#scientific realism

[selfawarepatterns]

Is it just the math?

Scientific breakthroughs often begin with someone saying, “Don’t panic. This crazy sounding assumption is just to make the math work.” Nicholaus Copernicus, when he developed his theory of heliocentrism (the earth orbits the sun), was operating from a scientific realist view. In other words, he thought his system reflected actual reality, or at least reflected it better than Ptolemy’s geocentric…

[the-ephemeral-ethereal]

Simplicity is often attractive, but simple answers are often false.

from Theory and Reality by Peter Godfrey-Smith 

[imaginationfanstar]

This is probably the most optimistic thing I’ve ever read about the future of earth. Lol 😂

Humanity has finally reached the stars and found out why no one had contacted us. The universe is in a sad state. As such, Doctors without Borders, Red Cross, and many othe charities go intergalactic.

[omegaphilosophia]

The Philosophy of Ontological Commitment

Ontological commitment is a philosophical concept that deals with the assumptions and entities that a theory or belief system posits as necessary for its truth or coherence. It stems from the broader field of ontology, the study of what exists and the nature of being. When philosophers and scientists create theories, they often implicitly or explicitly commit to the existence of certain entities or concepts, which forms the basis of ontological commitment. The idea is essential in understanding how different theories relate to the world and what they imply about the nature of reality.

Key Aspects:

Quantification and Existence: Ontological commitment often revolves around the use of quantifiers in logical expressions, such as "there exists" or "for all." These quantifiers can indicate the existence of certain entities, leading to a commitment to their reality.

Theories and Models: In the context of scientific and philosophical theories, ontological commitment refers to the entities that must be assumed to exist for the theory to be valid. For example, a theory of physics might be ontologically committed to the existence of particles, fields, or forces.

Quine’s Criterion: Philosopher W.V.O. Quine is closely associated with the idea of ontological commitment. He proposed that a theory's ontological commitments are determined by what the theory quantifies over. According to Quine, "To be is to be the value of a variable," meaning that if a theory requires something to exist in order for its variables to have value, the theory is committed to the existence of that thing.

Debates in Ontology: Philosophical debates around ontological commitment often involve discussions about whether certain entities are "real" or merely useful fictions. For instance, are mathematical objects like numbers and sets real, or are they simply convenient tools for describing reality?

The philosophy of ontological commitment is crucial for understanding the assumptions underlying different theories and beliefs. It forces us to confront the question of what we are implicitly assuming to exist when we adopt a particular worldview or scientific theory. By examining these commitments, we can better understand the implications of our beliefs and refine our understanding of what it means for something to exist.

[gingermintpepper]

Tbh, I'm kind of obsessed with the almost tragedy of Eiland and Caldarus in Fields of Mistria. Eiland's dedicated his life to uncovering the secrets and stories hidden in Mistria's archeology - he's single-mindedly devoted to it, so much so that even his side hobbies are influenced by his love of history and desire to know more about Mistria's but it's that devotion that makes him so blind to the magic right in front of him.

It's Eiland's sharp eye that sees Caldarus' statue behind that tree on the farm. It's Eiland who whacks away at the bark with the axe fruitlessly until he's assisted. It's Eiland who coaxes the player to help repair Caldarus' statue and subtly ropes them into joining his History Society. It's Eiland who is devoted to the steles, who gets so excited at the prospect at uncovering a new piece of old Mistria's puzzle that he cuts his outing short to rush to the museum. It's Eiland who realises that all of the different eras of artefacts dug up in Mistria's soil must mean that Mistria itself was once the cradle of civilisation for Aldaria.

And yet, with all of that knowledge, he's still so, so blind to what's right in front of him. He doesn't realise that Juniper is a witch, he merely knows that she is familiar with all manner of the arcane and assumes it's a scholarly pursuit like his instead of what it actually is - Juniper's lifestyle, Juniper's culture. And ultimately, I think that's why he's blind to Caldarus and the magic right in front of him.

Eiland isn't taking the time to stop and really think about what all these artefacts and armaments mean. He isn't considering that remnants of old Mistria still live, he isn't even able to grapple with the question of whether or not it's right for him to dig up the armour at the stele when it's clearly hidden there for a reason. Eiland is completely detached from the history he's searching for and that's why, even with magic and the truth about Mistria right in front of him, he'll remain blind to it.

