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Can Science Answer All Questions About The Universe?

Debate Information

I don't mean presently, but rather in theory. Once "all the data is in".

Will science ever be able to answer questions like: "What is time", "What is space", "What is a number", "What is the mind", "What is knowledge", "What is reality", "What is evil", "What is justice" etc...

Or do you think questions like these will forever exist only in the realm of philosophy? That science either does not, or perhaps should not, deal with them?

Please discuss.



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  • JulesKorngoldJulesKorngold 811 Pts   -  
    Argument Topic: No

    From the Gemini chatbot:

    Science can't answer all questions about the universe. Here's why:

    • Limits of the Scientific Method: Science relies on evidence and experimentation. Some things are simply too far in the past, too distant, or too difficult to recreate in a lab for scientific methods to be applied. For example, the exact conditions of the Big Bang might be beyond our ability to ever experimentally verify.
    • Certain Types of Questions: Science excels at explaining the how and what of the universe, but some questions are more about meaning or purpose. These are philosophical or religious questions that science doesn't attempt to answer. For instance, science can't tell you if there's a God or why we exist.

    However, science is constantly expanding our knowledge of the universe. Even if there are some fundamental questions that remain unanswered, science can provide powerful insights and testable theories.

  • JoesephJoeseph 654 Pts   -  
    Science can never prove anything with absolute certainty as our understanding is based on observations of the world which are based on inductive processes whose conclusions which are normally reliable can surprise they are not empirically verifiable.
  • MayCaesarMayCaesar 5970 Pts   -  
    Science deals with questions of structure of reality. It does not really deal with terminological questions such as "What is time?" While philology and linguistics deal with nuances of human language, they are not concerned with answering the question per se, although they may be concerned in how the concept of time evolved in various societies and why.

    When it comes to human-made concepts of "justice" and "evil", science can only tackle their intersection with reality. For example, if "justice" is roughly defined as everyone being treated meritocratically, then science can look for the optimal organization of society in which the probability of such treatment is maximized. It cannot look for the "best definition" of "justice", however, since definitions are just word encodings, and those are fairly arbitrary.
  • JoesephJoeseph 654 Pts   -  


    For example, if "justice" is roughly defined as everyone being treated meritocratically,@MayCaesar

    How would you even begin to go about that? How would science aid the process?
  • just_sayinjust_sayin 855 Pts   -  
    Argument Topic: Science of the Gaps

    A common science of the gaps claim that you may hear is 'well, we science may not be able to explain it right now, but trust me, in the future science will be able to explain it'.  This is nothing more than a faith claim.  There is no reason to assume that all mysteries are scientifically answerable and that God may not be the explanation for that which science can not explain. 

    Many atheists engage in special pleading for the 'miracles' that they believe in:
    1) Everything came from nothing
    2) Order came from chaos
    3) life came from non-life
    4) Consciousness came from the mindless
    5) Morals came from matter

    Even though science has not shown that these are possible, the faithful atheist bitter clings to these faith claims.  No, science can not answer all the questions of the universe.
  • jackjack 447 Pts   -  

    I don't mean presently, but rather in theory. Once "all the data is in".

    Hello N:

    Of course,  Once ALL the data is in, means that we've answered ALL the questions about the Universe.. 

    excon
  • MayCaesarMayCaesar 5970 Pts   -   edited March 25
    Joeseph said:


    For example, if "justice" is roughly defined as everyone being treated meritocratically,@MayCaesar

    How would you even begin to go about that? How would science aid the process?
    Same way as you think about any other scientific question: you build a model, formulate hypotheses, collect evidence... Modern corporations spend large amounts of resources on improving the hiring process so the most productive and efficient employees are selected. This is nothing new, and "management science" is rapidly becoming a prominent academic research field.

    Science studies real world phenomena, including achievement of one's goals. If your goal is to make your organization as meritocratic as possible, and if you have a concrete definition of meritocracy in mind, then nothing prevents you from applying the scientific method to understanding how that can be achieved. Science can even help you understand what goals you should have, assuming you have a concrete meta-goal in mind, such as long-term happiness.

