Reductionism And Materialism Are Not Scientific Givens

[Legion]

It's not only possible, anyone in IT will tell you that it's inevitable. We will eventually be building computers which are analogous in complexity and processing speed to the human brain, and we will go beyond this limit.

I think no matter how inevitable it may feel for these IT people (who likely don’t know as much about the brain as a 1st year medical student) this is still a prediction. Predictions can be based in misunderstanding and thus be inaccurate.

[Antlerman]

I wonder (contrary to everything we think we know) if humans can design and build a computer that is smarter in every way one can measure intelligence that the human brain.

 

We know the capacity and computing speed of the brain. If that is the limit, I think we can do better.

 

It's not only possible, anyone in IT will tell you that it's inevitable. We will eventually be building computers which are analogous in complexity and processing speed to the human brain, and we will go beyond this limit.

Anyone in IT, except for me that is.

 

So what's your IT experience?

[Antlerman]

BTW, this whole AI, people in IT know this, line of reasoning really does illustrate exactly the 'dehumanizing' aspects of hardcore, philosophical Reductionism.

 

Face it, this is Idealism. Not science.

[Guest Davka]

It's not only possible, anyone in IT will tell you that it's inevitable. We will eventually be building computers which are analogous in complexity and processing speed to the human brain, and we will go beyond this limit.

I think no matter how inevitable it may feel for these IT people (who likely don’t know as much about the brain as a 1st year medical student) this is still a prediction. Predictions can be based in misunderstanding and thus be inaccurate.

 

Point taken.

 

 

That seems honest enough to me. I think though that those who wish to claim the creation of complex artifacts would do well to know why they are complex.

 

What did you think of my idea of complexity above?

 

It makes sense. It's a function of complex systems that I had not really thought about, but then I haven't thought (or read) a whole lot about complex systems, period.

 

It does seem to me that the scenario I wrote about - having a virtual environment with survival of the fittest geared towards evidence of consciousness - would inevitably incorporate the sort of closed-loop paradox you speak of. On a very basic level, this already exists in a P.C. - the motherboard will not post without RAM, and RAM is useless without a motherboard. Similar loops occur in software all the time.

 

Antlerman - My IT background is self-taught geek. I started playing with PCs in the 1980s, and with website design and database design in the 90s. I'm not much of a programmer, due to (relatively) poor math skills. I like to tinker, and to talk with IT professionals who have more education than I do. I currently repair PCs for a living, because I discovered that my real strength lies in troubleshooting.

 

And I'm in the process of teaching myself how to build a PhP/MySql interface using various online tutorials.

 

BTW, this whole AI, people in IT know this, line of reasoning really does illustrate exactly the 'dehumanizing' aspects of hardcore, philosophical Reductionism.

 

It depends on your conclusions. I cannot imagine that man-made computers will not eventually approach and even exceed the complexity of the human brain. It seems inevitable, unless extinction overtakes us first. If I were to conclude that therefore machines must become sentient beings, your analysis would be correct.

 

But for myself at least, the jury is still out - and will remain out until such time as we have a "positronic brain" (to borrow from Asimov). We don't have enough information to determine the nature of sentience.

 

Which, of course, will not stop us from philosophizing ad nauseum.

[Open_Minded]

Anyone in IT, except for me that is.

THANK YOU!!!! for asking this question.

 

I build and maintain databases for a living (have since the mid 1990s). I do a fair amount of programming myself and we all know where I stand in this discussion. I've a database that I'm in the middle of programming right now, so I don't have a lot of time. But there are a few points I'd like to add to the discussion.

 

Davka - you mentioned in an earlier post that compassion and love can be explained by natural selection. We need it to survive. This is true, in a simplistic black/white kind of way. But, when one really looks at how love and compassion transcend familial and tribal boundaries - then you're premise dies. We need love and compassion to take care of those in our "tribe". Beyond that there is no survival value in it. To be specific, if we are discussing survival of the fittest why should any of us care about the lives of people outside our own "tribe". Strict survival of the fittest is a description for war. And outside of the human species why would any animal take in and care for an animal outside its own species? Yet - this does happen. It's not uncommon at all to hear stories of cross-species nurturing amongst animals. What does this have to do with survival of the fittest. If survival of the fittest were the only valid description of animal behavior, the only interaction one would see from an adult of one species towards a child of another species would be for the adult to kill the child. This happens, of course, but it is not all there is to the story. Mother animals do take in orphans from other species.