[thebardostate]

This is a good answer. There are a dizzying number of theories of truth, it has a very old pedigree in philosophy. Even within the philosophy of science there are various stances; scientific realism argues that the universe described by science is objectively real, whereas instrumentalism argues that the products of science are merely useful models of what we have observed thus far, but that science has no bearing on ultimate reality.

I'm an instrumentalist, and as I see it the choice between physicalism/materialism on the one hand and theism on the other does not exhaust the available possibilities. The Greeks made a great leap forward by looking for explanations of reality that didn't require gods, and that approach has served us well in most respects. The problem is that study of subjective consciousness has been excluded along with the gods. Science hasn't got a clue where our subjective consciousness comes from, which if you think about it is a yawning abyss of ignorance since our entire experience of reality is filtered through our subjective point of view. One need not believe in the gods to believe that reality is far more interesting and complex than science can observe and describe.

Theism is not falsifiable, but neither are physicalism/materialism. These are axioms, one must simply stake out a position and go from there. But in consequence it is never possible to have absolute certainty because that axiomatic assumption may be incorrect.

do you believe that physics/science is the best explainer of our reality? do religion, spirituality, mysticism, etc have a place in describing our reality?

(sorry getting philosophical here but if anyone has a interesting response, it'd be you)

Interesting ask. Especially with the accusation that I'd be having an interesting response.

Feel free to expand on, challenge, or add your own perspective to this midnight ramble of mine. I really enjoy discussions along these lines.

Before I continue, I must throw an apology, in case my interpretation of the words is wrong. Religion, Spirituality, Mysticism, my interpretation of the words is extremely limited from my exposure to those concepts, and may not be reflective of other's experiences, or what they might actually mean.

This does remind me of a late night conversation I had with my friend a few weeks back.

Short answer: Yes it can have a place describe the world as you see it to you. Maybe it can't to another person. It really comes down to individuals. If one is determined to give them a place, they need not struggle to find them a place.

Science aims to explain the universe as it is, without dragging in the presence of a higher power. And religion/spirituality/mysticism do try to invoke a higher power (god, karma, spirit, etc) to explain what we don't know.

The way I understand it, the concept of a Higher Power is unfalsifiable. You cannot really conduct an experiment to either confirm or deny the existence of the higher power, which automatically makes the concept unscientific, leaving this a concept for philosophy.

The way I understood it, a Higher Power is always invoked to explain something just beyond the limits of our knowledge. Three thousand years ago, we didn't know what caused Thunder, so we assigned Zeus/Thor/Indra to the concept. Today we don't understand the randomness underlying Quantum Mechanics, and modern scholars argue that the randomness is God.

We can't say that our society was unscientific when we prayed to Indra for rains. We'd followed the scientific method, and learned to cultivate crops, found the best animals to domesticate, and engineered complex structures. Whatever we had the tools to observe we had a pretty dang good understanding of them. What we look back and call as crazy claims start to appear once beyond the boundaries of what they could not observe.

Science will never be able to answer everything in this universe. There will always, always be another question for science to answer. That's just the nature of the scientific method.

And as long as there's something we don't know, and something we can't answer, we can construct a higher power such that it'll fill that hole.

Some would be satisfied with telling this stuff is not the result of a higher power, it's just randomness that we can't characterize. They don't need a higher power to explain things to them.

But some choose to look for an answer for these holes. Perhaps they write their own answer. Perhaps they listen to someone else's answer and find that satisfying enough.

[lachiennearoo]

Fun fact: due to his healing factor giving him an extremely fast metabolism, and comsidering he can get muscles much faster than the average person due to that (and never really lose them), it actually makes sense to depict him as unnaturally buff (for a man his age). But not like strongman buff, because he would definitely be super sculpted (as he probably can't gain weight very fast because he digests food much faster than the average person)

So like basically uhh people making him kinda skinny and "normal" are actually wrong (funny enough, because for most heroes it should be the opposite, most heroes are usually depicted as too buff for what power or ability they have lmao)

[gailynovelry]

SCREAM I love dystopias and I love worldbuilding and I am appalled at the thought of how desperate a person would have to be to get something called a Worker Bee Implant omg

Please tell me more fun things about this please

aaaaaaa hello! So this is from Mindhive and boy is Mindhive a ride. Still working out a lot of things about it, but also it's 80k long, so there's a lot of thoughts to choose from. Hmmmmm.

