Can I end post-modern era?

[Roboramma]

Originally Posted by LarryS

the 'proof' in baked into physicalism which states all that is real are numerical quantities . . . a 'raisin' requires an observer to make that distinction. You'd have to prove the raisin exists independent of our being aware of it . . . which is impossible.

The raisin is just the relationships between the different particles. Those relationships are real things.

Similarly, a book is a collection of letters written on a page. The words in the book are just the patterns in the ordering (and frequency) of those letters. That doesn't make the words any less real than the letters. Nor is the difference between a random assortment of letters and my copy of Somerset Maugham's Of Human Bondage an arbitrary or subjective distinction as you seem to be arguing here.

[Sideroxylon]

Originally Posted by arthwollipot

Fun fact. I once ran a tabletop roleplaying game session that was set against the backdrop of a shooting war between Operationalist philosophers and Realist philosophers.

Great game.

Sounds awesome.

[arthwollipot]

Originally Posted by Sideroxylon

Sounds awesome.

Well, it's essentially what's going on here. LarryS is arguing Operationalist philosophy - that all we have is models and you can't confuse the model with absolute reality. Everyone else is on the Realist side, saying there's no real difference between the model and the reality that it is modelling.

So far, no-one is shooting, fortunately.

[Sideroxylon]

Originally Posted by arthwollipot

Well, it's essentially what's going on here. LarryS is arguing Operationalist philosophy - that all we have is models and you can't confuse the model with absolute reality. Everyone else is on the Realist side, saying there's no real difference between the model and the reality that it is modelling.

So far, no-one is shooting, fortunately.

You can have a bit of realism with your idealism through this idea by Lorenz:

The central nervous apparatus does not prescribe the laws of nature any more than the hoof of the horse prescribes the form of the ground. Just as the hoof of the horse, this central nervous apparatus stumbles over unforeseen changes in its task. But just as the hoof of the horse is adapted to the ground of the steppe which it copes with, so our central nervous apparatus for organizing the image of the world is adapted to the real world with which man has to cope.

[IanS]

Originally Posted by LarryS

Yes an ‘orange’ is a model, a molecule is a model. The mistake is taking the model as reality

Why are you using the word "model"? That seems to be yet another example of philosophy actually being a subject about word games.

The word "molecule" (or other words that we've been using here, ... "atom', "particles") is just the name that we give to something that we have discovered and described using science (ie, in those examples) ...

... what science detects is not a "model" ... what we detect is a whole load of characteristics & properties for things like molecules and atoms (or oranges, trees, the Moon), and we give a name to that ... the name is just a word that we/humans invented long long ago (often in ancient times) as a lable used to refer to each specific different thing that we have detected and described.

Would you prefer that instead of using the word "molecule", we had to reproduce 10,000 other words every time anyone wanted to describe that thing by listing all of it's numerous characteristics and properties?

Would you ask the world to stop using word like Star or Space, and instead every time take several hours to use many thousands of words and diagrams etc. to show another person what we are talking about?

Your whole participation in these threads (and you have been saying the same things in numerous threads here for years), seems to be just your preferred interest in philosophy and an opposition to science, where you want minimise the success of science ... but that's silly, and it won't work; because science has "proved" a trillion times over, how accurate and useful it is .. in fact it's absolutely vital for almost everything that everyone on the planet now does ... whereas your pet subject of philosophy really has very little use since we discovered what we now call "science" ... as various people in history have remarked "after Galileo, anyone who was a decent honest objective philosopher wanting to understand the true facts about this world, started to pursue the methods of science instead" , although of course that change happened slowly at first, but then steadily increasing over the centuries to the present day.

It's not a battle though. It's not a competition between philosophy vs science. If it was a battle then science would be winning by a Billion to zero. It's simply the case that we have learned a great deal more and achieved a great deal more by using science.

If you really wanted to understand the world around us, then you'd be following science, and not philosophy ... and especially not what so often end up as little more than the naval-gazing word games of philosophy.

But as is always eventually said to the philosophy posters in threads like this - if you really believe that macroscopic objects don't exist, then why haven't you long ago stood in front of a speeding express train or thrown yourself off the top of a sky scraper?

[Sideroxylon]

If you are going to talk metaphysics you can expect language to fail at the task.

