Reflections on the puddle of life

A very interesting blog Fifth. I am like you, I will spend a period of time learning something new. I will focus on it for a good year. I will say that I do find philosophy boring, especially if it's abstract. I need something with flesh and blood.

And this is what I've learned. Science, like everything else, brings no certainty. There are theories which become other theories which become a different theory which then becomes obselete. Moving from one theory to another takes an act of 'faith'. For science to work as a discipline we have to rely on the 'uniformity of nature', meaning that 'nature' acts in a consistent manner which in itself is unprovable. We must have 'faith' that nature will behave the same way twice.

I would say that's mostly right, but nature does act in a consistant manner. What I think you're confusing is that it works in a consistant manner for a segmented set of conditions. We can only observe nature with limited understanding of all the variables. What appears to be an insignificant variable, one that has been consistant while in the verification of a theory, all of a sudden changes and one gets different results. Eistein's over turning of Newtonian physics for instance. Newtonian physics is not erroneous. It applies to masses in a fixed system such as on earth. But once your system expands to include more than earth other variables which are fixed on earth now change the dynamics.

Hope that made sense. Think of science in this way. Hold your hands apart about half a meter. Think of scientific certainty as lying in between your hands and then as you stray into areas beyond (outside that space) you are less certain because all sorts of fixed variables may have changed.

By the way, this why I have to laugh when people claim that global warming has been proven by using computer models. Now global warming may be real or not, I'm not arguing that, but to tell me that the people who put together the models know exactly all the variables involved and to their relative magnitudes, and their physical inter reaction as they vary on something as complex as earth's total environment (including solar variation and interactions with planets and moon) is ludicrous, especially when we are talking about fractions of temperature degrees. For all we know the alignment of the planets this century could have had a impact on earth's temperature.

When it comes to engineering, true knowledge is even foggier than with pure science. Science holds as many variables constant to establish scientific relationships, however limited. Because in engineering the holding of variables constant is many times impossible, because there are many opposing forces that it's unclear how their realtive magnitudes and relationships will work out, even if you know them all, which one never does, one has to proceed with the understanding the space between your hands that constitutes certainty may now only be 10 cm apart or less. That's why so many products in their first full year of production have problems. All the possible outcomes have not had the chance to manifest themselves in testing.

Hope that all made sense and found it interesting.

I've been devoted to/obsessed with biology for about six years now. I know exactly how evolution works and I can describe the nervous system perfectly, but unfortunately all that I have now are more questions. It's like philosophy: the more you learn, the more confused you become. Like you, I've been asking myself if it is possible to ever really KNOW something. So far, no luck. The whole human race seems to be desperate for some kind of guidance, some solid answers. They're leaning away from religion and towards science now. It's sad, because there's no guidance there either. It never used to bug me, but it does now.

I enjoyed reading your blog. I commend you for improving your science knowledge. I think physics has to contain some of the most exciting ideas out there. I am very weak in the sciences, but do enjoying reading philosophy.

I deal with a lot of data in my job as a special educator, especially when I have to measure the growth of student progress. Like Virgil stated, I can collect data on a student given controlled circumstances and after, say 3 weeks of consistent data, I can usually predict how that student will preform. But the parameters have to be clearly defined and introducing any new variables can throw off a student's outcome. Given a stable environment, the student behavior is usually very predictable and consistent.

Thanks for your comments everyone

Virgil, thanks for your in depth comments, I understand what you're saying. Just specifically in relation to this:

Originally Posted by Virgil

I would say that's mostly right, but nature does act in a consistant manner. What I think you're confusing is that it works in a consistant manner for a segmented set of conditions.

both philosophically, and in relation to quantum theory in particular, this doesn't seem to be the case. Philosophically the argument is that you can't 'prove' the uniformity of nature because to explain uniformity of nature you have to use uniformity of nature as part of the explanation and a 'thing' can't explain itself! So if you ask 'why is nature uniform', you can't answer it without relying on the assumption that nature is uniform.
Secondly, in the world of quantum physics, from what I can understand (and I need a little more time to fully absorb this) nature does not behave in a uniform or predictible way. From detailed experiments they can calculate the probability of certain behaviour but cannot predict actual future behaviour based on those probabilities. Add to this that quantum theory appears to be consistent with all other scientific 'laws' with the exception of the theory of general relativity, it would seem to propose that at a root level nature is 'absurd'. Thus explaining why many of the key physicists involved in development of quantum theory have been quite open about how quantum theory makes no sense, and why Einstein was prompted to say, in response to quantum theory: "God does not play dice with the universe."
Perhaps when I've got a stronger grip on the subject I'll blog some more, and maybe make a bit less sense!!!

Philosophically the argument is that you can't 'prove' the uniformity of nature because to explain uniformity of nature you have to use uniformity of nature as part of the explanation and a 'thing' can't explain itself! So if you ask 'why is nature uniform', you can't answer it without relying on the assumption that nature is uniform.

That sounds like one of those philosophic statements that has no contact with reality. One tests the uniformity of nature by reproducing conditions and measuring their variation. And there are statistical tests that one uses to assess variation.

As to quantum physics, i have to go back and refresh my memory. it's been a long time and as i look at my bookshelf here at work I don't have any books on it. I imagine the book we used in college is buried in my basement somewhere. I don't get the opportunity to design anything that has to work in quantum physics.

Was it you that was looking for a really good book on understanding mathematics? I have a book called Mathematics From the Birth of Numbers by Jan Gullberg which is excellent.

Originally Posted by Virgil

That sounds like one of those philosophic statements that has no contact with reality.

define 'reality'

Thanks for the book recommendation. Mathematics is on my list of 'to study' so I'll take a note of that one for future reference.