    What science cannot study is entities that are confined to human imagination. If something can be defined arbitrarily, or told arbitrary stories about, then science is powerless, because it relies on falsifiability and reproducibility, and human imagination is not a subject to that. Bluntly put, if the reality cannot hit you in the face for being wrong, then "wrong" is meaningless in this context.

    If I am wrong about my stress tensor calculation when designing a skyscraper, the consequences will be drastic: the nature will not have mercy on me and tell me that I am wrong by sending the skyscraper down on my head.
    But what does it mean to be wrong about "the meaning of life"? Nothing: there are no consequences. I say, "The meaning of life is an upside-down elephant". So what? Maybe Lady Nature will laugh quietly in its emerald chambers, but she will not grant me a response. Some religious people believe that "god", or "spirits", or whatever grants them a response to their philosophical musings, but if you listen to their explanations, you will see that said response, too, is a product of their imagination.
    ZeusAres42
  • JoesephJoeseph 654 Pts   -   edited March 25
    @MayCaesar

    Same way as you think about any other scientific question: you build a model, formulate hypotheses, collect evidence... Modern corporations spend large amounts of resources on improving the hiring process so the most productive and efficient employees are selected. This is nothing new, and "management science" is rapidly becoming a prominent academic research field.

    Normally the hiring process is done through agencies who recommend potential candidates for various roles , it then becomes a task for management to pick out potentially the best of the lot.

    Management science cannot accurately predict business phenomena that contains behavioral elements as its mostly ignores the importance of people and other non quantifiable factors.

    I see HR is also defined as a Science which is ludicrous,  I know from first hand experience HR is mostly and used as a weapon to keep staff in their place. One of my wife's team in her company was under extreme pressure and the head of HR's recommendation after a " team meeting " was eat an apple or meditate but for no longer than 10 minutes as time is important to the team effort , this case unfortunately is not a one off

    HR in most companies is more interested in censoring anyone who doesn't adhere to their definitions of inclusivity and fairness which of course is in line  with Woke policies as being implemented most everywhere. 

    HR claims to be a science if so I'm totally anti science if wokeness is part of this new cutting edge so called woke  science. ( it's a thing).

    Science studies real world phenomena, including achievement of one's goals. If your goal is to make your organization as meritocratic as possible, and if you have a concrete definition of meritocracy in mind, then nothing prevents you from applying the scientific method to understanding how that can be achieved.

    How are you defining meritocratic? How are the roles in meritocratic society decided and by who?

     Science can even help you understand what goals you should have, assuming you have a concrete meta-goal in mind, such as long-term happiness.

    But how as any future goals are under the power of ever changing random elements, I wonder how many would stick to a long term entirely speculative laid plan regards a future goal of happiness?

    What science cannot study is entities that are confined to human imagination. If something can be defined arbitrarily, or told arbitrary stories about, then science is powerless, because it relies on falsifiability and reproducibility, and human imagination is not a subject to that. Bluntly put, if the reality cannot hit you in the face for being wrong, then "wrong" is meaningless in this context.

    I'm wondering how time and time again humans have been swayed into making dreadful financial situations by listening to these so called gurus of modern business management who have brought ruination to people and countries worlwide 

    If I am wrong about my stress tensor calculation when designing a skyscraper, the consequences will be drastic: the nature will not have mercy on me and tell me that I am wrong by sending the skyscraper down on my head.


    Thankfully engineering models can be tested and will normally perform as predicted human behaviour is like attempting to herd mice .


    But what does it mean to be wrong about "the meaning of life"? Nothing: there are no consequences. I say, "The meaning of life is an upside-down elephant". So what? Maybe Lady Nature will laugh quietly in its emerald chambers, but she will not grant me a response. Some religious people believe that "god", or "spirits", or whatever grants them a response to their philosophical musings, but if you listen to their explanations, you will see that said response, too, is a product of their imagination.


  • MayCaesarMayCaesar 5970 Pts   -  
    @Joeseph

    How the hiring process works depends on the company, but in general the higher-profile the company gets, the more competitive its positions are, and the more strong applicants there will be. I have interviewed for positions with 10,000+ applications per one slot. You know that out of those 10,000+ applicants there are plenty of unqualified people, plenty of qualified people, quite a few really great fits, and a couple of gems that, if hired, will transform the company. How do you maximize the probability of identifying and hiring those gems? You definitely cannot rely on a few subjective interviews and recommendations alone.

