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GreatAwakening
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Reason: None provided.

There is so much here I disagree with, but instead of going through it all, I am going to try a different approach.

the scientific method is entirely predicated on objective assessment

No it is not. There is bias in each and every step of scientific endeavor, and that is unavoidable. When we take measurements, we leave some out. For example, "I bumped the table here, so I will leave this measurement out." If our data is really bad, we will assume we made a mistake in the protocol and do the entire thing again. When we present data we choose how to present it. The data can be presented in many ways, but we choose, in our subjective process, the way we think best represents our thoughts, our conclusions. Someone else repeating the same experiment will come to different conclusions, even if only slightly. They will present their evidence in a way that represents those conclusions. In a body of pictures in biology for example, we will select the one picture that best represents our subjective conclusions. Someone else might pick something completely different.

Our intuition, our biases guide these subjective decisions. And there is nothing wrong with that. It is the debate that leads us closer to the Truth in science. Science itself is designed specifically to never make claims of Truth because that closes the door on future investigation and debate, which is the opposite of the founding principles of science.

I have been trying to explain that to be truly objective (completely distinct from self AKA subjective) is to speak the absolute Truth (AKA they are redundant). But we can't speak the absolute Truth, we don't know what it is and our language is too limited to speak it. Our definitions of things miss most of what a thing is. Science never speaks the Truth, because it can't. That is not its purpose. We never close the door in science, because it is impossible to say anything True using the scientific process. It's goal is to get closer and closer to the truth. Like taking sum(1/2^n) (i.e. always taking a step halfway to your goal), it never reaches 1.

If being objective were not possible then human beings wouldn't be capable of communicating things such as the speed of light in a vacuum or the acceleration due to gravity on earth; these values would change based from person to person if that were the case.

Neither of these values is unchanging. The acceleration due to gravity depends on where you are, and changes from moment to moment, even in a stationary place. The 9.81m/s^2 is an approximation. It changes all the time. The speed of light is exact, but it's exact by definition, and only within a certain context. It is an average speed of light. A photon can travel at any speed it wants (Heisenberg uncertainty principle), but on average it will travel at c. In other words, it is entirely possible to set up an experiment and get variance within that measurement, albeit according to QM, the experimental setup would have to be very small.

Even the word "the speed of light" is a misnomer. It is more appropriately called the speed of information. And yet we have many theories that allow for the possibility that information (or light) can travel at any speed by altering spacetime itself (both QM and GR allow for non-locality, in fact they practically insist on it). The very idea of spacetime, upon which all theories of the movements of the heavens are based (including the speed of light) is an unproven axiom with a great deal of controversy. We have had to make up the ideas of "Dark Energy" and "Dark Matter" just to hold onto those axioms even though there is zero other evidential support for those ideas.

The point is, all of the things you think are "objective truths" are not at all. They are subjective ideas that do not capture the whole of a thing. They are fraught with controversy or subjective interpretation. The greatest breakthroughs in physics (or science in general) come from subjective bias AKA intuition bucking the standard (consensus) view and thinking of things in completely new and subjective ways.

2 years ago
1 score
Reason: Original

There is so much here I disagree with, but instead of going through it all, I am going to try a different approach.

the scientific method is entirely predicated on objective assessment

No it is not. There is bias in each and every step of scientific endeavor, and that is unavoidable. When we take measurements, we leave some out. For example, "I bumped the table here, so I will leave this measurement out." If our data is really bad, we will assume we made a mistake in the protocol and do the entire thing again. When we present data we choose how to present it. The data can be presented in many ways, but we choose, in our subjective process, the way we think best represents our thoughts, our conclusions. Someone else repeating the same experiment will come to different conclusions, even if only slightly. They will present their evidence in a way that represents those conclusions. In a body of pictures in biology for example, we will select the one picture that best represents our subjective conclusions. Someone else might pick something completely different.

Our intuition, our biases guide these subjective decisions. And there is nothing wrong with that. It is the debate that leads us closer to the Truth in science. Science itself is designed specifically to never make claims of Truth because that closes the door on future investigation and debate, which is the opposite of the founding principles of science.

I have been trying to explain that to be truly objective (completely distinct from self AKA subjective) is to speak the absolute Truth (AKA they are redundant). But we can't speak the absolute Truth, we don't know what it is and our language is too limited to speak it. Our definitions of things miss most of what a thing is. Science never speaks the Truth, because it can't. That is not its purpose. We never close the door in science, because it is impossible to say anything True using the scientific process. It's goal is to get closer and closer to the truth. Like taking sum(1/2^n) (i.e. always taking a step halfway to your goal), it never reaches 1.

If being objective were not possible then human beings wouldn't be capable of communicating things such as the speed of light in a vacuum or the acceleration due to gravity on earth; these values would change based from person to person if that were the case.

Neither of these values is unchanging. The acceleration due to gravity depends on where you are, and changes from moment to moment, even in a stationary place. The 9.81m/s^2 is an approximation. It changes all the time. The speed of light is exact, but it's exact by definition, and only within a certain context. It is an average speed of light. A photon can travel at any speed it wants (Heisenberg uncertainty principle), but on average it will travel at c. In other words, it is entirely possible to set up an experiment and get variance within that measurement, albeit according to QM, the experimental setup would have to be very small.

Even the word "the speed of light" is a misnomer. It is more appropriately called the speed of information. And yet we have many theories that allow for the possibility that information (or light) can travel at any speed by altering spacetime itself (both QM and GR allow for non-locality). The very idea of spacetime, upon which all theories of the movements of the heavens are based (including the speed of light) is an unproven axiom with a great deal of controversy. We have had to make up the ideas of "Dark Energy" and "Dark Matter" just to hold onto those axioms even though there is zero other evidential support for those ideas.

The point is, all of the things you think are "objective truths" are not at all. They are subjective ideas that do not capture the whole of a thing. They are fraught with controversy or subjective interpretation. The greatest breakthroughs in physics (or science in general) come from subjective bias AKA intuition bucking the standard (consensus) view and thinking of things in completely new and subjective ways.

2 years ago
1 score