Is science equal to technology?
From 19th century onwards, our civilization's concept of science is full of technological connotations. However, before the 19th century at least, we know that there was a different scene. Scientific disciplines are under the umberella of philosophy. We can see this fact in the using of concepts as thematic. For instance, Newton had entitled his treatise "Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy"; we call this discipline (Natural Philosophy) as physics today. Another example is Lamarck. Name of his treatise "Zoological Philosophy, or Exposition with Regard to the Natural History of Animals". And we call this discipline biology as general.
In this respect, we can see that the branching of science and specialization process separated scientific disciplines from philosophical area. Our concepts' contents was changed and techological revolution and it's outcomes were settled down in the centre of science paradigm.
Now, I have a question for you:
How should we reestablish of relations between science and technology to make wider room for philosophy?
In this respect, we can see that the branching of science and specialization process separated scientific disciplines from philosophical area. Our concepts' contents was changed and techological revolution and it's outcomes were settled down in the centre of science paradigm.
Now, I have a question for you:
How should we reestablish of relations between science and technology to make wider room for philosophy?
Comments (61)
If it were required, by conceptual analysis, to wit:
1) Science: empirical investigation which provides a reliable explanation.
2) Technology: applied science production.
3) Philosophy: logical investigation which provides a coherent concept and/or model.
Is that enough? It seems a kind of "explaining away". Because conceptual analysis does not change "major" way of thinking. Maybe there is another dimension must be scrutinized; I mean, sociological.
Correct.
We’re all here biased toward favoring philosophical thought. Most people today think that philosophy lacks any practical value. Kind’a like a lyric I once heard: “If it don’t make money it don’t make sense”.
That said, to address the OP, it’s noteworthy that - while accordant to empirical evidence - neither Newton’s (or Einstein’s) nor Lamarck’s (or Darwin’s) publications regarding the natural world concerned direct, first-hand scientific investigations conducted through the scientific method. Both of the OP’s stated works, instead, addressed philosophical perspectives that intended to best account for the given empirical evidence regarding the natural world. In the sciences, at least, one does this by combining parsimony of explanations with maximal explanatory power for the empirical data in question.
What’s missing today is the understanding that the empirical sciences (including the scientific method as procedure, which can be minimally traced back to the philosophy of Bacon) are themselves the outcome of philosophical thought.
It could be argued that there’s a structure to the themes of the OP: philosophy in general --> philosophy applied to the natural world --> the empirical sciences as a body of procedures and paradigms emerging from philosophies applied to the natural world --> technology as the application of some of the conclusions resulting from the empirical sciences.
So, while we’re here biased in favor of philosophy, there’s nevertheless a philosophical foundation to both the empirical sciences and to the resulting technology that most people, imo, are not very familiar with.
edit: haven't read much of Newton's work; so I may be wrong about lack of first-hand experiments addressed in it; still, his theories of gravity and of space are philosophical theories - and not outcomes of particular experiments that abide by the scientific method
There have been some attempts on here and the previous forum to conflate the science and technology. The agenda was a defense of extreme forms of anti-realism.
Empirical investigation may consist of simple observation (e.g., flint can be chiselled to provide a cutting edge), or more complex observation (e.g., the results of experiments which test the hypothesis: flint is a hard, sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz).
If Science is empirical investigation, and the psychological process of observation is its method, then when in human history have human beings been without Science? Never.
Someone asks me, "Is there a house across the road?" (problem definition).
I look out the window (observation), and see a house across the road (fact established).
I answer, "yes" (condition explained).
That's Science.
No, unless you want to redefine the word "Science" to mean perception.
I provided a definition for "Science" in my first post to this thread.
Feel free to provide a different one for consideration.
Technology is merely our tools, like rocks hammers and fire.
"Philosophy", however, has too shapes to be so concisely defined.
The scientific method has several roots, it does not come from just one place. It has roots going back thousands of years in philosophy, religion, war, etc. . . It is a question people have written books on and even experts tell different stories. I have my doubts any of you actually has a real clue what you are talking about when it comes to the origin of science.
