Methods Of Inquiry

We can run models on supercomputers and generate some data which may help us lean one way or the other. It will be more complex than just "good" or "bad" though . . . for all we know the secret best course of action to take for long term peace and stability would be to nuke Iran's arsenal asap.

 

It must be falsifiable in order to be verified.

There is no way to falsify the statement I love you.

There is no way to falsify the subjective experience.

There is a way to understanding it.

The scientific method is counting.

The subjective experience gives account.

The curious count the world

Knowing is being accountable

The scientific body of life, creature hood, is not in right and wrong or how much you weigh or how tall you are but in how we relate to the world and each other.

The scientific method cannot explain meaning, the content of your mind, or why we aspire to goodness.

How do you test the self? We ultimately rely on how we treat each other.

 

Is there a best course to action? It depends on your desired aim. If it is an aim, a target, perhaps the most direct and quickest route is the best course which points to our own personal experience, don't fight.

 

The problem then with the application of scientific method is ignorance.

Usually when we wish to avoid spontaneous debate we posit a monologue. More appropriate to a journal or book. You need debate or have your ideas be tested in order to refine your rap.
Earlier,
A Formal Science is practiced independently of Experience. No sensory observations are necessary, and no facts are examined. Formal Science is only interested in logical relationships.
For example:
If A = B
And B = C
Then A = C

There is no reference to the truth of any of these statements, only the relevance of their relationships.
If we accept that A equals B and B equals C, and then we conclude that A must also equal C, we have formed a valid proposition.
However, if we accept that A equals B and B equals C, then go on to claim that A does not equal C, we have an invalid proposition.

A can be a false statement and B may be a false statement, but if we agree that A equals B and B equals C, we must find that A also equals C for the argument to be valid."

I would point out that the only truth that can be determined is in relevance of relationships. i.e. What is the same is the same and what is different is different and not the same and we can determine what a thing is used for. False distinctions are made by virtue of qualification.

Any theory developed by an Empirical Science is always based on Systematic Observation rather than Intuition, Desire, Reasoning, or Authority. All observations must be relevant to the theory and must be structured to support or disprove that theory. And as we have noted previously the Observations must be tested publicly.

Intuition, reasoning and desire are all essential elements of perception. The only way to publicly test the subjective awareness is to identify with it, to adopt the perspective. Always based on systematic observation is an axiomatic principle of reason, the authority invoked here. Many base their systemic observations on sensational appearances. This error is addressed in the saying don't judge by appearances but rather use right judgement. Our sensational body does not apprehend the world from a state of absentia, it reflects our relationship to it, our treatment of it.

It is not possible to divorce experience from measurement. To measure is an experience.

 

[/QUOTE]I don't think I was limiting science to experimental methods at all. I didn't mention experimentation as an essential element of science. "Manipulation" of variables in laboratory experiments isn't necessary. Use of statistical methods like multiple regression analysis can often substitute--nor is quantification necessary. I don't even insist on "direct observation". I'd accept the "big Bang" as a scientific explanation in cosmology even though nobody directly observed it happening, because it involves (1) empirical data; (2) refutable (i.e., falsifiable) hypotheses; (3) peer review; and (4) publication of replicable results. We can loosen this definition to include approaches that are less rigorous, and I think it's important in any case for actions to be based on available evidence, but when we relax the methods, we need to realize that we sacrifice the reliability of the results. How many of the "studies" that "show" are based on the behavior of captive convenience samples of undergraduates at colleges and universities?

