• AmadeusD
    2.6k
    So, can you spin out a narrative of difference that illuminates the meaning of science being accurate measurement and art being touchy-feely measurement?ucarr

    I can take this one:

    Art has no right/wrong value. It has good/bad value (and subjective, at that). Science is the opposite. It has right/wrong values, and no good/bad values.

    Art isn't even defined well enough to measure anything, additionally. Science is well-defined as a methodology of observation and measure. At any rate, science would be prior to art, if they were to be intertwined in a non-trivial way.
  • I like sushi
    4.8k
    When you talk about the difference between the two disciplines, you talk about art being resistant to accurate measurement. So, can you spin out a narrative of difference that illuminates the meaning of science being accurate measurement and art being touchy-feely measurement?ucarr

    That is an oversimplification I feel. Science does require creativity as much as art.

    There are not just TWO distinct disciplines. There is a good deal of overlap between various fields of interest within and between Science and Humanities subjects.

    If you wish me to focus merely on 'accuracy of measuring' then I guess I can try, but that is not what science is. Nor would I say the humanities is just 'touchy feely' as each leaves an impression on the other (science affects humanities and humanities affects science). For this reason I would not state that the humanities 'resists' accurate measurement at all - no field of study does that. There is a history of science (humanities) as well as items like linguistics (the science of language).

    'Meaning' of science in terms of accurate measurements? Mmm ... I guess the humanities is far more concerned with felt experience rather than observed experience. That would probably be the best simplistic distinction - both 'measure' in different ways. I guess it is a matter of Value; the arts are concerned with subjective value that nevertheless approaches pure abstracted ideas of beauty and such (feelings/impressions) whereas the sciences are concerned with objective value that can be formulated into an abstract 'meaning' (equation).

    There is a whole sea of grey. I do not for an instance assume there is a 'black or white' to this but that such ideas of a pure black and white differentiations represent an abstraction of experience.
  • Tarskian
    658
    I guess it is a matter of Value; the arts are concerned with subjective value that nevertheless approaches pure abstracted ideas of beauty and such (feelings/impressions) whereas the sciences are concerned with objective value that can be formulated into an abstract 'meaning' (equation).I like sushi

    There are fields that are a tightly meshed combination of both, such as architecture. A good number of architectural rules have been experimentally tested for safety. Still, subjective aesthetics have always been a major consideration in the construction of new buildings. The same can be said about the design of cars or any consumer product.
  • 180 Proof
    15.3k
    Science does require creativity as much as art.I like sushi
    :up:
  • ucarr
    1.5k


    I would find it very uncomfortable to call "agreement between prediction and outcome" science, as opposed to just a fact about science.AmadeusD

    Well, if a fact about science is a science fact, then you must explain how a science fact is not science. Take for example electrolysis, the process of using electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. That's a science fact. It's public, measurable and repeatable. This is not science you say?

    How is it not the case that your argument above is not pettifogging en route to word muddle?

    When you're done with an epic performance of a play, you aren't still performing the play when you pick up your Tony award eight months later, for instance.AmadeusD

    Here I think you insert an artificial partition; the Tony Awards would be meaningless without the dramatic performances that precede it.

    Art has no right/wrong value. It has good/bad value (and subjective, at that). Science is the opposite. It has right/wrong values, and no good/bad values.AmadeusD

    Here you distill the war between science and art: successful navigation of right and wrong facts and right and wrong logic leads to the science and technology that produces nuclear bombs.

    Detonation of nuclear bombs causes the good or bad vaporization of entire populations, enemy combatants and innocent civilians alike.

    Can we see, herein, that right and wrong is concerned with what things are, whereas good and bad is concerned with the moral meaning of how things are experienced? Is this not an important difference between science and art? Does not Chris Nolan, through
    Oppenheimer, spin out a narrative detailing the agony of a scientist caught in the crossfire between what he perceived as right and wrong versus good and bad?
  • jkop
    900
    There are fields that are an tightly meshed combination of both, such as architecture. A good number of architectural rules have been experimentally tested for safety. Still, subjective aesthetics have always been a major consideration in the construction of new buildings. The same can be said about the design of cars or any consumer product.Tarskian

    That's right.

