April 9, 2012
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PROOF
Xangans do not , at least those who’ve checked this site don’t, seem to be interested in any more discussion of government and society right now.
I expect election-year media bombardment has something to do with that attitude; so I’ll propose a fundimental philosophical question instead:
Is it possible to really ” Prove”anything?
For example: Proof using the standard scientific method depends on constant testing with consistent results, which are supposed to “prove”your hypothesis.
Is this really solid proof? Is it possible to declare anything True or proved beyond any shadow of a doubt? Why not?
Comments (17)
Here is a bit of conversation from another site which illustrates some of the questions:
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In keeping the machinery of science true and well functioning, it is critical to pay attention to quibbles like “proof” and “causality”.
If one resorts to using the definition that HV is apparently using, it is not necessary to pay attention to anything; we would have to accept from the start that we cannot know causation.
This is especially important in that interface area where ideas come back out from behind the curtain and get to the general public – the scientific press.
Perhaps so, but we are not discussing the press. My impression with the public media is that they lack the expertise to report on technical matters. Fortunately, we have technical media that are not operated by people who write a story about orphanages one day and nuclear fusion the next.
As for Tom’s comment, I think those who believe that scientific laws are actually broken in nature should give us a few examples to support their belief.
Ok, I’m taking this bait, but I want to be clear – I’m not in this for a fight – I’m doing this because I’m fascinated about how science works and it interests me to discuss this stuff.
Fair enough, but you didn’t show us even one instance in which a scientific law has been shown to be in error.
A scientific law is a meaningless thing – it is an articulation by humans of a pattern we have observed in nature. Pressure varied inversely by volume at a given temperature for millennia before Robert Boyle and Edme Mariotte ever decided to write a law about it. Making it into a law didn’t do anything or change the universe.
This is another diversion into nit picking words. The laws in question should be simply “the laws of nature” as we have observed AND PROVED the observations to be correct in the context of the observations.
Meanwhile, perturbations of the obit of Mercury were similarly used to predict the existence of another planet, Vulcan, in the same way. Unfortunately though, Vulcan resisted all efforts to discover it, even though it’s existence was predicted by Newton’s law.
We all know that the orbit of Mercury is a verification of the General Theory of Relativity. Newton’s law works fine, as long as it is properly applied.
We know NOW. Hind-sight’s 20/20. At the time people knew nothing of the kind. As far as anyone could tell, the law wasn’t working.
The law simply tells us the magnitude of gravitational force as a function of the masses and separation of two objects. This sort of failed attempt solidifies my complaint. People have to perform contortions and invent special definitions in an attempt to defend something that is the creation of philosophers for purposes of entertainment, not for the understanding of how the physical world operates.
The case of dark matter also doesn’t disprove anything. It tells us that we don’t know what is going on with respect to the expansion of the universe.
That’s dark energy. Dark matter has to do with the gravitational behavior of galaxies, which isn’t behaving as we’d expect from all we know so far about the laws of gravitation. So it “seems” for now that the laws are broken. We’ll probably discover another limitation, or proviso, or modifier at galaxy-scale and the laws will be improved to better describe the pattern at all levels.
As we all know there are various hypotheses that have been formed to address the question, but there is presently no instrumentation that can resolve the cause. So what? If and when the cause is found, the laws of nature will not have been violated; instead, we will have data that finally allows the components to be assembled to answer the question.
The whole point is that scientific laws are not sacred.
I still don’t see examples of failures of these laws. We can cite examples of someone using them incorrectly,
Hindsight – at the time they had to actually discover for the first time that they weren’t using them correctly. Up until that time, it seemed like the law was broken.
making bad measurements (as with the neutrino speed error), etc. but the laws stand and still work, whether philosophers like it or not.
Science is not religion. These things we call “laws” are a work in progress. Claiming that they are never broken is useless.
If a “law” is broken, it is fixed. The only instances I have seen of this happening have been when people have tried to apply laws to situations that are outside of the range of validity of the laws
Right. Hindsight again. At the time it wasn’t known that there were any ranges of validity. So it appeared the laws were broken. So the law needed to be modified with a valid range specified. The law as we know it is merely our articulation of our understanding of the situation as we see it so far.
, as when one attempts to deal with particle physics, using macro physics laws, or when the correct laws have been ignored (operator error).
There are times they don’t measure up, and very often those are the times we should be most excited, because that’s when a breakthrough is needed, to explain the gap. Vulcan brought us relativity.
It is my understanding that Einstein developed General Relativity without having to consider Mercury and that the application of his theory resolved the orbital perturbations.