The original post asked if we should try to use scientific methods in all areas of our lives. I still say no, if that means saying that because there is insufficient evidence or opportunity to apply scientific methodology we should assume that the phenomenon in question doesn't exist. Certainly, if the data is available, we should use it and make reasonable inferences from it. I think Bertrand Russell said that it would have been better for Aristotle, instead of tring to answer the question whether or not women have the same number of teeth than men by reasoning about it, to have asked Mrs. Aristotle to open her mouth and then counted them. But looking in particular at the social sciences, I think it's really questionable that the super-rigorous quantitative" approaches, using "hard" data for cautious, small-bore studies are superior to more intuitive approaches, like, for example, sociologist C.Wright Mills' work on The Power Elite, which used impressionistic generalizations (loosely grounded, of course, on observations about society, but less cautious and rigorous in methodology). Mills was surely wrong about some of the details, but in understanding how the United States works, he was closer to the mark that any number of studies in the respected scholarly journals, which have been most successful with voting behavior but not with questions like who rules the United States (they tend to leave those alone.). The notion that the small bore quantitative approaches will arrive at the big picture the way coral polyps arrive at a coral reef strikes me as misguided--although the rigorous studies have their uses. This is why I don't think science can ever answer questions of ultimate meaning, although it can be useful in providing an evidentiary base from which more reasonable inferences about the Big Picture can be drawn.

 

Meagain:
"Second, in the study of History, we work with the data available. As there is more data available for the more important personages and events, those are the ones that are easier to study. This doesn't make the Scientific study of history any more suspect than the fact that we concentrate on a study of planets more than the study of minute space debris cause us to suspect the validity of Astronomy. It is easier to gather data on the limited number of planets than the entire field of space debris. In addition the planets have a greater impact on the field of Astronomy just as powerful personages and momentous events have had a greater impact on History.
Just as planets are more important to Astronomy, important personages and events are more important to History."

____________________​

Okiefreak: And that is exactly the problem. Just because great battles and powerful personages like Julius Caesar and Alexander are more easily documented than the little folks doesn't mean that they are "more important" than the little guys in shaping the course of history. Howard Zinn was the rare historian who looked on the harder to get data on the little guys to give us A People's History or the United States.

What happens when the data is not available or is ambiguous? That is the case with so many issues that are important to me. Did Jesus exist? Well, we have the gospels and the epistles of Paul, but we don't know who the gospel writers were and Paul knew of Jesus only from his visions and what others told him--for example, Peter and James "the brother of the Lord". But was James really Jesus' brother? There is the James ossuary, the authenticity which has survived a lengthy court challenge, but that only shows the prosecution couldn't mean meet its heavy burden of proof. We have a passage from the Jewish historian Josephus referring to James the Just, leader of the Christian Church in Jerusalem, "the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ." Most, not all, historians accept the authenticity of that passage, despite evidence of Christian interpolation of another passage referring more directly to Jesus. But was James really a brother of Jesus, or a foster brother or cousin as Catholics say, or a member of some kind of Jesus brotherhood as the atheist Price speculates (no direct evidence of such a brotherhood that Peter didn't also belong to exists.) And so it goes. Whatever that is, it isn't what we usually think of as "science", although it does involve a painstaking effort to use the evidence available and to subject it to a good deal of critical analysis. This certainly an improvement over the old fashioned approach as just taking the gospels as gospel.

I think that doing science and doing life are different processes, requiring different evidentiary standards. A critical element of science is the level of proof necessary to accept results. The standard of science seems to be close to the level of proof required in a criminal case, beyond a reasonable doubt, although the "jury" consists of other scientists in the field. In life, however, this requirement is impractical. In building bridges, where human lives are at stake, we use the lesser standard of "substantial evidence', enough to convince a reasonable person to accept a result even though other reasonable people remain unconvinced. That's the standard I go by where the evidence is lacking for a more "scientific" one.
____________________

 

An unfortunate choice of example by Russell. Aristotle is now widely regarded as a proto scientist because of his work in observing and seeking to categorize the wildlife found in the lagoon on the island of Lesbos.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/oct/02/the-lagoon-armand-marie-leroi-aristotle-review

 

Yes, I'm saying that bridges, exposure to toxic substances, etc., are administrative decisions governed by administrative law, which, under the federal Administrative Procedues Act and the Model State Administraive procedures Act requires only "substantial evidence" to support an administrator's decision. It's similar to the "probable cause" standard which police officers need to search your home or to arrest you.

