> the scientific method produces better predictive theories than any other known method
Better theories in what sense? (If possible, in terms that are genuinely extrinsic to scientific method itself.)
> If you want to look outside the box, nothing in the scientific method says you can't
Nothing in the scientific method says you can’t, indeed. However, some people tend to misinterpret it (possibly due to a suppressed religious impulse finding its way) as revealing objective truth through its models, as opposed to what it does: offer predictions as to what we would observe if we do X. For many of those (very smart) people, imagining radically new models that focus on different aspects (e.g., that conspicuous we above, or something else) and sideline other aspects (e.g., the various entities described by current models) is taboo.
> However, some people tend to misinterpret it (possibly due to a suppressed religious impulse finding its way) as revealing objective truth through its models
But science does reveal objective truth, in the sense that it reveals truths (or at least very good approximations to truths) that are independent of what anyone's opinions are. What it does not do is reveal metaphysical truth, but that's not the same thing. But even then, it does put constraints on what metaphysical truth could be. For example, unless quantum mechanics is wrong (which is extremely unlikely) then it is not possible for metaphysical truth to be classical.
That is a bit too close to defining them as better within the framework of scientific method.
For example, though I suspect you won’t like this line of question, are we by chance able to make increasingly accurate predictions about something increasingly irrelevant or not beneficial to ourselves?
Edit: I would be the first to say that the answer to that question is probably negative, but that is just to illustrate, maybe this would push you to define “better” better.
> But science does reveal objective truth, in the sense that it reveals truths (or at least very good approximations to truths) that are independent of what anyone's opinions are
Models are metaphors to aid our minds in coming up with more predictions to test. If a model was able to predict N outcomes that does not make it correct, unless you can guarantee that there will not be a future outcome that makes that model incorrect, which you cannot as that notion would presume you have come up with a provably correct and complete model in finite time.
> But even then, it does put constraints on what metaphysical truth could be. For example, unless quantum mechanics is wrong (which is extremely unlikely) then it is not possible for metaphysical truth to be classical.
I cannot object to that, except the part where you claim that quantum mechanics being wrong is extremely unlikely. I will stand by my initial assumptions and claim that it is not just extremely likely but a near certainty that quantum mechanics is wrong—just because it is foolish to assume that any of today’s models is finally correct and true. It may be useful in meantime, though.
I still do not know what makes a theory “better” if it will never be provably correct, is most likely drastically wrong, and comparatively brings us little value. A theory that would instead focus on ourselves, whatever that might look like, seems like potentially a much “better” option, but because the path is poorly trodden the scientific community would defend its own dignity by laughing at those who venture there. Anyway, I’m not awake enough to argue well at this point.
OK, I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree about this. If you don't see the value in being able to predict the future, I'm not going to try to persuade you of it.
It was more about what aspects of the future we are capable of predicting thanks to natural sciences, and what aspects of the future are valuable to predict.
It might just be that predicting the outcome of an interaction of two molecules is itself less valuable than, say (can’t think of anything better, feel free to be more creatively specific here), predicting whether we flourish or suffer. The former is easier, sure, but is that enough to make it valuable? That the latter is more important is an assumption, but I think not an unfounded one.
So first of all, "natural sciences" is redundant. All science is natural. There is no unnatural science.
And second, what makes you think that predicting how molecules interact is detached from predicting whether we flourish or suffer? We are made of molecules. Whether we flourish or suffer is ultimately determined by what our molecules do. There are people alive today who would not be if we had not been able to make reliable predictions about how mRNA molecules were going to interact with the molecules in our bodies to produce antibodies (which are molecules) to fight the covid virus (also made of molecules).
> All science is natural. There is no unnatural science.
It is a well defined category. Sciences that do not fall into the tiny subset of natural sciences include, among others, mathematics, logic, sociology, economics, psychology, and the mother of all sciences—philosophy.