    So such positions may have a large number of interview rounds, mixed in with online tests and take-home assignments. How to craft those tests and assignments, how to train the interviewers and the hiring managers, how to optimize the resume-screening system - all of those questions can be (and are) approached scientifically. It is probably impossible to design a system with 100% accuracy maximizing the "meritocracy" metric however you define it (the most natural definition would be selecting the candidate offering the highest expectancy of the added profits over their tenure in the company), but it is possible to design a system increasing this probability significantly relative to the traditional hiring system. And a good system absolutely puts the utmost importance on variance within the population and unpredictability of human behavior.

    A good example is use of "brain teasers" in quantitative finance position interviews. There is some intuition behind why they work, but it is not at all obvious that they must be as strong a predictor of the candidate's performance if employed as they are. Empirically, however, they are, and companies spend incredible amounts of resources on understanding why and which particular "brain teasers" work best. If someone can come up with a good model of a quantitative researcher's thinking process and map it onto the set of commonly used "brain teasers", they will get an immense competitive edge.

    What you are talking about when referring to the HR departments and "dreadful financial situations" is not the outcome of applying scientific method to these problems, but the outcome of wishful thinking. The growth of HR departments is actually hypothesized to be negatively associated with the performance of the recruits - however, HR departments offer many other benefits such as improving the company's image and its public relations, including with the government, so they thrive. I am talking about serious, solid, unapologetic scientific approach, where what does not work is discarded no matter how fancy it sounds. And no matter how much Google and Facebook talk about the importance of "diversity" (in their weird definition of it), when it comes to hiring people for truly impactful positions, they become extremely pragmatic. They can mess around with interns and entry-level folks, but not with CEOs or CFOs (although some still do and pay the price).
  • JoesephJoeseph 654 Pts   -   edited March 26
    @MayCaesar

    Here is a very different but interesting piece on the subject , you'll need to read the full article ......

    https://www.huffpost.com/entry/management-science-is-a-d_b_4418170#amp_tf=From %1$s&aoh=17113768012683&referrer=https://www.google.com&ampshare=https://www.huffpost.com/entry/management-science-is-a-d_b_4418170

                                  Huffpost

           Management science is a delusion.

    Have you ever stopped to think how much energy and money goes into teaching management science? How much time is consumed by talented teachers and learners? Or how much effort well-run companies put into their procedures and decision-making? All those analysts, all those spreadsheets, all those investigations and calculations? All the business schools, university management courses, institutes of business, and distance learning courses. Not to mention (I dare not mention) management consultants. I'm beginning to think that a lot of it is misdirected, and can even be self-defeating.

    How can I say that? Well, one reason is that I've been re-reading one of the most fascinating business books of the last 50 years -- The Innovator's Dilemma by Clayton Christensen. This is no careless work by a maverick writer. Christensen is one of the most respected business academics around, a Harvard professor loaded with honors and accolades. He tries to answer the question, why do great firms fail to keep market leadership when faced with disruptive technologies and other innovation? He dismisses the standard answers -- arrogance, myopia, poor values and procedures -- as being completely wrong. Instead, he says that the established firms he studied lost leadership because they were well run. "Precisely because these firms listened to their customers, invested aggressively in new technologies ... and because they carefully studied market trends and systematically allocated investment capital to innovations that promised the best returns," says Christensen, "they lost their positions of leadership."


    I'm still interested in addressing what you said below ..........

    For example, if "justice" is roughly defined as everyone being treated meritocraticallY

    How could science aid in such a process people are different from each other and not just unchanging static pieces of data , the idea of " justice" and what the term means is different from person to person  and society to society just like "morality"and how science could aid in the process I cannot see.





  • MayCaesarMayCaesar 5970 Pts   -  
    @Joeseph

    I addressed your first point in my last paragraph, and your second question in my second paragraph.
  • JoesephJoeseph 654 Pts   -   edited March 26
    @MayCaesar

    I addressed your first point in my last paragraph

    I know you addressed the point , my perspective differs my piece is offering a  different  perspective. 


     and your second question in my second paragraph.