 

My last point - and I make this point as author of the thread - is simple....

 

We've discussed "Al" at nausium - we've gone around in circles with Al and I am personally tired of the dance. It seems pretty clear, that as valid as realism, reductionism and materialism are within a larger context, this approach to life and living is not the full story. There is more to the story and I would like to go back to a comment contributed by Legion....

 

Yes, I’m looking forward to seeing what is presented as alternatives to reductionism. I have a few ideas that I’ve stolen, and I wonder if they’re close to the ideas you guys have stolen.

 

Please, let Al alone - and if you can't feel free to start another thread. Let's get back to the discussion as it was progressing before we got side-tracked.

[Antlerman]

Antlerman - My IT background is self-taught geek. I started playing with PCs in the 1980s, and with website design and database design in the 90s. I'm not much of a programmer, due to (relatively) poor math skills. I like to tinker, and to talk with IT professionals who have more education than I do. I currently repair PCs for a living, because I discovered that my real strength lies in troubleshooting.

 

And I'm in the process of teaching myself how to build a PhP/MySql interface using various online tutorials.

For myself, for the last 12 years I've moved from desktop support, to Network and Senior Systems Administrator positions, and am currently architecting the Virtual Infrastructure for multiple locations, using NetApp SAN appliances and Sunfire x4150 dual quad core systems with 32gb RAM each, running ESX VSphere 4.

 

Very cool stuff. But none of it approaching having a soul.

 

But for myself at least, the jury is still out - and will remain out until such time as we have a "positronic brain" (to borrow from Asimov). We don't have enough information to determine the nature of sentience.

 

Which, of course, will not stop us from philosophizing ad nauseum.

Part of what I have been considering in bringing into this, but have some degree of hesitancy, is to argue for existential experience. The subjective nature of being and the shared internal reality it reveals. Not all truth is found solely in the domain of empirical evidence. And that gets back to Legion's question of 'If not reductionism, then what?"

[Antlerman]

Please, let Al alone - and if you can't feel free to start another thread. Let's get back to the discussion as it was progressing before we got side-tracked.

 

With that established, and what I just brought up myself about us now looking at the alternative, AI is done for now. Let's eat some steak!

[Guest Davka]

Davka - you mentioned in an earlier post that compassion and love can be explained by natural selection. We need it to survive. This is true, in a simplistic black/white kind of way. But, when one really looks at how love and compassion transcend familial and tribal boundaries - then you're premise dies. We need love and compassion to take care of those in our "tribe". Beyond that there is no survival value in it.

 

There is survival value for the species as a whole, but I see your point.

 

 

To be specific, if we are discussing survival of the fittest why should any of us care about the lives of people outside our own "tribe".

 

History demonstrates that most of us don't care for people outside our own tribe. Xenophopia and ethnocentrism are the rule, not the exception. Genocidal wars have been common. Racism is a worldwide phenomenon. The 'default setting' for the human race is to care first for our family, then our community, then our tribe, and only sometimes for our species.

 

Strict survival of the fittest is a description for war. And outside of the human species why would any animal take in and care for an animal outside its own species? Yet - this does happen. It's not uncommon at all to hear stories of cross-species nurturing amongst animals. What does this have to do with survival of the fittest.

 

Nothing at all. Because it is not the rule for any species, but rather the exception, it is irrelevant. There are any number of traits which appear in some individuals but not in others which neither confer a survival advantage nor take away from survival. Mere variations, with no survival value one way or the other.

 

If I see a person with albinism, I don't think "what is the survival value of albinism?" I accept that some mutations will survive for many generations even though they confer no advantage, and might even be disadvantageous. Only if a trait is common to all members of a species do we need to determine it's survival value - and even then, it could be a vestigal trait with no value or detrimental effect.

 

If survival of the fittest were the only valid description of animal behavior, the only interaction one would see from an adult of one species towards a child of another species would be for the adult to kill the child. This happens, of course, but it is not all there is to the story. Mother animals do take in orphans from other species.

