I fucked up with Archimedes. Was thinking of someone else.
Anyway, what questions was Archimedes asking to work on displacement? Hhow did it even occur to him that it mattered to know that an equal amount of water is displaced as the thing submerged in terms of volume?
Where the fuck he get that idea?
Archimedes was a military inventor and strategist who also started the scientific method.
His genius. None of these terms or questions had ever been remotely asked.
When I say nothing I dont mean literal nothing, of course it came from his brain, which isnt nothing at all, rather the brains of others are fucking nothing.
Except things HAD been asked. And the method may have been a genious answer to a problem Greeks were already aware of, aside from the specific problem of displacement or even water.
You completely misunderstand the scientific protocol if you think it is about working on some running question.
Thats postmodernism. The exact thing that tries to negate the glory of science which is pure elitism.
No, there have only been maybe a dozen scientists in the whole history of mankind. Nietzsche is counted among them.
Look, the very genius of a scientific thought is the question. To ask a sensible question. That is science.
Fucking postmodernist scum tries to make it seem like the fucking masses ever have anything to do with anything.
As if a billion people scratching their goddamn heads with a stupefied expression amounts in the brilliance of science. No, it doesnt.
If it wasn’t about consensus, why would I even ASK?
Anyway, I’m using dialectics now. that must somehow mean I’ve been defeated.
I like the points you make and how you make them, so I’m sort of beyond caring now whether I’m right that you were wrong. So sue me.
Ok, let me gather myself here.
The question here, as postulated by Faust, I believe, is is science about epistemology? Knowing something directly about the world? If not, it must be about consensus.
And it cannot be, because there is no link between what things are and how words came to be.
And obviously im more than totally happy that you disagree with me here. If anything ever spoke for itself…
Just expressing my utter disdain for postmodernism and any type of consensus based “decisions”.
It would be less offensive to suggest that Caesar made his strategic decisions based on consensus. And that is already beyond offensive.
Ah, yeah, I certainly disagee with that. Science is only about how things work. You know science, you can build a weapon. Or a medicine. Its only about directly about the world. Postmodernism is the other thing.
Out for some tea.
Glad to be disagreeing with you on something.
There aint no bridge here.
I can only admit defeat, as I see my shtick getting sloppy.
You can defeat a man, but you cannot defeat reasonable acquiescence of a properly formulated philosophical postulation!
I will say, you called me an elitist, and by exention a collectivist.
Consuensus only matters when there is no collective, when understanding between individuals is concerned.
What you call consensus is not consensus, it is obedience, accepting some shit because some dude said it and not because you ever even pondered whether it makes sense.
There were no consensi between Church authorities. Just factions with more or less power to impose their made up shit.
Science is about a lot of things. We seem to have a lot of direct information about the world - at least a lot for humans. Seems like a lot to me. We use science to “see” things that are not so suitable to direct observation, even if science requires direct observation. Science is “about” predictions. We probably know pathetically little about how the world works. But that’s not a complaint or a reason not to learn.
Epistemology is about things we cannot discern directly, or with science, or any other fucking way except with our “minds”. Yeah, right. Belief is justified by the results. Done and done.
I will admit victory.
Ill stress one thing Weary Locomotive told me once long ago.
the only knowledge that matters is method. His emphasis.
The thing most 20th centuriers get wrong;
Science isnt about theory, but about practice.
String theory isnt science. Even the hypothesis for its experimentation would require a universe ten times the mass of whats estimated to be that of ours. The power of transmutation of the elements is science. Thats a method.
If a theory doesnt provide a method to new objectively verifiable powers (such as nuclear weapons), it isnt science.
If consensus has anything to do with science it is that people will be forced to agree with its existence if it is employed to coerce or seduce them. But certainly their (mis)understanding of or (dis)agreement with the Vision of which each scientific conception consists, is immaterial.
Ah, so I see why people can think consensus is at the basis of science – they see an army of superior technology invading their livelihood and then assume the consensus fearsomely arising about the power being real was at the origin of that power itself. It is a way of people without science in their repertoire to identify with it. But consensus comes after the fact, and often enough it doesnt come at all because the facts are just too powerful.
In the tranquility of knowing myself among some cool minds,
Science originates in the seeing beyond appearances.
I would testify that appearance is the consensus, the consensus is an agreement about appearances, to the end of regulating them, shaping them along the lines of the majority of instincts.
Science is the magma rumbling below the surface produced by the tectonic suffering of different fundamental truths colliding. When a scientific vision penetrates the surface and shares the world of appearances, it does so with a thundering violence, eclipsing in smoke whatever it doesnt subsume or annihilate. The consensus is that something just happened because some weirdo did some science. The path between the idea and the experience of its implementation is fraught with consensus and counter consensus. But the idea is never really fully conceded to; science is never finished. There is only one science, the one that started for real with Archimedes. The physical apprehension of proportional physical relation, the proof of causation.
When the smoke clears long after the event and the dead cities are excavated, the knowledge of the power that caused all this becomes embedded in the world in a small group of committed investigators. These would be in government or corporate service most of the time yet qua their scientific powers always have some autonomy. Secret services have as their primary objective to keep a check on whatever science is out there, and take stakes in the powers that are emitted by it, indifferent to human value judgments. It is the science that is the value and Intelligence is the quest of being worthy of whatever powers the scientific genius unleashes on the consensus-seeking world of appearances.
Finally, after the powers have been put into play between the adequate political powers, the weird phenomena that took such great tolls in the past are explained through slow dissemination of the science into scientific magazines, newspapers, and school books. This process then slowly informs and empowers a population into a consensus about the usefulness and decency of the powers. But very few people will ever understand the general theory of Relativity, and those that come close to understanding it tend to be heavily entrenched in disagreements. As can be enjoyed right here on ilp. Which isnt as bad as I say.
I was afraid I was going to get more condescending sloppiness. But there are some real gentlemen here.