[Darat]

Originally Posted by arthwollipot

Well, it's essentially what's going on here. LarryS is arguing Operationalist philosophy - that all we have is models and you can't confuse the model with absolute reality. Everyone else is on the Realist side, saying there's no real difference between the model and the reality that it is modelling.

So far, no-one is shooting, fortunately.

I’m not. After all we know our current models are “wrong”, or rather they can’t model all our observational data, and we know we need different models for different scales, therefore we know there has to be a distinction between our models and reality.

Only once we have a single model that predicts all our observational data would we even need to discuss whether there is a distinction between the model and reality.

[Roboramma]

I don't think we have any observational data that's inconsistent with quantum mechanics.

The standard model may not include the dark matter particles, but it's not inconsistent with their being some particle at the right energy that could be included.

[Darat]

Originally Posted by Roboramma

I don't think we have any observational data that's inconsistent with quantum mechanics.

It’s not that it’s inconsistent, it’s that it can’t describe/predict all the observable data.

Originally Posted by Roboramma

The standard model may not include the dark matter particles, but it's not inconsistent with their being some particle at the right energy that could be included.

Don’t disagree and indeed I think we can go further and rule out a lot of things even though the model is not perfect. We know hydrinos can’t exist, that there isn’t a force/field/particle that could let us communicate via telepathy , there can’t be a healing force, people can’t have auroras only visible to a “3rd eye” and so on.

[abaddon]

Originally Posted by IanS

Why are you using the word "model"? That seems to be yet another example of philosophy actually being a subject about word games.

Depressing, isn't it?

I once worked with a degreed philosopher who worked as a teacher in computer programming.

So I eventually asked him why. Why the change of direction?

He said that philosophy did not put food on his table. Just crap in his inbox.

And here we are, all those decades later, dealing with more crap in the inbox.

It is to laugh.

[Roboramma]

Originally Posted by Darat

It’s not that it’s inconsistent, it’s that it can’t describe/predict all the observable data.

In that case I'd say it's not wrong.

Quote:

Don’t disagree and indeed I think we can go further and rule out a lot of things even though the model is not perfect. We know hydrinos can’t exist, that there isn’t a force/field/particle that could let us communicate via telepathy , there can’t be a healing force, people can’t have auroras only visible to a “3rd eye” and so on.

Agreed.

[LarryS]

When I use the expression 'making a distinction' I am not refering to the simple naming or use of language, I am refering to the boundaries generated by, and definitive of, a thing. We use expressions such as 'a falling apple' and 'an oncoming car' with such regularity we assume that matter has the capacity to reproduce and maintain itself by creating its own parts and components. The 'creation' of parts and components requires an observer, unless we wish to elevate matter to an august deity, that is, matter is not simply inert numerical quantities, but matter also has the capacity to organize itself.
I am not trying to minimize science, only trying to establish that 'doing science' is 'doing philosophy', and doing science is having beliefs. When I call an orange, or a cancer cell a model I am not suggesting we don't take these models seriously, only, we should not take them literally.

[Sideroxylon]

Originally Posted by LarryS

When I use the expression 'making a distinction' I am not refering to the simple naming or use of language, I am refering to the boundaries generated by, and definitive of, a thing. We use expressions such as 'a falling apple' and 'an oncoming car' with such regularity we assume that matter has the capacity to reproduce and maintain itself by creating its own parts and components. The 'creation' of parts and components requires an observer, unless we wish to elevate matter to an august deity, that is, matter is not simply inert numerical quantities, but matter also has the capacity to organize itself.
I am not trying to minimize science, only trying to establish that 'doing science' is 'doing philosophy', and doing science is having beliefs. When I call an orange, or a cancer cell a model I am not suggesting we don't take these models seriously, only, we should not take them literally.

While philosophy may be continuous with science most observers are going to make the distinction contained in the meanings of these two different words.

[Roboramma]

Originally Posted by LarryS

When I use the expression 'making a distinction' I am not refering to the simple naming or use of language, I am refering to the boundaries generated by, and definitive of, a thing. We use expressions such as 'a falling apple' and 'an oncoming car' with such regularity we assume that matter has the capacity to reproduce and maintain itself by creating its own parts and components. The 'creation' of parts and components requires an observer, unless we wish to elevate matter to an august deity, that is, matter is not simply inert numerical quantities, but matter also has the capacity to organize itself.
I am not trying to minimize science, only trying to establish that 'doing science' is 'doing philosophy', and doing science is having beliefs. When I call an orange, or a cancer cell a model I am not suggesting we don't take these models seriously, only, we should not take them literally.

