Questions tagged [philosophy-of-science]
for applied philosophical questions about the study of science, the pursuit of scientific knowledge, and the scientific method
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Recommendation for books that list abstract philosophical ideas used in sciences
I once saw people saying that sciences are about specific theories that matches empirical evidences, while in philosophy one is more interested in the idea behind such theories (e.g. the concept of ...
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What is the limit to how much humanity can advance in the physical sciences?
I currently adopt the view of reductive physicalism. Yet, I can’t help but wonder to what limits we can understand the universe. After all, are’t these fields firmly based on empirical evidence, ...
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Uniqueness in Nature and the tacit physicist method of "solving problems by uniqueness"
This was a question I asked on Physics SE which was, unfortunately, not well-received. I'm asking it here in the hopes that someone can talk about the nature of the logic/assumptions used in the sorts ...
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Why is something coming from nothing seen as less intuitive than something existing eternally?
Many people often use the infinite regress argument of causality to posit an entity that always existed or was eternal. In their eyes, it escapes the problem. But how does it escape the problem? If it ...
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Should philosophy be thought of in terms of bets with consequences?
There are many topics in philosophy that require people to have positions on, with arguably even a "no position" mentality being a form of position. But because we are all emotional beings, ...
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How would one characterize the argument that God could be physically impossible but chance can't be?
A lot of design arguments, especially ones that deal with fine tuning, seem to imply the notion that something is too improbable to be true, therefore a designer may have caused it.
But no matter how ...
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Bayes' Theorem and Science
More than one hypothesis may fit the data (hypotheses generation is the stock-in-trade of science)
Choosing a scientific hypothesis is not about truth. People have gone on record that inter alia it's ...
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Is there such a thing as an argument from lack of explanation against God?
Every theory we've ever postulated to explain anything, it required a physical mechanism. For example Newton's laws describe how things interact with each other. Laws work together to produce certain ...
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Can anything be too improbable to have occurred without considering alternative hypotheses?
Without considering alternative hypotheses, is there even such a thing as something being too improbable to be true. Is there any sort of principle that says this is too unlikely under a hypothesis; ...
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Why are physical and logical probabilities considered separate?
It is argued that there is a difference between these probabilities. When a dice lands on 6, it is argued that because it could have landed on 1-5 by the nature of physical laws, the probability is 1/...
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Given the gambler's fallacy, why do we have a strong intuition of design if a remarkable result happens quickly in a game?
In any sort of game that involves selecting one out of many opportunities where one of those opportunities is a win, and each trial is independent and random, each trial has an equal chance of winning....
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If platonism was correct, would everything be real despite everything being formal?
In one of his recent essays (https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2021/04/why-does-the-universe-exist-some-perspectives-from-our-physics-project/) the scientist Stephen Wolfram says (at the end of it, ...
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Dawkins on God: What are the strongest counters to his argument?
But the candidate solutions to the riddle of improbability are not, as is falsely implied, design and chance. They are design and natural selection. Chance is not a solution, given the high levels of ...
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A Theory That Explains Everything Explains Nothing
The title of the question - A Theory That Explains Everything Explains Nothing - is said to be a quotation attributed to philosopher of science Karl Popper, but there's no consensus on whether he ...
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Does the Bayesian degree of belief system result in absurd conclusions?
In Bayesian epistemology, you are considered to have some sort of subjective prior probability of any hypothesis.
Then, when a piece of potential evidence comes about, you can update that credence by ...
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Does a post hoc hypothesis have the same evidentiary value as an apriori hypothesis without a prediction?
Philosophers often say that a hypothesis that predicts data D is better than a hypothesis that accommodates data D after the fact. But what about a hypothesis that exists before data D but doesn't ...
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Doesn’t the fact that we can’t assign a probability to God in itself defeat any possible arguments for it?
By God here, I mean the traditional conception of God, not some potentially mindless first cause, which could for all we know even be a soup of chemicals.
Unless we can show that God as a Being is ...
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Why is “weak evidence” considered to make a theory more likely true than one with “no evidence” by many philosophers?
Suppose Jack and Jill both claim to be psychics. They both decide to make 100 predictions. Jack ends up getting 14 predictions right. Jill ends up getting no predictions right.
Most would believe ...
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Is using the law of large numbers to dismiss the significance of improbable event a valid form of inference?
Suppose I decide to play poker today and I'm dealt a royal flush. I then go back to the convenience store and win the lotto. While I'm going to pick up my prize, a speeding car barely misses me. ...
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The Mediocrity Principle, The Laws of Nature and Free Will
The Mediocrity Principle, though it had a very specific meaning when it was first stated, is now a more general principle the essence of which is not to assume "a phenomenon is special, ...
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How does one make a design inference for a designer not discovered yet?
What would constitute as evidence of aliens transmitting a message?
Researchers monitor radio transmissions for patterns that would support a design inference that such transmissions are sent by ...
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Understanding the concept of "Entity"
I was reading the concept for an entity, it says:
An entity is something that exists as itself, as a subject or as an object, real or potentially, concretely or abstractly, physically or not. It need ...
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Should the occurrence of a theory T before data D is found affect its truth?
Suppose Adam has a theory that goblins exist in his attic. He hears noises coming from the attic even though he knows noone is in there. He realizes that even though it is possible that goblins in the ...
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Are only human beings capable of rationally intentional acts?
