It has to do with the Prophecy
- Thread starter TheFraix
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Originally posted by Nemesis
But isn't "faith" (as in accepting and believing in a given proposition without conclusive proof) an integral part of scientific knowledge too?
How so? We come up with a theory, we try and proove it. It either works or it doesn't (or it seems to work but a few decades down the line we find out we missed something). If it does, good for us. If it doesn't, back to the drawing board. Sure, sometimes theories are based on other theories that haven't been proven yet (Riemann's Hypothesis) and sure there are some things we accept as fact (such as black holes) even though we haven't gotten any undeniable evidence. But it's not like we're not trying.
I'm pretty sure there's going to be someone whose going to say that black holes have been proven to exist. But that's not true. Presently, we can't point a telescope at the sky and say "there's definitely a black hole there". The best we can do is say "there's a really dense object there which could be a black hole".
But it's a researcher's or scientist's faith in the essential correctness or incorrectness of the given theory that motivates the "trying". For example, Einstein's and Bohr's conflicting convictions about quantum mechanics worked to enrich and strengthen that theory. Scientists are rarely neutral about the theories they obviously devote much of their lives to trying to confirm, dismiss, or simply "round out"; their faith (or lack thereof) in a given theory has always been fundamental to science's general success in explaining reality.
On another, and probably more disturbing level, much of your and my "knowledge" is almost entirely composed of faith. If asked, for example, most of us (I'm not sure why I'm hedging) would affirm that the earth orbits the sun, but most of us could not even begin to prove the proposition because we have never had it proved to ourselves; we were only taught the fact by our parents and teachers and have accepted it "on faith" ever since (as most of our parents and teachers did before us).
Yes, we don't really know as much as we think. (You know, there's something about that last sentence that reminds me of Godel's Theorem. Very unsettling. I think I'll drift off to sleep now.
)On the other hand, we would have eventually proved Einstein or Bohr in/correct. So regardless of who had more faith in their theory, one of them would have been right/wrong regardless. Just believing in something doesn't make it right.
Personally it's not my "faith" in the in/correctness of a theory that motivates me to find out things. It's the need to know if I'm right or not.
I think people don't know how to prove things like the earth going around the sun because they take assurance that someone else has proven it before and that proof went through a lot of other people to make sure the reasoning was correct before people started excepting it.
[Edited by steampunk on 12-20-2000 at 07:49]
Personally it's not my "faith" in the in/correctness of a theory that motivates me to find out things. It's the need to know if I'm right or not.
I think people don't know how to prove things like the earth going around the sun because they take assurance that someone else has proven it before and that proof went through a lot of other people to make sure the reasoning was correct before people started excepting it.
[Edited by steampunk on 12-20-2000 at 07:49]
Actually, we're still waiting; the general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics have yet to be reconciled. Still, I detect no want of belief by the "scientific community" as a whole in either theory.
Half the renowned philosophers who ever were just rolled over in their graves; the other half are still lying in blissful peace.
Yes, sometimes the need to know for a fact that something is true overrules the mere belief or faith that it's true. The "essential tension" between the two, as the late Thomas S. Kuhn might say, is the "dynamic" that drives science. (Think of scientific progress as a staircase, with "reason" being the vertical part and "faith" the horizontal; both are necessary if you are to climb.) Your own description is telltale; you posit that you've already taken a position on whether the "something" is right or wrong before you set out to prove it. While not always the case--I suppose it's possible to approach questions like "boxers vs. briefs" with total neutrality--it's often the way our minds work.
Right, you have faith that it's the truth. Furthermore, you are content to live with that faith for the rest of your life without proving to yourself that it is the truth.
Can you imagine what would happen if "the need to know" always dominated over mere faith? We'd probably still be stuck in the Stone Age, if even that far along. Modern civilization owes great debts to mythology and its kin. (The Kilrathi especially recognize this.)
Knight
Spaceman
Wow, I really figured my post would stir up more s*it than that. Oh well.
Like Quarto said, keep drifting away from religion. Might save this thread and the board Not to mention your privileges 
BTW, what's the deal with the "too many images in your post"? is there a limit on how many smilies we can use now?
Like Quarto said, keep drifting away from religion. Might save this thread and the board
Not to mention your privileges BTW, what's the deal with the "too many images in your post"? is there a limit on how many smilies we can use now?
