what Richard Dawkins, now I think the world’s most notorious atheist would say.

Science is the True God and Jesus was a grotesque joke foisted upon those gullible sections of humanity that have no brains for science.

Science is the new God of the secularized world, and it functions as the substitute God for atheists. Richard Dawkins admits to a life long love affair with science.

I would argue that Dawkins suffers from what many lovers suffer from. In their complete infatuation with the object of their desire they lose all touch with reality, and what really matters.

Unlike other atheists Dawkins has at least one redeeming feature: he recognises that the moral teaching of Jesus was ahead of His time!

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Jay

Dawkins would not say that science is the true God, because a real belief in the limits of science would oblige one to be a bit more modest before the universe, or, as a true lover, modest before one’s own grasp of the subtlety and immensity.

“My personal feeling is that understanding evolution led me to atheism.” Richard Dawkins

I cannot think of a single less modest and more arrogant (not to mention irrational) sentence that I have read in the last fifty years.

 

[Mount_Carmel]

Charlemagne II
Yes, I can understand Dawkin’s reflection leading him to reassess and reinterpret the Genesis accounts as being more ‘parable’ than literal - but to then go on and reject the whole concept is liken to an exercise in chucking baby out with the bathwater - not very rational, or indeed scientific.

 

[inocente]

the above stuff is a little above my knowledge of science and stuff, but I think I know what you are getting at.

you make a good point but simple question for you can you point to something that is actually space time. Can you point at an object a phenomenon and say that is time and space really existing and having an impact on the universe.

You. You have a position in space and a position in time.

*I disagree it is a normal part of our life to ask the big questions. Why should we not ask them just because we don’t know enough science? *

It’s natural to want to ask big questions, but any answer which can’t be tested is just an opinion, in the vernacular it’s not even wrong.

*for science yes but not for philosophy. Philosophy validity is based on its logic and how well it goes with reality. Ex: you can’t test to see if there is an unmoved mover a uncaused cause, etc. But philosophy using good reasoning can show that in fact this thing must exist for us to exist. *

If you happen to ignore all the arguments against the unmoved mover. And that’s the problem, for every philosopher who “proves” something, half a dozen others “prove” something else. Philosophy is just dressed-up speculation.

philosophy and science are two different fields and you shouldn’t hold philosophy to the same standards as science. Nothing in philosophy be empirically tested. Can you “test” to see if a man has a soul? Can you test Love? Can you make a scientific experiment centered around the nature of the love between a man and a women? etc. No you can’t science isn’t the answer to everything.

Anything real can be tested. Anything which can’t be tested is speculation. You’re conflating knowledge with faith.

 

[tonyrey]

Philosophy is just dressed-up speculation.

That is a philosophical statement! How would you prove it?

Anything real can be tested.

Do you consider God to be real? If so how would you prove it?

Anything which can’t be tested is speculation.

Is belief in God speculation?

You’re conflating knowledge with faith.

.
Is knowledge restricted to what you can see, hear, taste, smell and touch? If so how would you prove it?

 

[VeritasLuxMea]

Unlike other atheists Dawkins has at least one redeeming feature: he recognises that the moral teaching of Jesus was ahead of His time!

Not much further ahead than the Stoics that preceded him. Jesus never spoke out against slavery, for example.

On topic: did we ever list the “source of knowledge” that is not science?