rEvolutionist wrote:Mr.Samsa wrote:...and science is shit at explaining reality (because it's not what it's designed to do).
Actually, we have no way of knowing whether it is shit or good. And we have no way of knowing if there are any other ways of accessing reality. Reality is really an extraneous oddity. It's kind of pointless wondering about it if we will struggle to ever discover the truth of it. And of course science doesn't wonder about it at all. Science may very well describe the true reality of the world, but it's not really bothered if it does or not.
Sure, but maybe so can Harry Potter. If we have no reason to think it's an accurate description of reality then I think it's doing a shit job of explaining it.
Hermit wrote:Mr.Samsa wrote:Hermit wrote:Thank you. For a while I thought I was on my own here.

Really? I'd honestly be surprised if someone thought there was a better method for investigating the observable world than science. What would that even look like?
To be blunt, the fudging of the boundary between science and metaphysics disturbs me, and unless I misunderstand you, you are doing it. No matter what metaphysical aspects scientists themselves sneak into their concept of empiricism, none of them have any place in it.
I think you may definitely be misunderstanding me (unless I'm misunderstanding you). Metaphysics has absolutely no place in science and I think any attempts to sneak it in not only produces a weak metaphysical position but also weakens science as a valid and accurate method.
Hermit wrote: Hume has comprehensively shown the idiocy of that. To my regret many scientists just don't get it. Science is about phenomena and the patterns they form. That is all science is about.
Agreed!
Hermit wrote:Metaphysics, on the other hand, is defined to be about noumena, "things in themselves". How the fuck can one draw practical conclusions from "things in themselves" and apply them to a world in which things happen?
Why would we expect practical conclusions? Isn't that like criticising the invention of the toothbrush for being shit at mowing the lawns?
Hermit wrote:The gap between phenomena and noumena is unbridgeable. Every time metaphysicians claim to be able to make any connection between the world of noumena and phenomena, they are unconsciously attempting the impossible or egregiously committing a fraud. Please keep science free from metaphysics and leave metaphysics entirely to ignorant wankers, intellectual imbeciles, political fraudsters and religious opportunists.
I don't understand why you have such a negative view of metaphysics but we're agreed that it has no place in science, which is why I'm always quick to criticise people for trying to make metaphysical claims on the back of scientific evidence (e.g. suggesting that having a scientific explanation that doesn't require god is evidence that god doesn't exist or is less likely to exist).
“The real question is not whether machines think but whether men do. The mystery which surrounds a thinking machine already surrounds a thinking man.” - B. F. Skinner.