More context about the implants! But not all of the context, hehehe;

~ The trial volunteers do not go into the trial with any idea of what the implant actually does. It's only specified to be a "mental enhancement." Within the context of the world of MH, this means that most trial volunteers are going in assuming that it's going to be another failed attempt at a "general intelligence enhancement."

~ We say "another failed attempt" because the tech industry in MH has been in a hype cycle for "we're going to use science to enhance IQ!" for a while. But "intelligence" is complicated, and brains are complicated, and there's no magic bullet to "enhance" these things.

~ (Can you tell that the tech industry in MH is prone to eugenic lines of thinking and hype cycles for things that will never pan out for practical reasons? Real life is an unfortunately great source of inspiration for dystopia.)

~ But the implant is not an intelligence enhancement.

~ It could be considered a communication enhancement. If you've read the summary, you know one of the things it is capable of!

~ Hooray telepathy : D

~ It's intended to work in concert with a different type of technology, known as an EIS - an Emotive Intelligence System. Basically, a classic sci-fi AI, but under a new name because MH takes place in the future and in my present the tech industry has made the term "AI" into a marketing buzzword associated with art theft and scams.

~ The ideal EIS for this set-up has enough interpersonal skills to communicate with contractors, but only enough interest in workers to maintain Baseline Aliveness.

~ So, not V.E.R.T.I.G.O, who has a near-anthropologist curiosity about people, and a firm desire to provide them with a decent quality of life whenever possible. : (

~ What does this add up to? Not the horrors, of course, I am sure that the way these ideas click together have nothing to do with the way that corporations approach labor costs, working conditions, and bodily autonomy. : )

Also we're really into making webpages right now, so this WIP has some Neocities funstuff happening! Yay!

[mcaquila]

Re: Your "What are the Glamrocks made of?" Comic, may I make a suggestion?

Squishy silicon casing or padded casing

Seen one or two fics that suggest this is what the DCA would have (since small children), so it would stand to reason that the main crew would have something similar, albeit probably sturdier given they're walking around the main complex. Also easy to clean!

Oooh that makes sense. And then I could totally spin that the treatment on the casing still makes them semi-reflective -- because there's so much visual potential with that feature.

^ This example is kind of a lot, but you get the idea.

There's just so much that could be done with this, both to make the hunt-mode animatronics look creepier, and to also just kind of emphasize that they are a part of this location.

Also there's the coolness factor.

[rinusuarez]

We set out to cover the entire tapir family, but there's a debate about including the Kabomani Tapir. This newly discovered species hasn't been validated by all studies yet. Have you heard about the Kabomani Tapir? Do you think it's a distinct species or a subspecies of the Lowland Tapir? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments. Mountain Tapir

Family: Tapiridae Genus: Tapirus Conservation Status: Endangered Habitat: Mountain Forest Subspecies: 0 The Mountain Tapir, excluding the controversial Kabomani Tapir, is the smallest member of the tapir family. Unlike its tropical relatives, it thrives in chilly high-altitude environments within the Andes mountain range and is known for its thick, woolly coat. Unfortunately, decades of internal conflict in Colombia have both helped and hindered this species. While the instability has prevented hunting and habitat destruction in some regions, it has also made it difficult for researchers to study their habits and breeding patterns.

Despite the advantages and challenges presented by the conflict, the Mountain Tapir remains endangered. The species faces threats from hunting, habitat fragmentation, and the introduction of cattle. The current population of around 2,500 individuals may decline by 20% over the next 20 years, which is concerning given the species' already precarious situation. Protecting this unique species and their mountain habitats is crucial to ensure their survival. ________________________________ Credits: Handbook of the Mammals of the World. Book 2. Lynx Editions. Mountain Tapir ________________________________ Wild Walls Mobile & Cellphone wallpapers are available now!