Max Horkheimer's 1947 book The Eclipse of Reason argued that over the course of history, the conception of reason shifted from the objective - the Greek idea that reason qua logos governs the Cosmos - ...
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Mathematics and the observer in Wolfram Fundamental Physics Project...?
In this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrnteM9E2tI&t=6633s) about mathematics in the Wolfram Physics Project, Stephen Wolfram says at minute 1:49:37 something that seems contradictory:
He ...
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What is science and which human fields of study are part of it?
Part 1.
I was making some questions regarding scientific proofs here and I have been told that falsification "is a long abandoned idea of science, it lives on only in amateurish discussions"....
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Differentiating between mathematical objects and their representations
The first time I came across this distinction was when I asked this question. It was highlighted to me that there is a difference between the matrix and how we represent it. There is a difference ...
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Meaning of the word Abstract
Recently I came across with a word called abstraction in mathematics which means the process of removing unimportant details from a system so that we can focus on the ones that really matter.
I found ...
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How to make the notion of materialism testable/falsifiable?
The whole idea behind the scientific method is that reality is material in nature, is there any way that we could test this notion? All attempts by the scientific method to prove or substantiate the ...
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Digital Twin: what is the scientific status of outcomes of simulation?
Digital twins are representations (usually by means of software) of some aspects of physical systems. They are meant to enable the prediction or research of those systems - be these cities, ...
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How should non-philosophers approach learning about philosophical things?
I believe that the 'proper' method for a nonscientist to learn about scientific things is to basically refer to the level of scientific consensus on a subject, yet there seems to be considerably less ...
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At which point does a meaningful coincidence call for a supernatural explanation?
Every time we've ever come across a seemingly marvelous coincidence that was repeatable and testable, it turned out to be representative of a law. It was a coincidence that turned out to be a real ...
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Can we really measure something that's subjective?
Someone said we can't measure how creative something is, but isn't that completely wrong and dishonest?
Isn't it the same as for intelligence? Isn't measuring intelligence based on a subjective model ...
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The definition of life
The prevailing biology of the modern era describes life as a system. A system is defined a set of things working together as parts of a mechanism or an interconnecting network. The NASA definition of ...
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Are quantities/amounts a state of existence?
A quantity is often given like 'three metres' or 'two apples', but this seems more like a 'state' that any collection of entities can have.
We describe many things as being'two people', the couple ...
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Is conscious thought ever necessary?
I have noticed that every time I end up "sitting down" and "thinking" about something as if it's some sort of exercise to plan out, I end up just repeating thoughts in my head or ...
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What are the arguments against modern technology, medicine and society? [closed]
In today's society, manual tasks have become automated. Digital communication devices have connected people across the globe. Medications and surgeries have lessened symptoms of illnesses, delayed ...
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Does Bayesianism not discriminate against ad hoc hypotheses?
Bayesianism doesn't seem to discriminate against ad hoc hypotheses.
A simple example illustrates this.
Let's assume a person tosses a coin 20 straight times and it lands on heads. They, ad hoc, start ...
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How does methodological naturalism deal with appeals to abstract objects like logical truths, mathematical truths, or natural kinds?
A core component of the modern scientific worldview and the beliefs of people and governments in western liberal democracies is that methodological naturalism is true. It is essential to scientific ...
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What is Meant by a Pre-Theoretic Notion?
I don't quite understand the explanation given on Wikipedia for Pre-theoretic belief.
It is often assumed, rightly or wrongly, that language depends on mental concepts, and that certain concepts are ...
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Reversed Twin Earth: example from history of science
I'm looking for a real example from history of science, in which one thing is discovered to actually be two different things.
This is a kind of a reversed Twin Earth experiment:
Oscar's community is ...
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Can changing the past ever be a coherent concept?
First, let me emphasize that I'm talking about changing THE past. Accounts with multiple timelines, say where travelling back in time causes a branching timeline, don't have this problem.
Here is the ...
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Does Intuitionism extend to all type of science?
Mathematical Intuionism argues that Mathematical object only exist as constructions of the Human mind, but would't this also mean all type of science are like so?
Since there is a requirement for an ...
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Is naturalism falsifiable?
From Wikipedia:
In philosophy, naturalism is the idea or belief that only natural laws and forces (as opposed to supernatural ones) operate in the universe.[1]
Naturalism is not so much a special ...
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About the absolute nature of the Answer to a particular question
Can every question regardless of the subject be answered? ( answer based on reality and not on "Phaneron" ) How is the reality taken to be true? ( Everything that is proven may not be true ...
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Does science have any separate arguments for the existence of other minds?
For example, there is an argument of the best explanation in favor of the existence of other minds.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/other-minds/#BestExpl
Is this argument used in science or is this ...
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What are some examples of math that does *not* apply to the real world?
The "unreasonable effectiveness" of mathematics in describing the universe is often mentioned, but what about the sections of math that aren't applicable anywhere in physics at all? and why?
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Probability based on insufficient data [closed]
The probability of some event is sometimes calculated or estimated based on insufficient empirical data, or scientific models that don't or can't take into account the major contributing factors.
The ...
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What would reality be like without causality? [closed]
If there were no physical laws of causality (law of gravitation, etc.) would there be "events", what would happen in the world when we act in our day to day life's? Trying to imagine a ...
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Normative philosophy vs descriptive philosophy
I am making the question in simple terms to avoid logical ambiguity.
IS normative philosophy(what should be) a subset of descriptive philosophy (What is) ?
Is morality/ethics beauty/happiness is also ...
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