Repeat after me: scientific method does not deal with unique events or entities.
Such as the universe. You can’t repeat an “observation” that is, by definition, the sum of all observations. Unless we can get out of the universe and observe different universes and apply statistics to them, this whole talk about anthropic principle and such is nonsense.
Repeat after me: scientific method does not deal with unique events or entities.
I don’t think this is true in any meaningful sense. It routinely happens in astronomy or geology that we have a single instance of something and study it closely. For instance, I believe Oklo is the only site known to have had natural nuclear chain reactions. And nobody thinks studying the planet Venus is unscientific because there’s only one such planet.
You might say “ah, but we have many observations of Venus.” Well, we have many observations of the universe, too!
If a unique entity or event can be analyzed using the same theories and tools as other entities, it’s fair game for science. And the people who do anthropics are trying to apply statistics, which is a pretty general tool. You might think their methods are unscientific, but it’s not clear to me why the topic is objectionable.
Imagine a universe comprised entirely of moving white balls. We study them and have a model that can predict their movements.
Suddenly, a black ball appears. We have never seen one before. But we observe it and find that it obeys the same laws of motion. So we conclude that the black ball is not unique in a sense that it is a BALL. We observed a lot of balls before.
But we never observed a BLACK ball before and if it remains unique, there is nothing science can tell us about its blackness.
The same thing applies to Venus. If we would invent a discipline called Venusology that only studies Venuses as a whole, as defined by a set of planets that are exactly similar to Venus, than that discipline won’t be able to do anything unless more than one Venus is observed. Until than, Venus would remain a unique phenomenon. But that’s not how Venus is actually studied.
When we study the orbital motion of Venus, it is not unique—just one of the objects that influenced to gravity.
When we study the chemical composition of Venus’ atmosphere, it’s not unique—the elements it’s composed of are not unique, and there are other planets with atmospheres.
When we study the geological features on Venus, they are not unique as well.
At that point you should realize that we don’t study Venus as a phenomenon—we study different aspects of Venus that we can apply the scientific method to. And the reason we can apply it is because the aspects are not unique.
The same things applies to the universe. We don’t have many observations of the universe, we have many observations of different parts of the universe. But if we want to study the whole universe as a phenomenon, then it becomes just one observation. And you can’t do anything scientific about it unless you observe another universe. (At which point you would have a new concept, the Multiverse, which again would be unique).
What caused you to invoke “Science!” in the sense you did here at all? It seems to hint a confusion about epistemology and a status move. It is easy to come up with scenarios where we are tasked with making predictions about things where science fails and do quite well. See this article by Eliezer.
I disagree. You know how scientific method works, right? You make an observation, create a model, make another observation and see how well your model fits. With a unique phenomena you only have one observation.
The whole anthropic principle thing just annoys me because it seems to stem from a confusion. People can certainly imagine a lot of universes without people. So they compare it to the real world and say it is fine-tuned. But this is a misapplication of scientific method. What you imagine is not an observation. You can’t invent different laws of physics and pretend they exist somewhere.
I mean, look at the text you posted. Nick Land thinks the idea that we are in the beginning of time is odd. Why? Does he have a window into another universe which isn’t odd?
And if I told you I read 53.7% of the sequences (for example), would that help you gauge the level? Can’t you just write “you don’t understand Concept X, noob”? It would still be rude, but at least informative.
I wasn’t expecting you to reply with a percentage, more the names of sequences you’ve read. Inferential distances matter and my time is limited. I will now make the basic reply.
Repeat after me: scientific method does not deal with unique events or entities.
Such as the universe. You can’t repeat an “observation” that is, by definition, the sum of all observations. Unless we can get out of the universe and observe different universes and apply statistics to them, this whole talk about anthropic principle and such is nonsense.
I don’t think this is true in any meaningful sense. It routinely happens in astronomy or geology that we have a single instance of something and study it closely. For instance, I believe Oklo is the only site known to have had natural nuclear chain reactions. And nobody thinks studying the planet Venus is unscientific because there’s only one such planet.
You might say “ah, but we have many observations of Venus.” Well, we have many observations of the universe, too!
If a unique entity or event can be analyzed using the same theories and tools as other entities, it’s fair game for science. And the people who do anthropics are trying to apply statistics, which is a pretty general tool. You might think their methods are unscientific, but it’s not clear to me why the topic is objectionable.
Let me think of an example...
Imagine a universe comprised entirely of moving white balls. We study them and have a model that can predict their movements.
Suddenly, a black ball appears. We have never seen one before. But we observe it and find that it obeys the same laws of motion. So we conclude that the black ball is not unique in a sense that it is a BALL. We observed a lot of balls before.
But we never observed a BLACK ball before and if it remains unique, there is nothing science can tell us about its blackness.
The same thing applies to Venus. If we would invent a discipline called Venusology that only studies Venuses as a whole, as defined by a set of planets that are exactly similar to Venus, than that discipline won’t be able to do anything unless more than one Venus is observed. Until than, Venus would remain a unique phenomenon. But that’s not how Venus is actually studied.
When we study the orbital motion of Venus, it is not unique—just one of the objects that influenced to gravity. When we study the chemical composition of Venus’ atmosphere, it’s not unique—the elements it’s composed of are not unique, and there are other planets with atmospheres. When we study the geological features on Venus, they are not unique as well.
At that point you should realize that we don’t study Venus as a phenomenon—we study different aspects of Venus that we can apply the scientific method to. And the reason we can apply it is because the aspects are not unique.
The same things applies to the universe. We don’t have many observations of the universe, we have many observations of different parts of the universe. But if we want to study the whole universe as a phenomenon, then it becomes just one observation. And you can’t do anything scientific about it unless you observe another universe. (At which point you would have a new concept, the Multiverse, which again would be unique).
What caused you to invoke “Science!” in the sense you did here at all? It seems to hint a confusion about epistemology and a status move. It is easy to come up with scenarios where we are tasked with making predictions about things where science fails and do quite well. See this article by Eliezer.
I disagree. You know how scientific method works, right? You make an observation, create a model, make another observation and see how well your model fits. With a unique phenomena you only have one observation.
The whole anthropic principle thing just annoys me because it seems to stem from a confusion. People can certainly imagine a lot of universes without people. So they compare it to the real world and say it is fine-tuned. But this is a misapplication of scientific method. What you imagine is not an observation. You can’t invent different laws of physics and pretend they exist somewhere.
I mean, look at the text you posted. Nick Land thinks the idea that we are in the beginning of time is odd. Why? Does he have a window into another universe which isn’t odd?
How much of the sequences have you read?
Please forgive me for answering a question with a question, but have you heard about arguments from authority? They are bad arguments. ;-)
I was asking to see on what level to engage.
And if I told you I read 53.7% of the sequences (for example), would that help you gauge the level? Can’t you just write “you don’t understand Concept X, noob”? It would still be rude, but at least informative.
I wasn’t expecting you to reply with a percentage, more the names of sequences you’ve read. Inferential distances matter and my time is limited. I will now make the basic reply.