I wasn't referring to the origins of science, only the actual discipline that exists now. I agree with your definition:
"Science is the process of building a predictive model of reality via the science method."
I threw you in that mix for this subjective comment:
Quoting Marchesk
That doesn't go far enough. Empirical investigation is only part of it. You need the method for rigorous testing that seeks to get past our biases and frailties. And you need the theoretical part that investigations are fit into.
Quoting Jeremiah
It's not subjective, it's historically accurate for a reasonable definition of "relatively recent", like as in several centuries.
Does the origin of the scientific method go back "thousands of years" (Jeremiah), or "several centuries" (Marchesk)?
It's only completely subjective taken out of context. I assume most people realize the scientific revolution happened several centuries ago. So let's go with 1543 AD.
The origin, or the accepted practice? I have modern science in mind which is a community built around the scientific method and naturalistic explanations based on the results of various experiments and research performed over time.
When we say "Science tells us the universe is 13.7 billion years old, not 6,000", we mean the what the scientific community says based on centuries long results of scientific research and building up of explanations. That's fundamentally different than what was done in the past. Our society is scientific in a way no previous civilizations were.
Contrast with: "The Iphone X will usher in a new age of augmented and virtual reality, thanks to Apple's redesign of the processors, screen and sensors."
Science, as the word is commonly used, implies these things: first, the gathering of knowledge through observation; second, the classification of such knowledge, and through this classification, the elaboration of general ideas or principles. In the familiar definition of Herbert Spencer, science is organized knowledge.
Any time we use technology based on a certain scientific theory, we are testing the theory, which is itself a scientific act. If everyone in your social group is using sticks to draw out termites from a mound, then isn't that testing the scientific observation and the subsequent conclusion that termites attach themselves to sticks when stuck into their mound?
Of course it does. How can you make such a claim without using technology (like telescopes)? And how can you test such a claim without using technology (like telescopes)?
The claim is a statement of fact about the world, not technology. That's the point. Science isn't about making the next great smartphone. It's about explaining the world. Obviously, science makes heavy use of technology, and vice versa.
But the two aren't the same and it's a mistake to conflate them.
What is the scientific theory that chimpanzees are testing when using sticks to draw termites out of termite mounds?
Or what would our ancestors have been testing? That the ancestral spirit has gifted them with termites to eat? That the goddess causes termites to stick because of the sacrifice last full moon?
If science is only about explaining the world, then you'd be right. But you've also said in this thread that you are referring to the modern history of science which started with the application of the scientific method, which includes testing theories. Using technology is testing the theory it is based on, and therefore a scientific act.
So, either science started way back when we started explaining the world (any explanation would do, even one that invokes a God and the supernatural), or science started with the advent of the scientific method which includes the testing of theories by others, which includes the use of technology.
The theory being tested is that when a stick is inserted into a termite mound and removed, termites will be on the stick. Now let's test the theory by inserting sticks in to termite mounds and removing them. Every time you do that you are testing that theory.
So, Aristotle's zoological observations were philosophy, not science? And Zhang Heng (78-139), Zhang Zhongjing (150-219), Aryabhatta (476-550), al-Haytham (965-1040), al-Biruni (973-1048), and Avicenna (980-1037) were also not scientists (among others)?
That's not a theory, it's an observation. Observation alone isn't science.
No, they were not science.
It's not an observation, but a prediction based on previous observations. Any good scientific theory makes predictions about what you will find, or what will happen, when you test it. The theory predicts there will termites on your stick when removed from a termite mound. Now test it.
That doesn't make technology science. Technology is a tool that science uses, and the results of science inform the making of better tools.
Science isn't math either, but it makes heavy use of math like it does technology.
Any good scientific theory will also include an explanation, such as what makes the termites stick to the stick.
Would you say that chimpanzees are practicing science when putting sticks in a termite hole for the purpose of getting food? I would say they are merely using a tool to get food, and that's all.
Then please define "Philosophy" in a way which includes activities such as Aristotle's zoological observations.