Matter does have the capacity to organize itself. If it didn't, it wouldn't become organized. This isn't suggesting that matter is "an august deity".

[Darat]

Originally Posted by Roboramma

In that case I'd say it's not wrong.

..snip…

It’s wrong in the sense that Newton’s famous work is wrong, you can use it for a certain scale but it doesn’t work at a different scale. So we know it doesn’t accurately model reality. Doesn’t mean it isn’t very useful.

[Darat]

Originally Posted by LarryS

When I use the expression 'making a distinction' I am not refering to the simple naming or use of language, I am refering to the boundaries generated by, and definitive of, a thing. We use expressions such as 'a falling apple' and 'an oncoming car' with such regularity we assume that matter has the capacity to reproduce and maintain itself by creating its own parts and components. The 'creation' of parts and components requires an observer, unless we wish to elevate matter to an august deity, that is, matter is not simply inert numerical quantities, but matter also has the capacity to organize itself.
I am not trying to minimize science, only trying to establish that 'doing science' is 'doing philosophy', and doing science is having beliefs. When I call an orange, or a cancer cell a model I am not suggesting we don't take these models seriously, only, we should not take them literally.

This makes no sense at all.

[Roboramma]

Originally Posted by Darat

It’s wrong in the sense that Newton’s famous work is wrong, you can use it for a certain scale but it doesn’t work at a different scale. So we know it doesn’t accurately model reality. Doesn’t mean it isn’t very useful.

When you say it doesn't work at a different scale are you referring to renormalization? If so, it's not ruled out that there are dynamics happening at the scales beyond the cutoff distance, for instance, that we don't understand, but that the dynamics above that cutoff are exactly correct. That's different from the issue with newtonian physics where even within it's domain of applicability there are very small corrections that are in theory there but are just so small as to not really matter.

It may be that the fundamental theory will give a description of reality that is at odds with modern quantum mechanics. It may also be that it's completely in agreement with QM within a certain range and simply extends our understanding beyond that range. In the former case I'd say that we'd have found that QM is wrong (in the sense you're talking about), but in the latter case I'd say that we'd developed a model that talks about different things that the current model isn't describing. In that case our current models can still be viewed as an accurate description of reality.

I may be wrong here, but I don't think we know which of these is the case yet.

[LarryS]

Originally Posted by Myriad

I don't think this can be true, not to the extent you claim. An alien with different sensory systems (or instruments) could perceive the raisin in different ways—such as, as a statistical clustering within a certain volume of a particular ratio of elements, or as a region high in certain molecules (such as sucrose, or proteins specifically associated with the plant tissue of the seed body of the grape vine), or as a clustering of particles with timelines that all extend back to a specific roughly spherical 2cm diameter region of a vineyard several months ago. But in all those cases, the alien would still be able to distinguish what we call the raisin from, for example, the surrounding bran.

This might not be true in all cases. The raisin might be too small for the sensory resolution of an alien with a vastly larger spatial scale, or too short-lived for one with a vastly slower time scale, or too similar to the bran for one whose senses are inadequate for the task of telling one kind of organic molecule from another. And a given alien may or may not care to give the distinction any attention even if able to perceive it. You yourself might not distinguish the raisin from the surrounding bran or the other raisins, if you're in a hurry to finish your breakfast. But those are all circumstantial limitations, not fundamental ones. They aren't cause to question the raisin's existence.

Allow me to introduce an exceptional being to the argument, whom I name the OMNI, for Omniscient Mereological Nihilist Individual. The OMNI possesses all information about the state of every quantum field or particle in the universe, but does not care about or acknowledge any structure or combination or concatenation of those fundamental objects on any larger scale. The OMNI can observe each individual molecule of the raisin as it gets acted upon by enzymes and solvents as most of them (and eventually all of them) get dispersed away, without ever recognizing a raisin, or your digestive system, or you as an organism. The OMNI is never lacking any explanation of anything within its perception. It doesn't model the universe in its mind because it doesn't need to. Where we calculate "the Earth's" "orbit" around "the sun" as a consequence of "Earth's gravity" and "the Sun's gravity," the OMNI just observes a vast number of particles each individually acting on the forces presented it by other particles near (acting via e.g. electromagnetic forces) and far (acting via e.g. gravity) and so carrying on in their respective courses.