 

Regulators approve the bridges and set the standards for toxic waste exposure. Both involve decisions on acceptable levels of risk. Science determines the extent of risk involved--the phase of risk analysis known as risk assessment. But the decision on what level of risk is acceptable is done by adminstrators in the "risk management" phase, involving what former EPA Adminsitrator Ruckelshaus called "poltics with a small p" --hearings, public participation, etc. Yes, substantial evidence is a legal concept.

 

I'd even say in order for it to be coherent.

Made in a vacuum like that? No. But if an actual person were saying that, it would be quite easy actually to meaningfully operationalize "love" into some of the very real behaviors which it arises out of and produces, and then test to see whether those parameters are being met. Ie, "You say you love me, but this lie detector machine suggests you're not being genuine, and your pupils don't dilate when you look at me, and you have lower amounts of dopamine and oxytocin than expected, and you scored a 78% on the Official Psychology Liar Test, which is pretty high, and etc etc".

The subjective experience is not a claim. You also cannot falsify a cat, or a sneeze.

Why do you think this? Do you have some kind of proof that the scientific method cannot explain meaning? Because from my exposure to various fields of science, it has explained a whole lot of meaning, even very abstract human meanings. And what it can't explain conclussively, it can give a damn good, well thought out, rational, empirical argument for.

Science can't explain the content of your mind or why we aspire to goodness? Are you aware of fields such as Psychology, Neurology and Sociology? They are as we speak explaining these things.

Test the self in what way? How have you operationalized that word?

Your posts are very confusing because you conflate a great many different levels of meaning and reality.

This thread is about the validity of various epistemologies for approaching reality; the gist of your post is "here are some fuzzy concepts i haven't even bothered to define properly, can science explain THAT? HAH! Take that science, with your snobbish refusal to bow to superstition, noble endeavor of our ancestors."

 

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/crossexamined/2011/11/word-of-the-day-deepity/

 

Made in a vacuum like that. I have low thyroid production, doesn't mean I don't have a metabolism. Test for love? How do you isolate a particular association from a stream of associations in the mind? What is the expected amount of dopamine or oxytocin. A couple for example may love one another but no longer get the same spark or level of excitement from the system as the honeymoon wears off to use an expression. Then a whole different set of parameters come into play as the relationship matures. A conviction of love can even manifest violently for example in jealousy.

A subjective experience is a claim when you claim it. If you cannot falsify a cat then what does that do to your first statement suggesting, I'd even say in order for it to be coherent. it must be falsifiable?

I think the science can't test for meaning because you give the world all the meaning it has for you. Meaning cannot be weighed it is delineated by the one who invokes it. We cannot ignore the effects of or the fundamental element of language in the formation of meaning.

Test yourself in self reflection. Set your observation on the subjective landscape.

I may be confusing to someone who is trying to defend a point because that person is focused narrowly. I am more interested in common understanding. My take is more all encompassing and it relies on sets. The first set into which goes all phenomena, subset, is the properties of matter, absorption, reflection, and polarity. All of our activities, all our biological functions, are from the dynamic relationships between those properties. Using sets you can easily manipulate large concepts. The psychic analogue of absorption reflection and polarity is acceptance, rejection, and the relative spin between those two.

I would mention that reductionist science amounts to infinite regress in a fractal world. However you can put two and two together and they add up to four. Take either integer by itself and it doesn't make the same value.

Yes this thread is about epistemologies for approaching reality and I suggest that to consider anatomically modern humans from 150,000 years ago as primitive by comparison is a false epistemology.

 

I am saying for one that there is such a thing as truth and it can only be had by comparison. The only accurate comparisons it is possible to make are same, different and purposeful. The other thing I am saying is that qualifying terms distort accuracy for example the comparison not very.

By all means the senses exist to make sense of things.
By identify I mean become as.
Desire is an element in perception as it moderates what you focus on. Intuition is an element of perception as you make comparisons to an inner scaffolding of reference. Reasoning is choosing between to come at a delineated perspective. All three are evident in forming perception as is belief. Tasting and recognition, knowing, are the communal elements, the biofeedback loop, of coming to know or learning.