> Whether we flourish or suffer is ultimately determined by what our molecules do
Not really—unless you can prove that consciousness arises from said molecules (which not only is yet-unproven but is also arguably unfalsifiable within the framework of scientific method), it is only your opinion and not a scientific fact.
No, it isn't. I know that it is commonly considered to be a well-defined category, but it's not. Philosophy is not a science at all. Neither is math, except insofar as it is studied as a natural phenomenon. The so-called "social sciences" are commonly set apart in a different category, but in the context of your comment:
> It was more about what aspects of the future we are capable of predicting thanks to natural sciences
that a distinction without a difference. It is not the distinction between "natural" and "social" that matters in this case, it is the distinction between areas of intellectual inquiry that employ the scientific method vs those that don't.
If you want to go there then sure, in some ways it is not. It is what natural sciences branched off of. Generally speaking, it is superior to sciences in that they are informed by it. Not sure if it’s splitting hairs in context of our discussion.
> Neither is math
Oxford dictionary starts with “it is a science…”, why do you say it is not?
> The so-called "social sciences" are commonly set apart in a different category
A different category from natural sciences. You’re seeing it now!
> it is the distinction between areas of intellectual inquiry that employ the scientific method vs those that don't.
Let’s talk about scientific method.
Scientific method is a key instrument of natural sciences, but it cannot make a statement about “underlying reality”, say materialism or physicalism vs. idealism. It can just make testable observations and predictions; the exact underlying territory can never be produced using scientific method—there can only be speculative takes on it, produced by our fallible human minds, informed by applying scientific method in particular ways guided by our fallible human minds.
A position that molecules is what causes us to flourish or not, meanwhile, is textbook physicalism. It is a particular philosophical view that is not within the scope of natural sciences to prove or disprove. The article you linked to actually supports this argument. See myth #2.
It does not make natural sciences deficient, but it highlights what they offer and what they by design don’t. Philosophical positions such as monistic idealism or monistic materialism have both equal capability to be true, and unfortunately both are (as of now) beyond what scientific method can prove or falsify.
Yes, that's true. But it wasn't science before the branching, and what is left over after the branching is not science either.
> Oxford dictionary starts with “it is a science…”, why do you say it is not?
Math is a tool used by science, but it is not in and of itself a science (with a few exceptions). The reason is that this discussion is taking place within the context of a specific definition of science that requires experimental data to verify or refute hypotheses. Math generally doesn't fit that definition.
> Scientific method ... cannot make a statement about “underlying reality” ...
Yes, all that is true.
> A position that molecules is what causes us to flourish or not, meanwhile, is textbook physicalism.
No, it's a testable hypothesis with a lot of supporting evidence.
> what is left over after the branching is not science either
Yes. I’d say philosophy is not science in the same sense music is not drumming.
> this discussion is taking place within the context of a specific definition of science that requires experimental data to verify or refute hypotheses
Did we agree to that specific definition? If so, my bad, but I don’t recall that. Also, what are some other definitions available?
In any case, there are natural sciences, and there are other kinds of sciences that are not less important, and potentially more so depending on one’s values.
> No, it's a testable hypothesis with a lot of supporting evidence.
Not as far as I know.
There are plenty of so-called “proofs” that include things like cutting or stimulating parts of the brain seemingly causing changes in mind-state, but they obviously miss the part where the very cutting or the stimulating is caused by mind-state in the first place—i.e., they all presuppose materialism without even realizing it.
What is a way to definitively prove or falsify idealism or materialism that is available to us, without presupposing either idealism or materialism in the first place?
What is one piece of hard evidence that actually works as evidence to prove materialism without presupposing materialism?
> Philosophy is not science in the same sense art is not music
No, that is not at all the same thing. There was not a field of human intellectual endeavor called "art" which begat music. A much better analogy is that philosophy is not science in the same sense that alchemy is not chemistry, or astrology is not astronomy, or banging on a hollow log with a stick is not playing the violin.