That was considered natural philosophy at the time, and Aristotle came up with explanations. But he didn't have a method for testing his explanations. He just made observations and came up with hypothesis. That's not enough.
Yeah. But technology is not science. Technology is tool making and refining. It can be used for science, warfare, gaining food, etc.
Wasting time arguing semantics on an internet forum.
Quoting Marchesk
Do you see your contradiction?
Is science about explaining the world? If "Yes", then Aristotle was doing science by explaining the world.
Is science about testing theories? If "Yes", then don't we do that every time we use technology based on some scientific theory?
There is no contradiction.
Quoting Harry Hindu
That's the goal of science.
Quoting Harry Hindu
Theories are tested to further our understanding of the world.
Quoting Harry Hindu
No, not at all. I'm not furthering science when I use my iPhone to text someone about an upcoming sporting event. Nor when I use my bike made of the latest lightweight alloy to get some exercise.
In those cases and many others, I'm just using tools to accomplish some non-scientific goal of mine.
You're kidding, right?
The OP is concerned with the relationship between Science and Philosophy. We attach different meanings to the term "Science", so it's only logical that I try to ascertain what you mean by the term "Philosophy"
If the scientific theories that the bike and smartphone were wrong, would you still be able to text or get some exercise using these devices?
I didn't say that you are furthering science. I said you are doing science by testing the theory the technology was based on.
Quoting MarcheskNo. It's the theories/explanations that further our understanding of the world. Testing theories further the reliability, or accuracy of those theories/explanations.
But I'm not testing any theory when I use technology. I'm using the technology for every day purposes, not to test some scientific theory.
It's also quite possible to have technology that works in absence of any good scientific explanation. Humans tinker a lot and can discover working solutions where we don't know how they work.
And that's largely what we did before modern science.
Sometimes I wonder.
Quoting Galuchat
Philosophy is much more open ended than science. It doesn't have a rigorous empirical testing requirement. I'm not really sure what the full definition of philosophy would be. It's a kind of meta thinking where we ask questions about anything that's normally taken for granted. And then there's the whole ethical and how-to-live-your life part of philosophy.
But clearly there is overlap between philosophy, science, technology, math, logic and I'll throw history into there, because I had a recent online argument over whether history was science (it's not).
All of those are separate domains, but they can all be related, or used in the different domains.
Quoting MarcheskWell that was the point of my question. There is a difference between working, and working reliably. How do you know that it will continue to work? Test it by using it over and over.
I did a quick reading of both, mostly focusing on Ch. 11. I’ve so far not found any significant disagreements with what he’s written.
On the finer side of things, I nevertheless do view the enterprise of the empirical sciences to be progressing toward a better understanding of objective reality, although in no way linearly. But—maybe paradoxically to some—my perspectives regarding this progression are here closely aligned with those addressed by Kuhn and by Robinson. So, for instance, Kuhn’s observations, to me, themselves serve as a progression of the empirical sciences toward greater understandings of objective reality … which, in part, includes the presence of all of us conscious observers trying to figure out what the reality common to all of us actually is.
Using Robinson’s own terms and semantics, though, I do find usefulness in differentiating “reality” from “the objective”, this in so far as “reality” can all too often connote a perfectly stable phenomenal world that always was and always will be. For instance, taking into account only our current cosmological models—diverse as these are—science clearly informs us that phenomenal reality itself changes over time … this when appraised on a cosmic scale of time. A little like a window pane which we all agree to be a solid given the timeframe of our shared current lifetime / generation: given enough time (hundreds of years), the glass would nevertheless be observed to behave like a liquid working in slow motion, becoming thicker at the bottom and thinner at the top. At any rate, not a perfectly stable external reality … even though it mostly is from the reference points of individual human lifetimes.
All the same, again, I’ve so far found no significant disagreements with what he’s written as regards the sciences. Especially in regard to such things as the implications of Newton's statement "(if I may so say)".
How about yourself, do you find yourself in general agreement or disagreement with Robinson’s observations?
