The End Of Science

[Atheist-Lite]

I'm thinking about this in light of a collapse of food resources following climatic changes & the loss of cheap eaily accessible oil and things. Consider science as a cultural limb like sport, music or warfare. Whilst the human population is expanding there is always a surplus of food & resources (must be to maintain the societal stability of the forward expansion in numbers.) This allows the blue skies thinking, room to tinker and experiment without a discrenible return that is the hallmark of free enquiry, the basis of science. When a population goes into decline then the there is no surplus allocated for 'free enquiry' and science becomes much more a economic concern? before disappearing completely in a set of basic traditional techniques such as have been prevalent in older cultures throughout historic time. As science and advanced knowledge is unnecessary with regards maintaining a smaller population a transferal of social power away from secular bodies and back towards theocratic forms should occur in the currently advanced industrial world? Whilst science will continue to exist it may more and more take a backward form with a return to alchemic practices and astrology. One with only occasional flourishes, perhaps lasting a couple of generations, when small food surpluses allow a brief return to semi-scientific awreness - and promptly crushed by whatever theocratic powers should exist.

[JimC]

Science will end in 3 or 4 years time when I retire and stop teaching it...

(well, what's wrong with a little solipsism now and then...)

[Tigger]

Fuck me, you sound like my dad, Crumple.

[JimC]

Fuck me, you sound like my dad, Crumple.

Another cheery soul, I take it?

[Atheist-Lite]

Science will end in 3 or 4 years time when I retire and stop teaching it...

(well, what's wrong with a little solipsism now and then...)

That's the attitude. Where would we be without some looking inwards? some hope?

[Tigger]

Fuck me, you sound like my dad, Crumple.

Another cheery soul, I take it?

Apologies for the derail, which I'll stop, but yes. In fact I might have to start a thread after I've been to see him this morning.

When I ask him how he is the stock reply is:

"Don't ask."
or
"Shite."
or
"You don't want to know."

Seriously.

[Atheist-Lite]

This is a repeating pattern? I know it is a simplification of historic process and yet it has a robust quality if we consider it a rough high altitude image events. There is enough information to catch a common hint of the problem here and involve all in its unravelling? I suggest the Seldon Option....after all he knew enough to do something rather than nothing?

[Aos Si]

Science will die when we know everything and not before, noticing that when certain rocks are banged together they produce sparks and then going out and testing all different sorts of rocks to find the best ones, is, as pure a form of science as is the quantum mechanics behind the transistor and selecting therefore just the right materials to be efficient semi conductors. Just because the methodology didn't have that name, didn't change what it was. The first steam engine was built buy the classical Greeks, was that less science than the steam engines of Watt, Stephenson et al?

Human science will die when reason dies, at our extinction or when we have all the answers, the latter will probably be never.

[Atheist-Lite]

Science will die when we know everything and not before, noticing that when certain rocks are banged together they produce sparks and the going out and testing all different sorts of rocks to find the best one is science. Just because it didn't have that name, didn't change what it was. The first steam engine was built buy the classical Greeks, was that less science than the steam engines of Watt, Stephenson et al?

Human science will die when reason dies, at our extinction or when we have all the answers, the latter will probably be never.

Sounds good but the classical Greeks didn't act much different from chimps in that they didn't develop their steam engine, used their clocks for sport. The scientific method, the progress of modern times....that was a mass population effect never gonna be repeated....?

[Aos Si]

Science will die when we know everything and not before, noticing that when certain rocks are banged together they produce sparks and the going out and testing all different sorts of rocks to find the best one is science. Just because it didn't have that name, didn't change what it was. The first steam engine was built buy the classical Greeks, was that less science than the steam engines of Watt, Stephenson et al?

Human science will die when reason dies, at our extinction or when we have all the answers, the latter will probably be never.

Sounds good but the classical Greeks didn't act much different from chimps in that they didn't develop their steam engine, used their clocks for sport. The scientific method, the progress of modern times....that was a mass population effect never gonna be repeated....?

Na the scientific method existed long before the name was coined, that is indisputable, was it a formalised practice: no certainly not. The only thing that changed was that it became formalised into a more objectively rigid set of practices, many of which had already been layed down by people like Newton, Galileo, Leplace, Aristotle and so on. By analogy with the Greeks again, Euclid used calculus techniques to prove the spheres volume was 4/3 pi r^3, there's no doubt that his inifnite slithers approach is the fundamental rule of integrals and hence calculus. It was Newton and Liebniz though who both independently formalised calculus into a system of rules and rigidly codified it. We owe the name science to modern times, and the more rigorous method to it. Science though has clearly always existed as long as man thought it would be a good idea to throw rocks at small animals to bring them down, then some bright spark notice with a simple piece of leather he could improve the speed and distance covered by a stone, then someone thought they could use a spear which enabled larger game to be killed, then some even brighter spark thought to do the same thing with rocks as they did with a spear and the spear thrower was born. This is the essence of what science is, creativity and experimentation, intellectual evolution.

The Greeks didn't have the means to develop them because fuel wasn't readily available, had they vast reserves of coal at their disposal I'm sure they would of though. Standing on the shoulders of giants. After all the Romans, the great stealers and adapters of technology got much of their art, culture and technological sophistication from the Greeks. Although no one doubts they didn't create technology of their own.

[Atheist-Lite]

We'll be finding out about things more primitive peoples were capable of soon. The current path is utterly unsustainable and I see little prospect of a soft landing in terms of population. Whose looking forward to the coming flintstones lifestyle?

[Geoff]

This is a repeating pattern? I know it is a simplification of historic process and yet it has a robust quality if we consider it a rough high altitude image events. There is enough information to catch a common hint of the problem here and involve all in its unravelling? I suggest the Seldon Option....after all he knew enough to do something rather than nothing?

A single event doesn't imply a repeating pattern. Though I agree we should set up a couple of Foundations, at opposite ends of the galaxy...ASAP.

[Atheist-Lite]

They already exist. Here on the periphery is Rationalia and they even 'chucked' in a Mule. Nearer the centre is RatSkep and beyond the dying embers of empire itself with RDF and the elusive Emporer himself, The Dawk.

[Geoff]

They already exist. Here on the periphery is Rationalia and they even 'chucked' in a Mule. Nearer the centre is RatSkep and beyond the dying embers of empire itself with RDF and the elusive Emporer himself, The Dawk.

Now it all makes sense! The archived ratz threads are the Encyclopedia Galactica...

[Atheist-Lite]

They already exist. Here on the periphery is Rationalia and they even 'chucked' in a Mule. Nearer the centre is RatSkep and beyond the dying embers of empire itself with RDF and the elusive Emporer himself, The Dawk.

Now it all makes sense! The archived ratz threads are the Encyclopedia Galactica...

This is Terminus, there are no train stops beyond here.