Of course, the OMNI needs an enormous amount of computational power to do this, much vaster than our little brains. What we need, to manage some portion of the OMNI's task with much less computational power, are things like perception and intelligence. The OMNI doesn't need and doesn't exhibit any intelligence, which is why that final "I" cannot stand for "intelligence" without self-contradiction. Of course, "individual" is also a self-contradiction, as I'm sure you've spotted.

(Contradictions aside, though, the OMNI works pretty well as a description of the universe itself.)

Does the fact that the OMNI does not perceive the raisin mean the raisin doesn't exist? No more than that fact that a blind man does not perceive the stars mean the stars don't exist. In the end what the OMNI does and does not know is not my concern. What other minds do and do not know matters more.

I would like to meet an alien, with a far different nervous system, to determine if we can have a consensus on this wonderful raisin. But who knows, maybe we have not come across any aliens because they and us see the world so differently we cross paths unknowingly.
I have seen bacteria long for the same agar I long for, so there's that.
Re your OMNI - it seems odd to me to grant inert matter this computational power - but it does seem to be required. None the less the OMNI's task and ours are quite different, we have to compute qualities such as orange, and cheering for a home run at Wrigley Field and waking up in the arms of someone we truly love . . . and the OMNI has mearly to track inert numerical quantities like mass and momentum, etc.

[Darat]

Originally Posted by LarryS

I would like to meet an alien, with a far different nervous system, to determine if we can have a consensus on this wonderful raisin. But who knows, maybe we have not come across any aliens because they and us see the world so differently we cross paths unknowingly.
I have seen bacteria long for the same agar I long for, so there's that.
Re your OMNI - it seems odd to me to grant inert matter this computational power - but it does seem to be required. None the less the OMNI's task and ours are quite different, we have to compute qualities such as orange, and cheering for a home run at Wrigley Field and waking up in the arms of someone we truly love . . . and the OMNI has mearly to track inert numerical quantities like mass and momentum, etc.

How - if they are made of stuff then we can detect them either with our built in sensors or other sensors.

[LarryS]

Not necessarily, we don’t know how biased is our view. What we call physics is the study of human perception more than the study of reality

[Darat]

Originally Posted by LarryS

Not necessarily, we don’t know how biased is our view. What we call physics is the study of human perception more than the study of reality

No it isn’t.

[IanS]

Originally Posted by LarryS

Not necessarily, we don’t know how biased is our view. What we call physics is the study of human perception more than the study of reality

Well that's yet another claim that you just made as an absolute fact, even though you do not know any such thing at all.

Do you not realise that it's impossible for anyone to have a rational conversation with you when you keep claiming all sorts of facts straight off the top of your head without you actually knowing any such thing at all.

Whether it's physics or any other main branch of science, all of published science agrees that the Earth existed billions of years before there were ever any humans alive to "perceive" it's existence. So on what basis can you be credible when you disagree with all of published science like that? ...

... if you know that the Earth never existed until human "perception" finally came along, then why have you never published your amazing wonderful explanation for your claimed "fact"?

[Sideroxylon]

Originally Posted by IanS

Well that's yet another claim that you just made as an absolute fact, even though you do not know any such thing at all.

Do you not realise that it's impossible for anyone to have a rational conversation with you when you keep claiming all sorts of facts straight off the top of your head without you actually knowing any such thing at all.

Whether it's physics or any other main branch of science, all of published science agrees that the Earth existed billions of years before there were ever any humans alive to "perceive" it's existence. So on what basis can you be credible when you disagree with all of published science like that? ...

... if you know that the Earth never existed until human "perception" finally came along, then why have you never published your amazing wonderful explanation for your claimed "fact"?

Idealism doesn’t have to be a refutation of science - American pragmatism is underlined by it. Talking about an earth existing before humans is in this context is very much like Samuel Johnson kicking a stone to refute George Berkeley.

Still the bald assertion you are arguing with is boring and all too easy to make without any careful explanation about what you are saying and not saying and an actual argument.