I think technology is a red herring here. What changed in the course of the scientific revolution is a specialization of scientific epistemology. You can still consider science as "natural philosophy," but it isn't just any kind of philosophy directed towards the natural world. In the past "natural philosophy" could mean "thinking really hard" (in the words of Mike Alder), developing some intricate metaphysics, delving into numerology, or Biblical exegesis. Science nowadays primarily relies on empirical epistemology. That is not to say that empiricism is unique to science, or that non-empirical considerations play no role in science, but the overwhelming emphasis on empiricism is what sets science apart from the rest of philosophy.
That and the social structures and procedures that have crystallized over the last several centuries and have become uniquely associated with science.
As I’ve previously mentioned, I myself don’t have any problem in addressing the term “reality”. My own interpretation of what he’s getting at relies far less on the dichotomy between spiritual interpretations of the word “reality” and physicalist interpretations of the word “reality” and for more on a type of tribalism that occurs within academia; a tribalism that I picked up on in reading his Ch. 11 but which I don’t recall him specifying via particular cases.
I’ll try to provide examples from fields of empirical-science based academia which I’m most interested in. One side of the isle you have the academic tribe of evolution via natural selection; on the other side of the isle you have the tribe of cognitive science. You will also find a plethora of sub-tribes within each division (e.g., evolution requires determinism v. evolution requires indeterminism; or, cog.sci. ought to incorporate Freud’s notion of repression v. cog.sci. ought to call BS on Freud for being utterly unempirical in his speculation regarding how the mind works). These tribes and sub-tribes hold their own intuitive notions of “reality”, with these notions sometimes overlapping, sometimes being rather incongruent, i.e. logically contradictory to each other. Terminology between isles, though often the same sign, will also often enough hold different “reality-based” semantics. “Instinct” is one such term, rather easy to pinpoint due to its ambiguity. So too is “adaptability”, what is addressed by the termed “paradigm”, “mind”, “feelings” among many others terms I’ve not needed to contemplate for some time from the vantage of academia.
The details are for me right now a blurred memory. Nevertheless, here’s a telling example: if life changes via evolution through natural selection and if cognition occurs, then human cognition must have itself evolved through natural selection that stems all the way back to prokaryotes. Yet, this conclusion is incongruent to the “reality” maintained by (the majority of the tribe-members on) either side of the isle. Evo.Psych. is to me a noble attempt at bridging these two isles, but, as with the earlier version of this attempted bridge known as sociobiology, instead of bridging the two sides it instead has a tendency of becoming its own academic tribe that holds yet another intuitive understanding of what “reality” actually is.
Within this context of academic tribalism, as (however poorly) depicted, between different branches of the empirical sciences, Robinson’s proposal of setting aside notions of “reality” in favor of notions of “the objective” makes sense to me, personally. Forget about preconceived notions of what reality really is and, instead, focus on what data is objective and what explanations best account for such data. I mentioned this recently in another thread; amoeba have been empirically demonstrated to learn. Does this fit in with most people’s conceptualizations of reality? No. It is an objective datum? Yes. So why is it not a datum incorporated into all branches of the empirical sciences that address biology and cognition? This other than it not fitting into ready-present notions of what reality is … thereby requiring some degree of paradigm-shift as regards what reality is? In not incorporating new data, though, both academic sides deny what is objective datum in favor of preexisting biases regarding what is “reality”.
The core issue, per my understanding, then being:
What reality is is itself a metaphysical question (albeit one we take for granted and quite often disagree on as regards the particulars). What objective data is is however thoroughly within the realms of the empirical, and stands regardless of notions regarding reality. Hence, the empirical sciences should focus on what is objective (and how to best account for it) and leave the issue of what is real to that other branch of academia known as philosophy.
Well, all questions can be reduced to philosophical questions. Unless you are unclear on what modern-day notions of empiricism are, then the empirical objectivity of the empirical sciences shouldn't be all that hard to fathom (even though empiricism too holds its foundation in philosophy).
