X-Message-Number: 14868 Date: Tue, 07 Nov 2000 10:49:18 +0100 From: Henri Kluytmans <> Subject: The scientific approach : If it ain't broke, don't fix it. David Pizer wrote : >Descartes proved in his First Meditations, that one can know one exists >because in the very act of doubting one's existence, one must exist to be >able to do the doubting. I like to think of this as certain and direct >knowledge. This may be the only direct knowledge one can have. OK, yes, I agree with this example, but this kind of direct knowledge is not exactly very useful knowledge. I wrote : >>That mathematics is a good way to gather (indirect) knowledge about the >>world has been proven by the tremendous success of the scientific approach >>during the last couple of centuries. David replied : >There is no success of the scientific approach in knowing anything for >certain. Each past scientific theory was/is doomed to be replaced or >refined by another in the future. >However, the scientific approach may be a good way (probably is >the best present way), to predict some things with some accuracy. The scientific approach is the BEST way to understand ANY thing in an *objective* way. Do we have to know everything with 100% accuracy, I think that a certain limited accuracy and probability (depending on the situation, for example 99,999% ) is sufficient. >The scientific approach is good for predicting and describing some things, >it does not help us to describe what *feeling* is in any way that a person >without feeling could understand. If one could figure how to describe >feeling to a being that did not have feeling, that would be, I'm pretty >sure, a good description. I see no problems in using the scientific approach to understand feelings (or any other thing) in an *objective* way. However to feel a feeling (the subjective way) you will indeed need to feel it. Feeling a feeling is subjective, and it is indeed impossible to explaining things in subjective way using an objective method... :) >To talk about mathamatical relative positions of atoms in the brain is >gibberish in describing what consciousness or awareness *feels* like. The "recording the positions of atoms" example was only meant as the first step in a line of reasoning. This example scenario was used to make it very clear that, in a deanimated (frozen) state we equal information only. The next example I would have given (succesively deanimating and deanimating a person) should then make it clear that in an animated state we are an information process. >The scientific approach has proved nothing that can be known for sure. >(Please don't misinterpret this to mean that I have said it is not useful, >I have not said that. It has not produced certain knowledge. >We may be getting off the track here, because certain knowledge may be >unknowable beyond "cogito ergo sum" Exactly, ... we are getting off track. >and if we can't have certain knowledge for most things then: (1) >present scientific predictability may be enough someday, I can't imagine a better tool for gaining objective understanding of our world. >(2) we may develope a new language that allows us to describe >things like "feeling" "consciousness" and "selfhood" is a more >accurate way. I.e. : "A new method to objectively and rationally describe things in a more accurate way ..." - this again implies a better method than the scientific approach. And this seems unlikely at the least. >So far as we know there is *NO BETTER WAY* to gather (indirect) knowledge >about our world. Our whole current detailed understanding of the world >and our technological civilisation is based on the scientific method. >I am a materialist. I think the brain is made of mindless atoms. OK. And if you don't assume the existance of any new and unknown chemical processes, that take place in a body frozen at a very low temperature (for example at 1 degree Kelvin), then you should also agree that a frozen mind is only information. >I think the mind is the brain. But, I stand by my original >conclusion that we need a different way to talk about what >consciousness and selfhood are, other then mathamatical >relations, if we want to be able to describe the problems. A different objective method ? I dont know any better *objective* method than the scientific approach... Which method do you have in mind ? Grtz, >Hkl Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=14868