Right, but his work was a ground-breaking paradigm shift, and the way it solved the Mercury problem was apparently quite helpful in it becoming readily accepted in a short amount of time. It is a well-documented situation in science that quite often things we agree are patently obvious now, looking back, were not accepted until the main detractors had died off. You can hear James Watson talk about this in his Intelligence Squared interview, in particular when he relates stories about the massive ego of one Linus Pauling. The long drawn-out fight against plate tectonics, which we all consider “proven” (to borrow your usage of it) now, is another example.
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Soc says: Is “Proof”actually a human attempt to impose order on what is essentially a meaningless universe?
I don’t know if either answer to the question can be proved. Can we prove that we really exist and aren’t in the Matrix? Can we prove that 2 + 2 = 4? It seems like we can but there are certain mathematics where 2 + 2 does not equal 4. Also, there seems to be a contradiction between general relativity and quantum mechanics. LINK
@musterion99 - And the deeper you go into science or philosophy the more you realize that so many of the things we take for granted are just not as sure as we thought.
Technology and science are absolute proof that absolute proof exists. This is because they are able to demonstrate physically that theoretical principles once hypothesized by reason work over and over again in a predictable fashion.
@nidan - That isn’t true at all. The very essence of science if proof. Scientific proofs are both mathematical and empirical. That we don’t know everything, can’t know everything or are yet to understand something has no bearing on whether absolute proof exists.
@musterion99 - A conjecture from pop culture like “The Matrix” can’t be used to disprove anything. Proofs are empirical and reasonable, not matters of conjecture. And yes, 2 + 2 = 4 is absolutely provable in the real world where human beings function every day. If you doubt it, just use your toes or fingers.
@sometimestheycomebackanyway - I wasn’t using it to disprove anything. I just used it hypothetically. Proofs are a matter of somebody’s interpretation. Some things that appear to be true aren’t true. And some things that science has proclaimed to be true in the past have turned out to not be true. How do we know that what we now believe to be true, won’t be true 100 years from now? Did you watch the video I linked. It shows how general relativity and gravity do not seem compatible with quantum mechanics, yet we believe both are true.
@musterion99 - Exactly. Hypothesis cannot used to disprove truth. Further, truth is not a matter of interpretation. The fingers on your hand are real, not a matter of interpretation. And with them you can conclusively prove, absolutely that 2 + 2 = 4. Modern science took proof out of the realm of conjecture and interpretation and conclusively demonstrated that absolute proof exists.
@sometimestheycomebackanyway - In general, I agree with you. My main argument is that a lot of things that we might think are proofs, can in reality not be proofs.
@sometimestheycomebackanyway - “Technology and science are absolute proof that absolute proof exists.” is a good example of the utilitarian view of Proof and Causality – and is quite adequate for “everyday”use – except that nasty word “absolute”.
Newtonian Physics with all its rules and “natural laws”explained the universe – or at last our local part of it – very well for over a century. Then Einstein “proved”that it was basically wrong. Not so wrong that it does not still prove useful in explaining the universe to the under-educated – but still basically wrong.
Einsteinian Relativity in turn is not adequate to explain certain sub-atomic and macro phenomena and has been supplanted by “Quantum Mechanics”- and this is just in the rather narrow field of Physics.
Apparently all those “Scientific”studies now dominated by the “Scientific Method” are always subject to correction and no proof is ever accepted as absolute.
Maybe there is no such thing as absolute proof.
@tychecat - Newton physics isn’t basically wrong. Newton physics is as right as rain. It’s principles are born out by mathematics and scientific experimentation, both of which have led to technological development.
Einsteinian physics concerns physical principles such as gravity on a cosmological scale. Einstein acheived fame for developing the mathematics that proved his theories. Yet it was decades before his theories were proven by science.
@Socrates_Cafe - I finally got a chance to read this comment in depth, thanks for sharing. It’s hard to really know what they are talking about without the whole conversation to provide some context. But here are my general thoughts on the subject: I have a natural distrust for the “technical (depending on his usage of the word “technical”) media. They have a polarizing agenda and an arrogant attitude.
It’s fallacious to: appeal to your certifications as evidence to support your argument, present your opinions as though they are facts, and to use semantics to support and deny physical observations. The above is true because arguments are either valid or invalid based on their own merits NOT: the education level of the arguer, religious affiliations, and labels such as scientific or religious.
Arthur C Clarke once said “When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.”
One of the commenters above used the example of the “law” of gravity as an example. The proto-form of this law was: “Whatever goes up, must eventually come down.” Any amateur astronomer can disprove that by observing the sky. Even without a telescope.
It wasn’t until Newton’s observations that we realized that the force that holds us to earth is likely the same force that holds the planets (And Luna) in their orbits.
