GENIUS FORUMS

I'm thinking of making a Youtube vid on the above subject. Sort of like a Top 10 list. What would be yours? Can you come up with that many?

It depends on exactly what you mean by "cannot answer". Two that came almost immediately to my mind were (1) whether the universe is deterministic or non-deterministic and (2) the origins of the universe; but science does have answers to these questions, the only thing is that they're not definitive, and in the case of the former, the answer varies according to (QM) interpretation. So can you clarify what you mean? Are we to infer a "definitively and conclusively" at the end of the title of this thread?

1. What is the origin of life in the Universe?

2. What is consciousness, where does it come from?

3. What happens to people -- their non-physical aspect -- after death?

4. Is there an objective purpose to life, human life more specifically, and the individual life more specifically than that?

5. Is there a soul, and if so, what is it's nature?

6. If there is God, what is its nature?

7. How much is possible for a human or humanity to know? Is there an intrinsic limit, a limit due to our design or potential? Where is the limit of human knowledge?

8. What is the potential for human consciousness? For love?

9. To what extent, if any, can will be free?

10. What will happen in the future, specifically?

guest_of_logic wrote:It depends on exactly what you mean by "cannot answer". Two that came almost immediately to my mind were (1) whether the universe is deterministic or non-deterministic and (2) the origins of the universe; but science does have answers to these questions, the only thing is that they're not definitive, and in the case of the former, the answer varies according to (QM) interpretation. So can you clarify what you mean? Are we to infer a "definitively and conclusively" at the end of the title of this thread?

Yeah, that's a reasonable inference. I don't think a contingent position on something could be properly characterized as an answer.

Hmm, but isn't all of science tentative and potentially revisable, in which case the answer to your thread is that science can answer (definitively and conclusively) no questions whatsoever? I guess that to get around that we'd have to posit that some answers that science comes up with are more permanent and less liable to revision than others, but in any case, I'm not convinced that the distinction that you're trying to make - between questions that science can answer and questions that it can't - has a solid grounding.

Science doesn't even attempt to answer questions about the way things are. All science is able and satisfied with doing is making accurate predictions. It makes no claims regarding the truth of anything.

The simple model of the atom that I learned in fourth or fifth grade comes to mind. That model was useful for a while, especially for learning chemistry, but as I grew older, I was ready for a more sophisticated model. These models will continue to be revised for thousands of years. Everybody knows that none of them are true.

Guest, I take Dan's question to mean, what are the questions that science doesn't even try to answer?

Shahrazad wrote:Science doesn't even attempt to answer questions about the way things are. All science is able and satisfied with doing is making accurate predictions. It makes no claims regarding the truth of anything.

Isn't that what all knowledge is? Modeling and prediction. What is truth except the closeness of the model to the observation. What other truth do you have in mind?

Science's faults are not in modeling or prediction, but in objectivity, and quantization. Thus it leaves issues of vast importance (that are not visible or objective) untouched, such as emotions. It handles them in a ham-handed way, (for example taking the MRI of the brain), or taking psychological surveys.

Shahrazad wrote:These models will continue to be revised for thousands of years. Everybody knows that none of them are true.

I think everyone is aware that they are models at some level. I would argue that the people involved in constructing the models believed that they were determining the truth, inasmuch as technology permitted. It seems the basic notion of the atomic structure, especially when you look at it from a QM viewpoint, is widely accepted to be the truth. Coupled with nuclear theory, there is every reason to believe that at least science's understanding of how the elements behave in atomic and chemical events is correct.

All scientific models are subject to modification, of course. I don't think a radical restructuring of the discoveries of the twentieth century is on the horizon, precisely because those models serve fantastically well.

But the Large Hadron Collider has barely been taken for a spin yet. It remains to be seen if the new vistas it provides will require some major revolutionary views to account for them.

Matter seems to me to have the problem of infinite regress.If strings are the 'building blocks',then what gives rise to them?

The mind body problem is the other obvious one.

Science also can't answer the question of first cause(assuming you beleve it is a valid question)

guest_of_logic wrote:Hmm, but isn't all of science tentative and potentially revisable, in which case the answer to your thread is that science can answer (definitively and conclusively) no questions whatsoever?

That's a good point. I guess I'd have to revise my question to something like: what questions are outside the scope of science.

Dan Rowden wrote:That's a good point. I guess I'd have to revise my question to something like: what questions are outside the scope of science.

What causes finite phenomena to arise at all, is Existence subject to time/change, can finite phenomena arise without an observer, can Existence posses form, is there any such thing as beyond the mind, can scientific inquiry ever be absolute, do things exist inherently, is logic the only way to be certain, is consciousness no matter how it arises the only vessel by which logic can be exercised, is there any such thing as absolute truth?

Moral questions - questions of what should I do - are outside the scope of science.

The three main branches of philosophy, and their derivatives, are still considered philosophy because they are not scientific.

Metaphysics (including questions of ontology: "what is there?")
Epistemology (including philosophy of mind and philosophy of science)
Ethics (including political philosophy)

As well, many classics of wisdom lie well outside the scope of science. Everything from Sun Tzu's Art of War to the Bible contains passages that do not concern the scientific purist.

Personally, I'm trying to identify all my ingrained thoughts processes that rely on scientific/predictive models. Frankly it seems like almost all of them do to some extent; and they are often so accurate in helping me through the world that it's easy to consider them the territory and not just the map - almost absurd not to consider them the territory. And yet they are still predictive.

Maybe once I can consciously and continuously identify every one of these processes as they arise, I'll be able to better see whatever "pure logical" thinking is leftover.

- Why is there something rather than nothing
- What is the definition/meaning of finite and infinite
- What are we scared of and why

After, "Where did *it all* come from?" (if not the last implosion half-cycle as per the perpetually, eternally oscillating, "Bang/Crunch)...

"What is the medium/explanation of/for 'action at a distance' as demonstrated by gravity, info exchange between 'entangled particles,' telepathy between humans, and a host of other comparable phenomena.?"

Of course, science can not answer any ethical or metaphysical/spiritual questions, unless the realm of science is expanded to include "the sacred sciences" and its methods expanded beyond empiricism to include a-priori epistemology, as exemplified in classical mystic gnosis.

Carl G wrote:1. What is the origin of life in the Universe?

Check.

2. What is consciousness, where does it come from?

Why can't science answer that?

3. What happens to people -- their non-physical aspect -- after death?

Check.

4. Is there an objective purpose to life, human life more specifically, and the individual life more specifically than that?

Check.

5. Is there a soul, and if so, what is it's nature?

Why can't science answer that?

6. If there is God, what is its nature?

Check.

7. How much is possible for a human or humanity to know? Is there an intrinsic limit, a limit due to our design or potential? Where is the limit of human knowledge?

Check - though I think many scientists/mathematicians would claim to be able to determine that.

8. What is the potential for human consciousness? For love?

Check.

9. To what extent, if any, can will be free?

Why can't science answer that?

10. What will happen in the future, specifically?

Check.