> Did we agree to that specific definition?
This discussion is taking place in a thread whose topic is a blog post which defends that specific definition. So no, we didn't explicitly agree to it, but it's a reasonable assumption, a generally understood part of the HN social contract.
> What is one piece of hard evidence that actually works as evidence to prove materialism
Materialism is not the testable hypothesis. The testable hypothesis is "molecules is what causes us to flourish." And I should have said "falsifiable" not testable. The way you falsify it would be to demonstrate some aspect of human flourishing that cannot be explained as the actions of molecules.
> A much better analogy is that philosophy is not science in the same sense that alchemy is not chemistry, or astrology is not astronomy
Not at all. Astrology is irrelevant, whereas philosophy is quite relevant in the sense that it is an integral part of scientific activity and takes place despite certain people forgetting that they do it even while doing it.
> or banging on a hollow log with a stick is not playing the violin
Yes, I actually edited my comment to provide a better analogy: philosophy is not science in the same sense music is not drumming.
> Materialism is not the testable hypothesis. The testable hypothesis is "molecules is what causes us to flourish."
These follow from one another. If you claim that molecules are the cause of some phenomena taking place in your mind, which flourishing, self-actualisation, happiness, suffering, etc. all are, then you implicitly claim materialism.
For anyone who claims that mind-state is the cause, you can claim that it is in fact the consequence (or an illusion, as some do), and it will be your word against theirs.
That’s where it stops being a scientific experiment and becomes a higher-level philosophical argument where testability is, unfortunately, out of our reach, but we can still judge theories by their elegance and logical soundness.
> The way you falsify it would be to demonstrate some aspect of human flourishing that cannot be explained as the actions of molecules
As above, if you claim that there is some aspect of flourishing that cannot be explained as “actions of molecules” (I would be hard-pressed to ascribe any agency to molecules, personally) you would likely be implicitly adopting monistic idealism (or some sort of dualism, which I personally find dubious due to even more drastic lack of elegance than in monistic materialism), and that is not testable since to anyone who claims that mind-state is the consequence you can very simply point out how it can be the cause—and since neither way can be proven or disproven, it is once again a higher-level philosophical argument.
That argument is more fundamental and more important, actually, than predicting some molecular activity or the like; and before you object, using the fact that scientific method is as of now limited and unable to provide evidence either way can’t serve as a justification for calling the question itself unimportant if we were to have this discussion with any rigour and truth-seeking determination (as opposed to mere desire to socially signal or appear “right”).
I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree about that.
> you implicitly claim materialism
Nope. In fact, I actually do claim all of these things while at the same time denying materialism because quantum mechanics. Molecules don't really exist, just like the force of gravity doesn't really exist. Both are just very good approximations.
> For anyone who claims that mind-state is the cause
The cause of what?
You don't have to get into consciousness at all. Food and water, for example, are clearly integral to human flourishing, and you don't have to get into any metaphysical woo to defend that position.
> That’s where it stops being a scientific experiment
That's just nonsense. Malnutrition and dying of thirst obviously yield to straightforward scientific inquiry.
Like I said, if you want to argue otherwise, the burden is on you to demonstrate some aspect of human flourishing that does not yield to scientific inquiry. I'll bet you can't do it.
If you forget to drink water while working for many hours, you may feel dehydrated and poorly. If you remember to drink water, you feel better.
Drinking water clearly causes a change in your mind-state. However, drinking water is something you decide (or forget) to do, i.e. it’s obviously caused by your mind in the first place (or that of your partner or another person helpfully bringing you a glass). However, we can further speculate that said mind is, in turn, affected by certain chemical interactions (approximations of something external to those minds), and even call the general existence of minds into question. Yet further, we could treat that chemical reaction as, in turn, derivable from (or be a representation of) mind-states, yours or otherwise, further down the line.