    Really?  You said ....I am talking about serious, solid, unapologetic scientific approach ....right so how does that work regarding "Justice" ?



  • MayCaesarMayCaesar 5970 Pts   -  
    @Joeseph

    Okay, let us go over all of this again. You start with a definition of "justice" that you want to work with: for example, "justice is treating people by their merit". Then, as someone managing the hiring process of the organization, you define "merit" as expected profit from the job applicant during his projected tenure in the company. The scientific problem now is finding a model predicting said profit as accurately as possible given the available data, as well as optimizing the hiring process so the most predictive data is reliably collected. This prediction problem is one of the oldest problems in applied statistics, and there are countless mathematical techniques and methods that have been developed and researched in detail, starting from simple linear regression models and going up in complexity all the way to gradient-boosted decision trees. If you do not think that all major corporations make extensive use of these, then you have a very pessimistic outlook.

    Major decision-makers also understand well the limitations of such models. There are certain effects that people have not managed to quantify, yet that predict the candidate's profitability well. It is not clear, for instance, how to quantify one's capability to get along with their coworkers and bosses, yet this is one of the crucial soft skills all companies look for. That is why no hiring process consists of collecting a lot of test data and blindly plugging it into a model. However, companies that want to stay on top of the competition have to incorporate their elements into their hiring process. If your model allows you to weed out bad employees in 99% cases while your chief competitors can only do that in 95% cases, can you imagine the magnitude of your competitive advantage?
  • JoesephJoeseph 654 Pts   -   edited March 27
    @MayCaesar

    Okay, let us go over all of this again

    Okay, let's try and get you to clarify what you're trying to say as it's most confusing and conflicting.

    . You start with a definition of "justice" that you want to work with: for example, "justice is treating people by their merit".

    The "we" being the corporation and their preferred definition of " justice"

    You just contradicted your own premise as you said "If something can be defined arbitrarily, or told arbitrary stories about, then science is powerless, " 

    You have stated that Justice can be defined arbitrarily. 


     Then, as someone managing the hiring process of the organization, you define "merit" as expected profit from the job applicant during his projected tenure in the company.

    " expected profit " is now defined as " merit" 

    The scientific problem now is finding a model predicting said profit as accurately as possible given the available data, as well as optimizing the hiring process so the most predictive data is reliably collected

    The biggest flaw in such models  being the future will follow past or current trends.

    . This prediction problem is one of the oldest problems in applied statistics, and there are countless mathematical techniques and methods that have been developed and researched in detail, starting from simple linear regression models and going up in complexity all the way to gradient-boosted decision trees. If you do not think that all major corporations make extensive use of these, then you have a very pessimistic outlook.

    I know companies and corporations make use of these I never denied such so why do you accuse me denying this? i dont invest or trust in most of these corporations or companies thats a pragmatic attitude but you and others are perfectly entitled to trust their predictive abilities if you wish.

    Major decision-makers also understand well the limitations of such models. There are certain effects that people have not managed to quantify, yet that predict the candidate's profitability well. It is not clear, for instance, how to quantify one's capability to get along with their coworkers and bosses, yet this is one of the crucial soft skills all companies look for. That is why no hiring process consists of collecting a lot of test data and blindly plugging it into a model. However, companies that want to stay on top of the competition have to incorporate their elements into their hiring process. If your model allows you to weed out bad employees in 99% cases while your chief competitors can only do that in 95% cases, can you imagine the magnitude of your competitive advantage?

    Management science is mostly jargon laden clap trap which uses the old dodge of " if you cannot blind them with science baffle them with b-ll s-it."

    Airport bookshops are full of these books from " management gurus" who are never scientists who brag about the companies they transformed and normally have a catchy 10 point plan for any business to achieve the same 
    .
    HR positions are  normally filled by truly incapable individuals who's main aim is to stroke senior management's egos and come up with catchy PR  clap trap to soften the blow when coming out with unpalatable news , niave workers think they have a friendly ear to seek help from when their aim is to the corporation/ company and to keep " troublesome " workers in their place , to classify HR as a Science demonstrates clearly every junk pseudoscience is defined as a Science now to give it credibility.

    Both these "disciplines" are what's  called Junk science 
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