    For millennia, humans have understood that buildings should be practical, beautiful, and sustainable, because if any of these qualities are omitted or prioritized the buildings become practical but not beautiful, or beautiful but unsustainable, or sustainable but regardless of how.

    Yet the modern functionalists systematically disregarded the beautiful (or reinterpreted it as a function) as they prioritized practical qualities of planning, engineering, economy, service etc.

    Other architects did the converse, became aesthetes or humanists with an interest in anthropology, sociology, ecology etc.

    Nowadays many architects are neither engineers nor humanists but coordinators or sales people who use the aesthetic features of engineering or humanistic declarations for symbolic advertising purposes.

    The relation between the practical, the aesthetic, and the sustainable is detached.

    For example, some postmodern buildings are designed to appear sustainable (e.g. covered in solar panels, roof gardens etc.) despite being less sustainable than conventional or retrofitted buildings. There's no causal relation between the aesthetics and the sustainability and the practical reason for solar panels.
  • ucarr
    1.5k


    ...science is an epistemic domain governed by a justification method. It really does not matter what exactly it is about as long as the justification method of testability can successfully be applied.Tarskian

    The same is true for mathematics. It is the epistemic domain governed by the justification method of axiomatic provability.Tarskian

    This means that a purely formalist view is perfectly sustainable in mathematics and science:Tarskian

    According to formalism, the truths expressed in logic and mathematics are not about numbers, sets, or triangles or any other coextensive subject matter — in fact, they aren't "about" anything at all.

    When you say logic and math aren't about anything at all, do you extend this application all the way to include the internal consistency of logic and math? Hasn't Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem rocked the houses of logic and math because it charges them with essential incompleteness? Doesn't this charge undermine their internal consistency? Doesn't the claim the first-order formalisms of logic and science will always generate statements internally unprovable open a wide fissure down the middle of formalism? Haven't you cited this as the crisis in math?
  • ucarr
    1.5k


    So, can you spin out a narrative of difference that illuminates the meaning of science being accurate measurement and art being touchy-feely measurement?ucarr

    That is an oversimplification I feel. Science does require creativity as much as art.I like sushi

    Tactical simplification is a good thing; in the case of trying to examine a complex thing, simplification of complexity can be a useful method towards clarification and subsequent understanding improved.

    There are not just TWO distinct disciplines. There is a good deal of overlap between various fields of interest within and between Science and Humanities subjects.I like sushi

    Yes. This is well known. Our focus herein, however, is the task of articulating in terms both rational and general, why it is that institutions of higher learning segregate departments of the sciences from departments of the humanities. Is it mere formality, or is it formalism undergirded by an intuition of profound difference (in my opinion not yet clearly articulated into a cogent cognition)?

    If you wish me to focus merely on 'accuracy of measuring' then I guess I can try, but that is not what science is. Nor would I say the humanities is just 'touchy feely' as each leaves an impression on the other (science affects humanities and humanities affects science).I like sushi

    Perhaps your line of attack on the question under examination here: science vs art, lies rooted in the calculus. The differentiation/integration essentials of calculus are rational approaches to the complex and nuanced mesh of science and art. Yes, there is subtlety in the mesh, but differentiation/integration essentials are no less undeniable.

    ...both 'measure' in different ways. I guess it is a matter of Value; the arts are concerned with subjective value that nevertheless approaches pure abstracted ideas of beauty and such (feelings/impressions) whereas the sciences are concerned with objective value that can be formulated into an abstract 'meaning' (equation).I like sushi

    From your writing above I'm thinking you're not totally averse to my claim science and art differ mainly in terms of two different modalities of discovery: science leans towards objective discovery; art leans towards subjective discovery, and QM establishes where the twain shall meet!
  • ucarr
    1.5k


    There are fields that are a tightly meshed combination of both, such as architecture.Tarskian

    :up:

    I think another example is motion picture directing. In my understanding, the motion picture director is a mesh of dynamic systems engineering and aesthetic storytelling.

