First, I agree with much of what’s been written. This said, it would easily take several books to document all these flaws. Where to begin? (please forgive any repetitions from previous posts). [1] Nowhere Is The Method Stated Clearly and Precisely To begin with, the oft-promoted idea that there is a single scientific method is…
First, kudos to the person who asked this question. It may be the most important a scientist could ever ask. It alone asks, what tangible qualities must we understand in order to know the nature of all things in our world, including us? Not surprisingly, the minute you try to answer this question, the present…
[NOTE: This was posted in 2016. Obviously, a lot has changed since then]I agree that with some posters that as AI exists, it will never be more than smart statistics. The problem is, you cannot change what you cannot see. Thus the main flaw in AI design lies not in any lack of intelligent effort…
First, nice to meet you, Kalangi. And thank you for this seemingly simple, but incredibly complex, and lovely, question. So what is the difference? I’m going to offer two directions in which to look for an answer: in an origin story, and by using logical geometry. First the story. ************************* In my early forties, I…
First, please forgive what will likely be a somewhat long and complicated response. To me, this is a great question and so warrants a serious answer. Also, I admit, people have offered a lot of personally relevant thoughts already. There is, however, quite a difference between personally relevant thoughts and answers based on a legitimate…
Thank you so much for asking me what is surely one of the more intriguing questions I’ve been sent lately. Hopefully the little drawing I’ve included below will be of some help here. Imagine that this square (the outer boundary of the drawing) contains all you could ever know about a certain subject. Say this…
In the sixth century BCE, Parmenides claimed, nothing true ever changes. In the same time period, Heraclitus claimed, you can’t step into the same river twice. Since then, an incredible amount of brilliant, but foolish, people have argued this point. All the while, the answer is right in front of us. Both are true and…
This is an amazingly intuitive question and could easily take a whole book to explore [something I actually did a few years back when I wrote, “The Science of Discovery (why do scientists so rarely make breakthroughs)”, 2016]. Shameless plugs from self-promoting authors aside (please forgive me), the gist of my answer is this. The…
To begin with, when I first read this question, I wondered if it was being posted by a troll. Please realize, I mean no offense to the OP. I’m simply pointing out how open to interpretation this question is. I find this vagueness ironic in light of the motives most scientists aspire to. Most scientists,…