Thanks for joining me on this journey of exploring the diverse animal kingdom. I've enjoyed sharing my illustrations and showcasing fascinating creatures. Now, I'm excited to introduce my new line of animal-themed wallpapers for cellphones and laptops. Brighten up your digital workspace and show your love for animals with these eye-catching designs. Check them out to support my project and stay connected with nature. Let's continue discovering the wonders of the natural world together! Click here: Wallpapers Store

[lilacerull0]

another day another book tainted by the presence of a screen adaptation and most of all: its male lead 🚬🚬🚬🚬🚬🚬🚬

[the-ephemeral-ethereal]

Scientific belief is not the product of us alone or of the world alone; it is the product of an interaction between our psychological capacities, our social organization, and the structure of the world. The world does not 'stamp' beliefs upon us, in science or elsewhere. Still, science is responsive to the structure of the world, via the channel of observation.

from Theory and Reality by Peter Godfrey-Smith 

[treecakes]

photography isn’t inherently great for science either because it isn’t and never will be objective…. there is always human involvement in the creation of a photograph and there is always a perspective… but then again science is the same. -.-

[omegaphilosophia]

The Philosophy of Chemistry

The philosophy of chemistry is a branch of philosophy of science that focuses on examining the foundational concepts, methods, and assumptions underlying the discipline of chemistry. It addresses questions about the nature of chemical substances, the structure of matter, the laws governing chemical reactions, and the epistemological and metaphysical implications of chemical theories. Here are some key aspects and topics within the philosophy of chemistry:

Ontology of Chemical Substances: Philosophers of chemistry explore the ontological status of chemical substances and investigate questions such as: What are chemical substances? Are they real entities or merely theoretical constructs? How do chemical substances relate to the elements and compounds from which they are composed?

Reductionism vs. Emergence: Philosophical debates in chemistry often revolve around the relationship between micro-level and macro-level descriptions of chemical phenomena. Reductionist approaches seek to explain chemical properties and behavior in terms of underlying physical processes at the molecular or atomic level, while emergentist views emphasize the irreducibility of chemical properties and argue that new properties emerge at higher levels of organization.

Laws of Chemistry: Philosophers analyze the nature of chemical laws, including the principles and regularities that govern chemical reactions and transformations. They investigate whether chemical laws are universal and whether they are descriptive or prescriptive in nature.

Chemical Explanation and Theory: Philosophers of chemistry examine the nature of chemical explanations and theories, including how chemical concepts are defined, how hypotheses are formulated and tested, and how theories are revised and refined over time. They also consider the role of models, analogies, and idealizations in scientific explanation.

Philosophy of Quantum Chemistry: Quantum chemistry explores the behavior of atoms and molecules using principles of quantum mechanics. Philosophers investigate the philosophical implications of quantum chemical theories, including the interpretation of wave functions, the nature of chemical bonding, and the relationship between quantum mechanics and classical chemistry.

Epistemology of Chemistry: Philosophers of chemistry study the nature and limits of chemical knowledge, including questions about the reliability and objectivity of chemical observations and experiments. They examine issues related to measurement, observation, and inference in chemical research.

Chemistry and Metaphysics: The philosophy of chemistry intersects with metaphysical inquiries about the nature of matter, causation, and change. Philosophers explore ontological questions about the existence and persistence of chemical substances, the identity conditions of chemical entities, and the relationship between chemical and physical properties.

Ethics and Social Dimensions: Philosophers consider ethical and social implications of chemical research and practice, including questions about environmental impact, sustainability, risk assessment, and the responsible conduct of scientific inquiry. They also address issues of scientific integrity, public engagement, and the role of chemistry in shaping societal values and norms.

Overall, the philosophy of chemistry provides a rich and interdisciplinary framework for critically examining the conceptual foundations, methods, and implications of chemical science.

[decayingdante]

sharing one of my traditional pieces!! very happy to also mention that this piece, as well as the one i posted of my OC may, won an award yesterday!

[thevalicemultiverse]

(Valicer In The Dark) Let me see if I got this straight, you're telling me the Sun blew up almost nine centuries ago and the planet didn't go with it? Like it wasn't engulfed in the flames like all nearby planets tend to do within range of a sun exploding?

Alice: Nope -- otherwise we wouldn't be here. Mind you, I don't know how the Immortal Emperor stopped that from happening, but -- well, he is hailed as the most magically-gifted human in all of creation.

Smiler: Probably a bunch of the local gods came together and helped too -- I'm sure Mar-Mal wouldn't have stood by and watched our planet be engulfed in flames! That's about the saddest thing that could happen to a world!

Victor: Mmm...I guess it is also worth noting that none of us know how much of the world he saved. The farthest country anyone knows of is Tycheros, and even that we could build a rail line to.

Smiler: Still better than nothing surviving.

Victor: Oh, yes, of course.