    Given this definition of the director, motion pictures are constructed motion machines as light and shadow signifiers.
  • ucarr
    1.5k


    Yet the modern functionalists systematically disregarded the beautiful (or reinterpreted it as a function) as they prioritized practical qualities of planning, engineering, economy, service etc.jkop

    This is mediocrity turning art into by-the-numbers methodology.

    There's no causal relation between the aesthetics and the sustainability and the practical reason for solar panels.jkop

    Does such a causal relation exist?
  • I like sushi
    4.8k
    From your writing above I'm thinking you're not totally averse to my claim science and art differ mainly in terms of two different modalities of discovery: science leans towards objective discovery; art leans towards subjective discovery, and QM establishes where the twain shall meet!ucarr

    Well, that is such an obvious difference that I am baffled why you would wish to point it out? If your point is merely that Art is subjective and Science is objective (broadly speaking) ... so what?

    I think I at least offered something a little more nuanced by approaching what they Value rather than how objective they are. As I mentioned, Superstring Theory is only still around because it seems to solve certain problems BUT there is no objective evidence - it is purely theoretical.

    Maybe you will find this interesting; I have mentioned before some time ago ...

    Art does two things (1) brings temporal experience into a singular moment (2) transforms a singular moment into a continuous temporal experience.

    For example, if I listen to a piece of music or watch a movie the experience becomes one unified whole, whereas if I look at a sculpture or a painting I stretch the experience out across time and animate it. Time is the medium of art.

    Science does neither. Science is singularly focused on reducing data to a universally applicable formula. Time is tool not a medium for science.
  • ucarr
    1.5k


    From your writing above I'm thinking you're not totally averse to my claim science and art differ mainly in terms of two different modalities of discovery: science leans towards objective discovery; art leans towards subjective discovery, and QM establishes where the twain shall meet!ucarr

    Well, that is such an obvious difference that I am baffled why you would wish to point it out? If your point is merely that Art is subjective and Science is objective (broadly speaking) ... so what?I like sushi

    What = existence; How = journeyucarr

    The above is my launch into the spine of my OP.

    Discovery of "what" is rooted in the nominative predication of the fact of existing things.

    This nominative predication of the fact of existing things establishes "what is."

    Discovery of "how" is rooted in the adverbial modification of the nominative predication of the fact of existing things.

    This adverbial modification of the nominative predication of the fact of existing things narrates "what it's like" to experience "what is."

    This adverbial modification elaborates both the effect and the affect of the fact of existing things. To the main point, "how" drags consciousness into the frame of the lens of discovery.

    David Chalmers has enlightened us with just how profound is the difference between "what" and "how" with his seminal paper, "The Hard Problem." It delineates what is perhaps the greatest limitation of abductive reasoning from "what."

    With his paper, "The Hard Problem," David Chalmers shows in stark fashion what science, so far, cannot do: it cannot objectify the personal point of view of an enduring, individual self with personal history attached. It can technologize the self via computation, but the result isn't an authentic self. Instead, it's just a simulation of the self without an autonomous self-awareness. This technical self is just a machine awaiting additional source code from humans.

    There's a question whether a self-aware source code can (or would want to) liberate itself from the formalism out of which it emerges. Curiously, Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem might be a harbinger pointing the way towards a definitive understanding reductive materialism is flawed. (Even if a humanoid simulation evolves to the level of undetectability, it will still be an automaton running on programmatic source code.)

    If there's a grain of truth in what I've written above, then Tarskian is correct in the characterization of the Incompleteness Theorem being the cause of a crisis in science and math. Jeffrey Kaplan compounds the reality of this crisis with his exegesis of Russell's Paradox.