This, however, is in a different ballpark than that of what reality actually is. This question, for example, can address the physicalism v. neutral monism v. substance dualism (etc.) issue. Yet, this metaphysical issue regarding reality is a difference that makes no difference in respect to empirical objectivity.
Quoting ?????????????
I wasn't addressing terminology; I was instead addressing reliance of practices--namely that of scientific investigations and development--being founded on conceptualizations. All the same, I'm in no way here to uphold or else argue about what Robinson truly said or intended. You may well be right in this respect.
OK, then in addressing the referents to terms, and in speaking on my own behalf, I currently continue to uphold that while what is reality (and not: what is real) should be left up to philosophy, what is objective (and not: what is objectivity) should be left up the empirical sciences. Hence, as an ideal worth pursuing, the empirical sciences shouldn’t be biased by notions of what is reality in their endeavors to discover more of what is objective.
Do we disagree on this?
In skimming what I previously wrote to you, saw that my use of terms was all over the place—not as sharp as it could have been; things like using the word “real” instead of “reality” and the like, never mind my use of the term “isle”. Wanted to say: my bad. Without this being an excuse, my odd dislexicalities tend to show more when I don’t take sufficient time in writing. As to a reply: cool.
Here is my rendition on this topic. It is a very short one, therefore there may be flaws in it.
"Technology is (the) a physical manifestation of (the) science".
Yes, and as Harry Hindu pointed out: technology is a test of the truth value of that science per Negative Pragmatism, to wit:
No, it's greater.
Michael Ossipoff
If there is more science now, then there is also more of everything else too. There is more of every thing. more land destruction, more religion, more people, more poverty, more slavery, more riches, more things, more waste.
It seems to me that science with a small 's' and the technologies that apply it are what makes man. Sincehomo habilis who 'experimented' with stones and their knapping to make hand tools, that is science. With such primitive human thinking, the temperature of the social and technological change was cool.
Or basically you could call it simply ignorance. We don't have to know.
The use of technology doesn't demand the understanding of the technology and hence underlying science. Actually the aim of product design is to make everything as easy as possible. This helps ignorance to flourish, and with ignorance then you get the window open for mysticism and superstition.
Just look at any machine before and now. Let's take for example a car. Now just to put on the lights on T-model Ford (or similar car) is a lengthy process. Do it wrong and you can break the lamp. Now in modern cars you don't have to even turn on the lights, they come automatically. Likely in the end self-driving cars will make a huge portion of people totally incapable of driving themselves: who needs to drive personally?
Hence if you never repair anything of the various machines you use in normal life, likely you have no idea how they actually work and "what is inside of them", no clue of the technology. Then likely you have no idea how (or what) science and scientific understanding is needed to have the technology that your machines are built on. Perfect example is Einstein's theory of relativity and the GPS system. Various apps we use, use the GPS system. If the system would be based on the "Newtonian" thinking, the GPS system wouldn't be so precise as it is now.
For 99% of human history this was not the case. And that was the point I was making. The industrial revolution divided the understanding from the application, as before most technology was amde more closely to those that used it. From out Hunter/gatherer past where all tech. clothes, weapons, shelter and other tools were all made by the community that used it. Even through ancient times there was little division between knowledge and application.
Now you say there is more science, when in fact science was the intimately applied knowledge of the past.
These days many people can get by with zero science; that was simply not possible in most of our past.
So are we more scientific now or less?
I think science has an underlying philosophy at it's base to govern the thinking patterns that triggers the creativity in science/scientists. And it most cultures(if not all), the religion plays a broader part because religion governs the way of thinking of all cultures. There was a good argument put forward last century which is becoming widely accepted nowadays, and that is monotheistic judeo-christian culture is behind the modern science since middle ages, regardless of the two starting to separate and going own ways since that time. In other words, the separation of nature from human existence was founded in judeo-christian culture and passed onto science. Not sure how all the above are directly related to the OP question, but in a nutshell, technology is a result(effect), and the science is the cause, and philosophy and religion hides behind science as a cause.