so, I heard this a little while ago via a facebook friend and it has really started to bug me. This is how he stated the issue "science cannot objectively define "beauty". Esthetics is out of the realm of science. Science is limited. It can only prove certain things. Science cannot prove that the past is real, it cannot prove that there are mnds outside of your own, it cannot prove even prove itself without committing the logical fallacy of "circular-reasoning" well, my brain has tried to crack this one and I've been unsuccessful thus far. I know that this isn't correct and I might even be so close I can taste it but I can't quite put the refutation into words. Thanks!
Science is the best method we have now. People who advocate that should tell us how you plan to fix science or what is a better choice than science for figuring out a definitive answer to something. Faith? Magic? Tarot cards? What?
Okay. I'll try and get at some of those points. Why would science need to define beauty? But science actually did provide a model/blueprint for beauty: it's called the golden ratio. I saw a doccie of it on NatGeo a couple years ago. You can check wikipedia for more info. Yeah? Well my watch can. Science FTW. In theory the past can be any time between now and a moment ago. And if I were to record footage of what I did a second ago, would I not have proved that the past is "real?" I don't think it's science's job to do anything, but why does it need to prove that? I'm stumped. A Japanese scientist made a machine where you can see what a cat is thinking about. Does that count? I perfunctory read about something like that. Do a Google search, though. There are many laws of science that can be proven without commiting any fallacies that I know of. Gravity, inertia, photon emmision. Without science, many of our luxuries wouldn't exist, so I ... dunno. That statement just feels fallacious.
Can't find anything on that cat-mind-machine. I'll keep looking. Anyway doesn't learning new behaviour qualify as needing a mind? Mind has to do with awareness, right? You can't learn without awareness, right? Anywa wikipedia has an article about feline intelligence. I don't feel like reading, though.
^damn thats the first post I've seen from you that didn't seem trollish Well done on shaping up. But yeah I heard about the cat brain machine thing it sounds fucking crazy Brain Apparently some guys did it back in 1999. And they did crazy shit with owls and other animals too (link above)
Yeah. I get a little passionate about truth and knowledge sometimes. And, as you know, there can't be knowledge without truth. So when I see someone posting something that might not be entirely true, I let my need to bring correct knowledge accross get the better of me sometimes.
He's basically seeing "I think therefore I am." as circular reasoning. You see the mental proof of the mental. But what of the physical proof of the physical? Works the same way. But now you have to prove the physical, with the mental. Then prove the mental, with the physical. That is the hard part. We are closer to the latter, because we know the mind works from the brain, but we don't know how. Now trying to prove the physical with the mental. The only way to prove it, is to admit there is another dimension. And that is where the spirit resides. Now here is my proof of both. There are two dimensions. We call one Hell, which includes the Earth, the universe, and all of the worlds, and everything within it, and it works by balancing through the laws of physics. The second is Heaven, and everything within that has a lighter set of the laws of physics. Wherein consciousness is produced.(The mind is supernatural) And how are Heaven and Hell connected? Think of a line, the line goes both ways. Hell goes to the left, Heaven goes to the right, but it is the same line. The point in the center is aether. It is the bridge between Heaven and Hell, think of the symbol for aether as = the equals sign, or a bridge if you can use your imagination. And heaven and hell are both <-------> a line, together you get, <------->=<-------> (hell bridges to heaven)Now the qualities of Heaven are supernatural. While the qualities of Hell are just natural, or just physical. But the mind is supernatural. And the body is natural. But through this proof, science can be proven so it does not become too much circular reasoning. And science can then move forward. For science is just a tool, to understand things of this physical plane. But make science to become super-physical, and then we can understand the supernatural...
Isn't the whole "science is only circular reasoning" spiel the major component of (extremist) religious groups to prove their god is all-powerful?
As humans, we did kind of make up everything from scratch and build on that, but hey, if it works for now until we find something better whats the problem?
I fuckin' knew I had heard it before...Couldn't put my finger on it, but there's the good Dr. Sheldon with the assist.
@Timesplasher Aesthetics can actually be "defined." Several studies have proven that we humans are attracted to symmetry. Even so, for centuries people have known this. Just think about Feng Shui, the fibonacci sequence in nature, interior design. And there is a consensus opinion of what constitutes beauty: Just look at Snooki. She looks freaking hot now that she's lost weight. Any way, people who's faces more closely match the golden ratio are believed to be more attractive, and it appears to be true - to me at least. Then there's the age old hip to waist ratio that turn men into boner machines. There are agreed upon standards of beauty, you just have to look.
I considered that shit but outside of advertising it not more than a summary of obvious features. To me the real meaning of the word "beauty" is best described in artistic terms.
Science can't prove the past is real? I guess every mueseum that ever opened in history is guilty of fraud then.
Anything that consists of a reasonable standard of truth should enable sum form of understanding on its own merits. Im slowly learning that not all statements of opinions deserve answers and my attempts to do so usually results in providing a equally foolish response.
I think this is the likely source of the thread. Mind games Circular reasoning and the problem of induction Joel Feinberg and Russ Shafer-Landau note that "using the scientific method to judge the scientific method is circular reasoning". Scientists attempt to discover the laws of nature and to predict what will happen in the future, based on those laws. However, per David Hume's problem of induction, science cannot be proven inductively by empirical evidence, and thus science cannot be proven scientifically. An appeal to a principle of the uniformity of nature would be required to deductively necessitate the continued accuracy of predictions based on laws that have only succeeded in generalizing past observations. But as Bertrand Russell observed, "The method of 'postulating' what we want has many advantages; they are the same as the advantages of theft over honest toil".[6]
I find this video related to the idea that science can't define beauty. [ame=http://vimeo.com/55874553]Richard Feynman - Ode To A Flower on Vimeo[/ame] Audio taken from here Code: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bgaw9qe7DEE Just finished this whole video, loved it.