    Kaplan_Russell's Paradox

    Is there a bridge linking "what" with "how" in the context I've elaborated here?
  • MoK
    381
    The sciences are concerned with how. How does light propagate, how are chemical bonds formed, how do worms reproduce.Lionino
    Physics is not concerned with how at the fundamental level. We know how light propagates. A temporal change in the electric field produces the magnetic field and vice versa. That is how we explain the propagation of light. Yet we don't know at the fundamental level how a temporal change in the electric field produces the magnetic field and vice versa.
  • Lionino
    2.7k
    You are talking out of your butt.
  • MoK
    381
    You are talking out of your butt.Lionino
    That is a typical response from a person who either does not understand an argument or does not have any argument to add something fruitful to a discussion. Do you know how a temporal change in the electric field produces the magnetic field?
  • jkop
    900
    Does such a causal relation exist?ucarr

    Yes, in the sense that architecture causally emerges from the building's practical, aesthetical, and sustainable qualities.

    The use of an aesthetic that makes an unsustainable building appear sustainable won't make it sustainable, the causal relation is not satisfied. Likewise, minimalists used an auster practical looking aesthetic that was not so practical, often overly complicated and expensive to achieve.
  • ucarr
    1.5k


    Yes, in the sense that architecture causally emerges from the building's practical, aesthetical, and sustainable qualities.jkop

    So, one possible summit of a science-art mesh would be a building that's useful, ecological and beautiful.
  • Lionino
    2.7k
    at the fundamental levelMoK

    1 – This means nothing.

    We know how light propagatesMoK

    2 – I said physics is concerned with 'how', not whether we know how this or that particular fact.

    3 – You then proceed to give a physical — though incorrect — explanation of how light propagates, self-refuting your claim that physics isn't concerned with how.

    A temporal changeMoK

    4 – This phrase "temporal change" isn't used in physics.

    A temporal change in the electric field produces the magnetic field and vice versaMoK

    5 – That is electromagnetic induction as given by B-S's Law and L's Law. Nothing to do with propagation of the electromagnetic wave.

    Yet we don't know at the fundamental level how a temporal change in the electric field produces the magnetic field and vice versa.MoK

    6 – Cut the nonsensical "fundamental" out of the phrase and it is evidently wrong. Even with the "fundamental" there, one could argue it is wrong too, resorting to relativistic explanations.

    Do you know how a temporal change in the electric field produces the magnetic field?MoK

    lol
  • SophistiCat
    2.2k
    FUCKING MAGNETS, HOW DO THEY WORK?
  • wonderer1
    2.2k
    FUCKING MAGNETS, HOW DO THEY WORK?SophistiCat

    :rofl: :up:
  • Lionino
    2.7k
    Who said Christians can't rap?
  • MoK
    381
    1 – This means nothing.Lionino
    It means something. It means given the laws of nature you can predict the behavior of entities. The laws of nature cannot however be explained. That is what I mean by at the fundamental level.

    2 – I said physics is concerned with 'how', not whether we know how this or that particular fact.Lionino
    Ok, so you are correcting yourself.

    3 – You then proceed to give a physical — though incorrect — explanation of how light propagates, self-refuting your claim that physics isn't concerned with how.Lionino
    I mean an explanation in terms of the laws of nature. By this, I mean given the laws of nature you can explain things but you cannot explain the laws of nature.

    4 – This phrase "temporal change" isn't used in physics.Lionino
    It is used. Change can be temporal or spatial. By temporal I mean the strength of the electromagnetic field for example changes at a point in space by time.

    5 – That is electromagnetic induction as given by B-S's Law and L's Law. Nothing to do with propagation of the electromagnetic wave.Lionino
    You can produce electric field if magnetic field changes by time. You can also produce magnetic field in absence of electrical current if electric field changes by time. That is how light propagate in space.