[IanS]

Originally Posted by Sideroxylon

Idealism doesn’t have to be a refutation of science - American pragmatism is underlined by it. Talking about an earth existing before humans is in this context is very much like Samuel Johnson kicking a stone to refute George Berkeley.

Still the bald assertion you are arguing with is boring and all too easy to make without any careful explanation about what you are saying and not saying and an actual argument.

I am not interested in something called "idealism", and neither should anyone else be ... unless all that they are interested in is studying philosophy purely as a means of creating endless disputes and arguments about everything, simply because they (anyone) can argue and dispute everything (especially easy when they declare that they need zero evidence to do it).

The point of the planet as an illustration is to say that all of published science agrees that the Planet existed billions of years before any human perception ever existed. If you want to dispute that, then you have no case at all unless and until you can publish a paper in the genuine science research literature showing why all of science is wrong to accept that the Earth existed before anyone "perceived" it.

If you cannot explain in credible publishable terms why any part of published accepted science is wrong, then you have no case.

[Sideroxylon]

Originally Posted by IanS

I am not interested in something called "idealism", and neither should anyone else be ... unless all that they are interested in is studying philosophy purely as a means of creating endless disputes and arguments about everything, simply because they (anyone) can argue and dispute everything (especially easy when they declare that they need zero evidence to do it).

The point of the planet as an illustration is to say that all of published science agrees that the Planet existed billions of years before any human perception ever existed. If you want to dispute that, then you have no case at all unless and until you can publish a paper in the genuine science research literature showing why all of science is wrong to accept that the Earth existed before anyone "perceived" it.

If you cannot explain in credible publishable terms why any part of published accepted science is wrong, then you have no case.

Yeah, really not sure where you are going with that. Looks like you and some others have a bit of history. Will sit back and watch.

[IanS]

Originally Posted by Sideroxylon

Idealism doesn’t have to be a refutation of science - American pragmatism is underlined by it. Talking about an earth existing before humans is in this context is very much like Samuel Johnson kicking a stone to refute George Berkeley.

Still the bald assertion you are arguing with is boring and all too easy to make without any careful explanation about what you are saying and not saying and an actual argument.

I think the other point that needs clarifying in any of these discussions, is the question of where any burden of proof lies (actually not "proof", but evidence and/or credible explanation).

And what I think has happened is that philosophy has tried to switch the burden away from their claims, and to put the burden onto scientists and anyone else who treats what they experience & detect as real.

But science does not need to claim that what we detect is real. None of us need to do that. All that we need to say is that we seem to have perceptions, apparently from a sensory system and a brain, of objects and events in an environment around us. And then all we do is describe those perceptions, and try to develop ways to study the nature of whatever we perceive ... we do not need to say a single word about whether or not what we perceive is real or whether or not the way that we investigate any of it is real.

The dispute only arises later when a philosopher comes along to claim that what we perceive is not real, or claims that it may not be real (though I think that saying it may not be real, actually amounts to the same claim of saying it IS NOT real). In which case, the burden is entirely on the philosophical side who claim the perceptions are not real.

[IanS]

Originally Posted by Sideroxylon

Yeah, really not sure where you are going with that. Looks like you and some others have a bit of history. Will sit back and watch.

Ha ha ( ) ... well if you mean my criticism of philosophy as a useful subject which in the 21st century is still making claims about the nature of reality and disputing what we have learned from science, then I think that after 24,000+ posts here you will know that I'm not exactly alone in dismissing most of that branch of philosophy as an obsolete empty self-indulgent waste of everyones time.

Or if you mean my replies specifically to Larry ... well, as you probably know yourself - Larry has, for many years, been arguing various forms of Solipsism here in virtually every post he ever makes. That's fine if he's really interested that particular branch of philosophy, but most of us have seen it here many times before, and we don't think it has any merit at all (it's just a waste of everyones time ... or even worse, when people make philosophical claims like that, it also becomes an attempt to persuade everyone who hears them into deeply anti-scientific ways of belief about the world ... and I think that creates a problem when people are encouraged to have major doubts about vast areas of science.

[Rystiya]

Originally Posted by Roboramma

The raisin is just the relationships between the different particles. Those relationships are real things.