The more that we learn about our physical realm, the more we realize just how much more we have to learn, before we know even a fraction of what’s knowable. That was the basis of my comment to @musterion99. I find it far more accurate to describe knowability in degrees and probability. (as well as valid and invalid arguments)
For example @musterion99’s comments about the universe being like “the matrix” films. That’s an extremely old adage in philosophy. However the chances are so remote, and effect our perception in only such abstract ways, that the point is almost moot, save for in a philosophical sense. But it’s a whole other beast to claim it’s impossible.
Then we get into how our own biases confuse the mater even further. My favorite example of this is the plight of Georges Lemaître. When he published his observations that the universe was expanding and then took the next logical conclusion it was secularists who denounced him as a religious zealot and pronounced his theory are being “religion” NOT science.
The irony of that fact is that today if you challenge the same theory then you are derided as a religious zealot.
The labels “religious” and “scientific” are just that; labels. The critics of intelligent design ridicule it on the basis of it being a “religious” concept rather than a “scientific” one, simply because they confuse the meaning of the word “scientific” with “true”.
The fact is either God exists or not. If it is in fact proven that God does exist, then tell me: What does prevent it from being a “scientific” theory?
PS: I disagree with the last statement, that the universe is meaningless. There is a lot of meaning to the universe, one just needs to know where to look.
Soc says: I’m delighted that there are still a few of us who enjoy considering the concepts of universal truths
@sometimestheycomebackanyway - Sorry TSCBA, Newtonian physics was neither completely right nor proved .
Here’s a brief list of some problems from the U of Winnipeg’s site:
Newton’s laws of mechanics and universal gravitation worked wonderfully well in describing virtually all terrestial phenomena as well as the motions of the moon and the planets. In this sense Newton provided a beautiful synthesis of two previously distinct sets of phenomena: the terrestrial and the celestial. However, as with all theories and combination of experimental results and conceptual reasoning ultimately forced Newton’s gravitation theory to be modified and replaced by Einsein’s theory of general relativity. There were essentially three problems with Newton’s theory. First of all, there was a conceptual problem. In Newtonian gravity, the strength of the gravitational force bewteen two bodies was proportional to the product of the inertial masses of the bodies. Inertial mass was therefore doing double duty: by definition, it was a measure of the resistence of an object to a change in velocity. In addition, inertial mass seem to also play a role as the “gravitational charge”. In much the same way that electric charge determines the strength of electrostatic forces between two charged objects, the inertial mass (a.k.a. the gravitational charge) determines the strength of the corresponding gravitational force. This is the reason that, as found by Galileo, all objects fall to Earth at precisely the same rate. The reason for this double duty is a complete mystery in the context of Newtonian mechanics, but is essentially a trivial consequence of Einsteinian gravity. The second problem with Newton’s theory was that it described gravity as an instantaneous force of attraction between two massive objects. Consequently, if you move one of them, the other knows about the move immediately due to the change in gravitation, irrespective of the distance between them. FInally, and most importantly, there was a discrepancy, albeit very tiny, between the predictions of Newton’s theory, and experimental observation for the precession of Mercury’s orbit.
You will note that some of these problems were mentioned by the group I quoted above
@nidan - Sometimes its hard to know what that group is talking about even when you have the full thread, but basically they were debating the possibility of absolute proof and absolute truth; both of which are human concepts and part of our efforts to understand the cosmos and our place in it.
Where do you think we fit?
@Socrates_Cafe - The Roman Prefect Pilot once asked Yeshua “What is truth?” I don’t rightly remember if the answer was recorded in scripture. I may go look that up after I click “submit”.At the risk of degrading my response, I’m reminded of Indiana Jones’ speech at the beginning of one of his movies. That Archeology is the search for facts, not truth. Truth is taught down the hall in philosophy 101. My own archeology (Who was a huge fan of Harrison Ford) gave a similar speech.
The reason I bring that up is because the difference between Fact and truth is often obscured. A fact is best defined as an objective truth. And yes, I do believe that facts exist. I’m just skeptical of anyone who claims they know the facts.
Truth is a grander concept and better defined as the best possible understanding, IMHO.
Does that answer your question?
@Socrates_Cafe - The truth expressed in Newtonian physics is so absolute that mankind can send an object from to any body in the Solar System with almost pin point accuracy.
It is not the function or the expectation that Newtonian physics explain everything concerning gravity. But what it does explain and model through mathematics is right on the money.
The problem as I see it, is that “Proof”seems to include the concept of absolute certainty – something the Scientific Method never, so far as I can understand,claimed.
I think it’s too bad that modern philosophers tend to neglect the basic problems of humans relation to the cosmos and nit-pick on epistemology.