    6 – Cut the nonsensical "fundamental" out of the phrase and it is evidently wrong. Even with the "fundamental" there, one could argue it is wrong too, resorting to relativistic explanations.Lionino
    By fundamental I mean we don't know how the laws of nature work.

    lolLionino
    So you know!?
  • Lionino
    2.7k
    Ok, so you are correcting yourself.MoK

    No, I am not. My statement is the same as before. Scroll up and read it.

    It is used.MoK

    No, it is not. I could control+F several physics textbook pdfs of mine with 1000+pages each and the phrase "temporal change" wouldn't appear once.

    By temporal I mean the strength of the electromagnetic field for example changes at a point in space by time.MoK

    This is complete gibberish.

    That is how light propagate in space.MoK

    As I have just said, it is not, you got it completely backwards.
  • Lionino
    2.7k
    The discussion aroud physics is finished for me. Otherwise, I would like to have the answer to the moment of the following force, in Cartesian coordinates:
    Reveal
    wOy3pLS.png
    Thanks.
  • Tarskian
    658
    When you say logic and math aren't about anything at all, do you extend this application all the way to include the internal consistency of logic and math? Hasn't Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem rocked the houses of logic and math because it charges them with essential incompleteness? Doesn't this charge undermine their internal consistency?ucarr
    In the formalist view, mathematics is just about string manipulation.

    Even though a mathematical theory -- if it is capable of arithmetical string manipulations -- cannot prove the consistency of its own string manipulations, it does not mean that these string manipulations are necessarily inconsistent.

    Doesn't the claim the first-order formalisms of logic and science will always generate statements internally unprovable open a wide fissure down the middle of formalism? Haven't you cited this as the crisis in math?ucarr
    There are true strings that can be expressed in the language of an arithmetic-capable theory that cannot be generated (from its axioms) by means of legitimate string manipulations in the theory.

    This incompleteness does not contradict the formalist view that mathematics is just about string manipulation.

    By the way, formalism is just one possible view on mathematics. Platonism, for example, is also a perfectly sustainable view.

    A formalist view on science is that it is just about experimental test report production. If you can produce such report about the claim, then it is science.
  • ucarr
    1.5k


    Even though a mathematical theory -- if it is capable of arithmetical string manipulations -- cannot prove the consistency of its own string manipulations, it does not mean that these string manipulations are necessarily inconsistent.Tarskian

    Okay. So things are well understood even if if they're not completely understood.

    There are true strings that can be expressed in the language of an arithmetic-capable theory that cannot be generated (from its axioms) by means of legitimate string manipulations in the theory.

    This incompleteness does not contradict the formalist view that mathematics is just about string manipulation.
    Tarskian

    Some stuff is going on not completely explainable in one situation, but that doesn't mean pure math operations aren't copacetic.

    ...formalism is just one possible view on mathematics. Platonism, for example, is also a perfectly sustainable view.Tarskian

    Just because the universe is inherently logical and computational, that doesn't mean it's not also mysterious, or should I say, miraculous?
  • Tarskian
    658
    Just because the universe is inherently logical and computational, that doesn't mean it's not also mysterious, or should I say, miraculous?ucarr

    Even if the universe turns out to have a theory, this theory will almost surely be incomplete and therefore be able to predict just a small fraction of its facts. So, there is indeed ample scope for mysteries and miracles.
  • ucarr
    1.5k


    :grin: :up:
  • Lionino
    2.7k
    Gödel's incompleteness theorems does not automatically apply to physics. The GITs are about axiom systems. Physical theories are not just axiom systems.

    https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/228806/does-g%C3%B6dels-incompleteness-theorem-really-say-anything-about-the-limitations-of

    There is no ample scope for "mysteries and miracles" here beyond someone's uneducated sophistry.

    Stephen Hawking, by the way, was an atheist.
bold
italic
underline
strike
code
quote
ulist
image
url
mention
reveal
youtube
tweet
Add a Comment

Welcome to The Philosophy Forum!

Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.