Similarly, a book is a collection of letters written on a page. The words in the book are just the patterns in the ordering (and frequency) of those letters. That doesn't make the words any less real than the letters. Nor is the difference between a random assortment of letters and my copy of Somerset Maugham's Of Human Bondage an arbitrary or subjective distinction as you seem to be arguing here.

Note knowledge on patterns are gained by observing and concluding experiences, hence the former is less real. Patterns themselves are real, yet you can't be absolutely sure on what is their cause and implications.

Your example might not be accurate. Words are made of letters, yet nothing is made of experiences and experiences are made of nothing, as far as we know.

[Rystiya]

Originally Posted by Sideroxylon

You can have a bit of realism with your idealism through this idea by Lorenz:

The central nervous apparatus does not prescribe the laws of nature any more than the hoof of the horse prescribes the form of the ground. Just as the hoof of the horse, this central nervous apparatus stumbles over unforeseen changes in its task. But just as the hoof of the horse is adapted to the ground of the steppe which it copes with, so our central nervous apparatus for organizing the image of the world is adapted to the real world with which man has to cope.

I think it's better to admit that we don't know how can physical bodies come up with none-physical experiences. When it comes to the source of experiences, the only honest answer is 'we can't be sure'.

[Rystiya]

Originally Posted by IanS

I did not say that "experiences" or "consciousness" don't exist. You need to read that above post more carefully.

Well, scientists are mostly on my side, simply because I am taking their side! ... I am accepting the scientific position on these issues. That is :- I'm accepting that science is likley to be closer to a corect answer, as opposed to (say) philosophy which has really never discovered or accurately explained anything.

And as for saying "I believe scientists are smart enough to know what they don't know" ... as I have explained to you a dozen times or more - most scientists in genuine core research (eg physics, chemistry, most of biology and most of maths), if they being serious, would agree that they cannot claim to absolutely "know" (ie as 100% certain fact) anything. Though they have a pretty good idea ... in fact, as a subject (ie science); by far the best record of reliable accurate explanations.

Perhaps your words are misleading, or perhaps my English is not good enough. Nevermind.

I never disagreed on the idea that 'as a subject (ie science); by far the best record of reliable accurate explanations', although science do have limitations (which I've tried hard to tell you). I think I have already made this clear. I would be a fool if I think I know how to build a rocket to mars better than scientists and engineers in that field.

You said 'if they being serious, would agree that they cannot claim to absolutely "know" (ie as 100% certain fact) anything', and that is almost the same as my opinion.

I do believe that 'even if everything else is unreal, I still have experiences', though, that's one of the reasons why I think experiences are so special. I think this don't have much to do with the scope of science. Actually, if you love science, you probably also want to love experiences, because everything you know are interpreted from your experiences.

[Darat]

Originally Posted by Rystiya

Note knowledge on patterns are gained by observing and concluding experiences, hence the former is less real. Patterns themselves are real, yet you can't be absolutely sure on what is their cause and implications.

Your example might not be accurate. Words are made of letters, yet nothing is made of experiences and experiences are made of nothing, as far as we know.

Experiences are chemical reactions mostly in my nervous system and brain.

[Sideroxylon]

Originally Posted by Rystiya

I think it's better to admit that we don't know how can physical bodies come up with none-physical experiences. When it comes to the source of experiences, the only honest answer is 'we can't be sure'.

I think it’s better to abandon the sharp Cartesian subject-object distinction and the problem looks less like a problem.

[IanS]

Originally Posted by Rystiya

Perhaps your words are misleading, or perhaps my English is not good enough. Nevermind.

I never disagreed on the idea that 'as a subject (i.e. science); by far the best record of reliable accurate explanations', although science do have limitations (which I've tried hard to tell you). I think I have already made this clear. I would be a fool if I think I know how to build a rocket to mars better than scientists and engineers in that field.

You said 'if they being serious, would agree that they cannot claim to absolutely "know" (ie as 100% certain fact) anything', and that is almost the same as my opinion.

I do believe that 'even if everything else is unreal, I still have experiences', though, that's one of the reasons why I think experiences are so special. I think this don't have much to do with the scope of science. Actually, if you love science, you probably also want to love experiences, because everything you know are interpreted from your experiences.

OK, well most of the above is not anything I'd be particularly dismissive of. So that's fine.

Though re. that first highlight - what are the limitations of science? What do you think is inherently somehow beyond the possibility of being investigated or understood through a scientific approach? Because I can't actually think of anything.