Quarto: Really? Damn you're right. I had to remove all those smilies I was going to put up!
Knight: Persoanlly I think the word "Prophecy" in the subject saved this thread.
Nemesis: Well you make some good points and I don't see me getting ahead. Was never very good at writing essays. I may have wrongly implied that I had any faith in my theories before I go out and find out what's correct. On the other hand, I suppose I do have faith in that I reasoned things out correctly. Which works against me. So I concede defeat.
Hang on, I take that back.
Ok, I concede again
Knight: Persoanlly I think the word "Prophecy" in the subject saved this thread.
Nemesis: Well you make some good points and I don't see me getting ahead. Was never very good at writing essays. I may have wrongly implied that I had any faith in my theories before I go out and find out what's correct. On the other hand, I suppose I do have faith in that I reasoned things out correctly. Which works against me. So I concede defeat.
Hang on, I take that back.
Ok, I concede again
You can not proove that something is incorrect, as you can't prove a negative. You can only proove that something is "not" correct, just to let you know.
A lot of theories are "unproven" because we don't have the ability to conduct the experiements yet.
Nemisis: There are several ways to reconcile relativity, and quantum mechanincs, but most of them are still only theories which we created very recently. (My favorate is the Super String Theory )
A lot of theories are "unproven" because we don't have the ability to conduct the experiements yet.
Nemisis: There are several ways to reconcile relativity, and quantum mechanincs, but most of them are still only theories which we created very recently. (My favorate is the Super String Theory
)
Quarto
Unknown Enemy
I disagree. "You can't prove a negative" is in itself a negative. Therefore, if this statement is true, then it proves that you can't prove a negative - and thus it proves a negative, rendering itself false. On the other hand, if the statement is false, then it is completely irrelevant.
Therefore, you can prove a negative.
Therefore, you can prove a negative.
Quarto
Unknown Enemy
Discrete maths? Whatever . I'm not working from any textbook definition, but it seems to me that "you can't prove a negative" is a negative because it doesn't tell you something about negatives, but rather it tells you that negatives cannot be talked about - at least in one particular way. Or something 
. At any rate, if the statement was "a negative has never been proven", then it would not be a negative (but then I'd ask for proof). As it is, it seems to be a negative... at least by my logic, which can be bizarre at times.
. I'm not working from any textbook definition, but it seems to me that "you can't prove a negative" is a negative because it doesn't tell you something about negatives, but rather it tells you that negatives cannot be talked about - at least in one particular way. Or something . At any rate, if the statement was "a negative has never been proven", then it would not be a negative (but then I'd ask for proof). As it is, it seems to be a negative... at least by my logic, which can be bizarre at times.Neither, I'm too young to be his rival, and I have never met the man. I just like his theory.
Quarto: "A negative can not be proven" is a negative statement, and therefore can't be proven. However "A negative can be proven" is positive and can be proven, but it will always come up false. Thus, it's negative has to be true. In other words, a negative statement can not be proven.
[Edited by Meson on 12-23-2000 at 01:10]
Quarto
Unknown Enemy
But that's exactly my point, just put in a different way. You've just used the positive statement to demonstrate that the negative statement is true. In other words, you've proven a negative. And by doing so, you've destroyed your entire line of reasoning, because you made the afore-mentioned positive statement "a negative can be proven" come up as true... thus proving that its negative must be false.
But we haven't proven the negative statement. By proving another statement to be neccessarily false we can induce that the original statement neccessarily has to be true. This isn't the same as proving the negative statement. Using the negative statement only you'd never get anywhere. However how using another statement (the contrapositive I believe it's called, something like that ...) we can show that it can't not be true.
I know it seems rather stupid but I believe there's a reason for the differentiation ... I also know that double negatives are stupid too but sometimes you just have to use them ...
I know it seems rather stupid but I believe there's a reason for the differentiation ... I also know that double negatives are stupid too but sometimes you just have to use them ...
Quarto
Unknown Enemy
Whatever
. The fact that your other statement makes it possible to induce that the originan statement has to be true is proof. Whatever you call your method, the fact remains the same - you are proving that the negative statement is true. Whether you're proving that it's true, or just that it can't not be true, is irrelevant, because the double negative is the same as the positive.