You can see how as far as scientific method is concerned this gets nowhere very quickly—it’s unfalsifiable and outside of what scientific method is equipped to help us with (not a bug, since it’s by design).
Naively, it seems that best we could do is 1) acknowledge that uncertainty and perhaps 2) pick a point in the above chain, reason why to believe that point is not arbitrary, and explicitly adopt that as a philosophical position.
> I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree about that.
We can simply do that, though I did attempt to provide a justification for my position. Philosophy, whether done explicitly or implicitly, always informed the application of scientific method.
> we can further speculate that said mind is, in turn, affected by certain chemical interactions (approximations of something external to those minds)
Indeed, there is quite a bit of evidence to support this hypothesis.
> and even call the general existence of minds into question
Well, you can call anything into question, but there is quite a bit of evidence for the existence of minds.
> we could treat that chemical reaction as, in turn, derivable from (or be a representation of) mind-states
Well, I suppose we could, but again there is quite a bit of evidence that the causality of that particular mechanism (if I'm understanding you correctly -- you are being pretty imprecise here) runs in the other direction.
> You can see how as far as scientific method is concerned this gets nowhere very quickly
Sorry, no, I don't see that at all. AFAICT the way in which minds arise from chemistry is pretty well understood. In fact, it is sufficiently well understood that we are on the cusp of being able to create artificial minds that are not based on chemistry.
> Naively, it seems that best we could do is 1) acknowledge that uncertainty
Sorry, no, I don't see any uncertainty to acknowledge.
> I did attempt to provide a justification for my position.
> there is quite a bit of evidence that the causality of that particular mechanism (if I'm understanding you correctly -- you are being pretty imprecise here) runs in the other direction.
Not if you look thoroughly. There is no proof that causality runs[0] in either direction, and in all likelihood it would remain so for as long as the hard problem is unsolved.
> AFAICT the way in which minds arise from chemistry is pretty well understood.
That would be immensely groundbreaking, absolutely historical news that would eclipse LLMs, reverberate HN for months and would not pass either of us unnoticed.
> In fact, it is sufficiently well understood that we are on the cusp of being able to create artificial minds that are not based on chemistry.
Have you heard about the so-called Chinese room experiment or the concept of a philosophical zombie?
> I don't see any uncertainty to acknowledge.
That’s because you have adopted a philosophical position implicitly.
> Yes, but I think your attempt has failed.
You have not even attempted to object by providing a counter-argument, though.
[0] Side note: even though I am guilty of thinking that way myself, I find the whole notion of “causality running” smelling of Cartesian dualism and another inheritance of our religious past. A theory presupposing the existence of two different kinds of things (as in this case, mind vs. physical), while useful in its own ways, is necessarily less elegant than a theory that can manage with one.
Yes, it was [1]. Still is, as this work is on-going [2].
> Have you heard about the so-called Chinese room experiment or the concept of a philosophical zombie?
Yes. Have you heard of the Turing test?
For the record, the Chinese Room is based on the false premise that the Chinese Room is possible. It isn't. The person inside the room would be dead long before it emitted its first symbol. And philosophical zombies are IPUs [3].
> That’s because you have adopted a philosophical position implicitly.
No, I have adopted a philosophical position explicitly [4].
> You have not even attempted to object by providing a counter-argument, though.
Perhaps you are unaware that I am the author of TFA [5]? Did you read it?
Better theories in what sense? (If possible, in terms that are genuinely extrinsic to scientific method itself.)
> If you want to look outside the box, nothing in the scientific method says you can't
Nothing in the scientific method says you can’t, indeed. However, some people tend to misinterpret it (possibly due to a suppressed religious impulse finding its way) as revealing objective truth through its models, as opposed to what it does: offer predictions as to what we would observe if we do X. For many of those (very smart) people, imagining radically new models that focus on different aspects (e.g., that conspicuous we above, or something else) and sideline other aspects (e.g., the various entities described by current models) is taboo.