Of course there are countless situations where using some formal apparatus of science would be hopelessly inefficient (as well as probably not necessary).

For example it's generally much easier & quicker to learn how to play a musical instrument via all the traditional methods of teaching music. But if you really wanted to do it, then there is nothing to stop you studying all sorts of aspects of sound waves and how various instruments make different sounds. And you could certainly also use science to decide why certain teaching methods may be more successful than others, and to find out why some people seem to do better, or others seemingly not so well etc.

This is a question that's been raised here many times before of course, and a lot people here (not just me) have expressed that view, where they don't really see why in principle science could not actually be used to learn more about anything ...

... so what are these things that are said to be inherently beyond the reach, realm or understanding of science?

On the second highlight - I think everyone here agrees that we do of course have experiences. None of your opponents here are arguing against that. The objection that you are encountering, is that I and others are still waiting to hear a plausible explanation of how we have experiences of such things without the real-world objects existing, such as a real-world brain & sensory system with which to form any such "experiences" in the first place.

And lastly ; I don't particularly "love science" ... but what I think about it is simply that it's "proved" itself vastly more successful than any other so-called "way of knowing" such as philosophy or religion. So that, if anyone truly wanted to understand more about the world we live in, and about what is likely to be true vs untrue in this world/universe, then science has shown the credentials to do just that. Whereas those other approaches have not only shown a huge lack of any such credentials, but where they have in fact been shown to be almost always completely & badly wrong in all the power and capability that they had originally claimed for themselves. On which basis I think it's only fair (essential, actually) to give science it's fair due for that (and conversly only fair to reject those other approaches as either very weak indeed, or more often frankly just dangerous untrue nonsense).

[jrhowell]

Originally Posted by Rystiya

Your example might not be accurate. Words are made of letters, yet nothing is made of experiences and experiences are made of nothing, as far as we know.

Human experiences are made of interactions between neurons. Having experiences is a process, not a physical construct.

[arthwollipot]

Originally Posted by Darat

It’s wrong in the sense that Newton’s famous work is wrong, you can use it for a certain scale but it doesn’t work at a different scale. So we know it doesn’t accurately model reality. Doesn’t mean it isn’t very useful.

I wouldn't use the word "wrong" like this. Newtonian gravity is extremely accurate at most scales. We can fling spacecraft across the solar system and have them hit their mark, using only Newtonian physics. There are a few arenas in which it gets less accurate, and then you use Einstein to modify, not replace, Newtonian physics.

Newton wasn't wrong - he just wasn't as close as Einstein.

[Darat]

Originally Posted by arthwollipot

I wouldn't use the word "wrong" like this. Newtonian gravity is extremely accurate at most scales. We can fling spacecraft across the solar system and have them hit their mark, using only Newtonian physics. There are a few arenas in which it gets less accurate, and then you use Einstein to modify, not replace, Newtonian physics.

Newton wasn't wrong - he just wasn't as close as Einstein.

Which does mean he was wrong! As a model of the universe/reality it is wrong, albeit it is a very useful model where it works.

[arthwollipot]

Originally Posted by Darat

Which does mean he was wrong! As a model of the universe/reality it is wrong, albeit it is a very useful model where it works.

Again, I wouldn't use that word here.

[LarryS]

Originally Posted by arthwollipot

Again, I wouldn't use that word here.

depends on what is meant by 'wrong', I would suggest that all models are wrong by definition, as a model is a description or representation (approximation) of a thing and not equivalent to that thing. So models can always be improved (and therefore are wrong) until they become the thing itself.

[arthwollipot]

Originally Posted by LarryS

depends on what is meant by 'wrong', I would suggest that all models are wrong by definition, as a model is a description or representation (approximation) of a thing and not equivalent to that thing. So models can always be improved (and therefore are wrong) until they become the thing itself.

Yeah, like most philosophy wars we are now coming down to specific definitions of particular words. Darat and I aren't very far from being in complete agreement, apart from how that word is used.

[LarryS]

Originally Posted by arthwollipot

Yeah, like most philosophy wars we are now coming down to specific definitions of particular words. Darat and I aren't very far from being in complete agreement, apart from how that word is used.

Odd that a philosophy forum would so consistently descend into philosophy