One of my issues with current 'scientific' procedures

read anything by Daniel Dennett. His works delve very deeply into artificial intelligence. Remember, if Darwin was right, then ultimately all intelligence is artificial.

 

Its a problem without a doubt. The computer age is pretty young, and we've placed a lot of trust in computers to always be correct. There's plenty of room for improvements by placing failsafes and extra checks. Even so, machines making measurements takes out a lot of human error, probably giving us less erroneus results in fact. There will always be room for making measurements more precise and more substantiated.

 

Can you be a little more vague ? What, specifically about machines (that word in itself needs clarification) don't you trust ?

 

I may not trust machines(skynet syndrome), but I trust the human minds that came up with the incredibly complex equations to make them work. Is that what you mean?

 

The chances of a computer (that's working properly) failing is literally <.0000000000000001%

I'd trust a computer more than a human any day.

 

I don't understand what you are saying. A computer never makes a mistake; they will do exactly what they are programed to do, every single time. If it makes an "erroneous" measurement, it's because the experimenter/programmer made a mistake.

 

Which is why you continue to test further with "double-blind" testing, along with "peer review" of results.

Two people and one machine might be wrong.

Two thousand people and 100 machines? You've pretty much removed all doubt.

Besides, take a look at your life for the next 24 hours, and you'll quickly realize just how much reliance you already have on machines and their accuracy. Alarm clocks, computers, cars, cash registers, ATMs, traffic lights, etc...

 

Well, until 3D capability has been perfected by machine, of course a machines 2D interpretation of an image is going to be much different than the 3D representation we're able to see and experience.

Eventually, the clarity and color depth is going to exceed what our human eye is capable of seeing(just as audiophile equipment has already done with the human ear), so in the long run, humans may in fact become the "inferior" machine when it comes to interpretation.

And as far as trusting images, especially with telescopes, I try not to worry much about things I'll likely never see in person anyway. Sure, those deep-space images look awfully pretty with all the vibrant colors. Is that the way it really looks? Maybe, but until we have the technical capability to verify it in person, it's really a moot point.

 

We are constantly advancing in the field of computer science so the farther along we go the better and more accurate the cameras will be. We pretty much have come to a point with 2d pictures where it's hard to see it get any better, obviously since we see it in 3d it will never be the same. But 3d cameras will be worked on and improved and as long as there are people programming and developing these technologies then it will keep advancing and getting better.

You don't have to distrust a computer, just distrust the programmer, because a computer simply outputs whatever the programmer inputs. What goes in comes out.

 

Why would you assume that what you see with your eyes is a more accurate representation of the real world than what a computer sees? Put yourself in a completely dark room...you can't see anything but does that mean nothing is there or happening around you? Our eyes are digital and our brains interpret information just as a computer/camera does (by different means of course, but the principles are the same). And what about optical illusions? Do your eyes interpret them better than a computer could? For example, are these circles actually moving, or is it that your eyes and brain interpret them as moving when in reality they are not?



Also remember our eyes can only see a VERY VERY small percentage of the entire light spectrum. We need computers/cameras to see UV light, Infrared, microwaves, x-rays, etc. If we only relied on our eyes to "see" the universe, then we might as well be blind. Look at how narrow the visible spectrum is compared to the entire light spectrum. This figure gives a great perspective that shows what we see is only a minuscule fraction of what is actually happening around us.

 

Good point.

 

Man, I've actually gotten to drink beer and hang out w/ Dennett 2 or 3 times in the last few years. It makes me feel special when people know who he is. I also regularly smoke cigarettes outside of a certain place that I sometimes go with another fellow who's edited a book or two for Dennett. He does love that artificial intelligence stuff. I think of him as a reductionist/materialist type. Good shit really.

 

So because two living things perceive something differently, this is sufficient evidence to arbitrarily conclude that one of these organisms (i.e. humans) is preferable for impartial observation over all other observers (partial or impartial)?

You need to understand that machines and computers respond to and measure physical phenomona without any interpretation or bias, whereas any living organism merely INTERPRETS reality. My previous post with the 'moving' circles demonstrates this quite nicely...no computer would ever interpret those as moving. The common use of "positive controls" for every scientific experiment proves this.

Out of curiosity, how much experience do you have in scientific research and the use or engineering of, say, various spectrophotometers?

 

Wait... so you're saying the world doesn't go away when I close my eyes??? Are you sure... Well, I can always pretend...

-Loki

 

What are you Amish? Souless footsteps? Give me a break dude... paranoid much?

-Loki