 

On average, what we see is the first scenario: adults killing the young of other species. The cooperation you describe is the exception, not the rule, and thus does not need to be explained as survival of the fittest. It could well be an unfit trait on its way out.

 

Yes, I’m looking forward to seeing what is presented as alternatives to reductionism. I have a few ideas that I’ve stolen, and I wonder if they’re close to the ideas you guys have stolen.

 

Me, too. And I'd like to see what Antlerman has to say about postmodern reason.

[Antlerman]

History demonstrates that most of us don't care for people outside our own tribe. Xenophopia and ethnocentrism are the rule, not the exception. Genocidal wars have been common. Racism is a worldwide phenomenon. The 'default setting' for the human race is to care first for our family, then our community, then our tribe, and only sometimes for our species.

And this is part of the evolution of our consciousness which I was hope to get to. We are now moving to a global-level consciousness, where as before, developmentally speaking, we were in fact as you say and are still struggling to evolve beyond through the emergence of a higher consciousness, just as we have from tribal systems, to mythic systems, to rational systems, etc.

Yes, I’m looking forward to seeing what is presented as alternatives to reductionism. I have a few ideas that I’ve stolen, and I wonder if they’re close to the ideas you guys have stolen.

 

Me, too. And I'd like to see what Antlerman has to say about postmodern reason.

I was planning to address that, and still am. Remind me if I don't get back to it. For now, I think it has some important things to offer, but it collapses on itself. For instance I believe there no one perspective is absolute, and there is value in multiple perspectives, but not all are therefore equal to the point nothing has more value.

 

Briefly, what we need is to go further and tie together and integrate everything in a new level, which includes acknowledging and incorporating the spiritual nature of humanity into our potentialities in how we address our worldview. Something reductionism - reduces to a component of the machine, and therefore leaves as more a novelty than anything else, or worse judging as some artifact of our infancy because it was a part of the mythic systems in its various forms (which is like saying because I loved my mother as a child, now that I'm grown up I know better).

[Open_Minded]

To be specific, if we are discussing survival of the fittest why should any of us care about the lives of people outside our own "tribe".

 

History demonstrates that most of us don't care for people outside our own tribe. Xenophopia and ethnocentrism are the rule, not the exception. Genocidal wars have been common. Racism is a worldwide phenomenon. The 'default setting' for the human race is to care first for our family, then our community, then our tribe, and only sometimes for our species.

History also shows that within all the world's cultures the ability to give unconditional love or compassion is held in high regard. That we consider it a mark of a very mature and wise person. Altruism - giving without expecting anything in return and having compassion for every human being - even if that human is outside ones tribe - is a mark of - dare I say - a "highly evolved" person.

 

We evolving humans are motivated by more than "survival of the fittest". Something in additioni to our own survival, survival of our family &/or tribe motivates us. If we were not motivated by something, in addition to, survival of the fittest we would not consider altruism and unconditional love as "highly evolved".

 

Yes, I’m looking forward to seeing what is presented as alternatives to reductionism. I have a few ideas that I’ve stolen, and I wonder if they’re close to the ideas you guys have stolen.

Me, too. And I'd like to see what Antlerman has to say about postmodern reason.

 

Good... now maybe we can get back to the meat of the discussion.

 

I'd like to jump right in with my own thoughts, but my survival depends on me making my clients happy and one client is expecting a database project to be finished on time, so I must go. Talk to you all later.

[Legion]

Similar loops occur in software all the time.

I should be able to check the veracity of this assertion in fairly short order Davka.

 

Please, let Al alone

I didn’t bring it up OM. I just think it needs to be dealt with in some measure.

 

 

Antlerman, as I examine these proposed alternatives to reductionism, I am still critically interested that they remain scientifically legitimate. Which to my mind means they conform to certain philosophies undergirding science itself.

 

I think the subjective world is a rich and fascinating ‘place’. And science does not discard the subjective world, in fact it relies critically on it. An observer’s duty in understanding a natural system includes measurement ( a subjectively influenced abstraction) and reason (entirely subjective). But I think scientist’s primary interest remains rooted in the objective world. I don’t believe that scientifically legitimate alternatives to reductionism will abandon this.

[Open_Minded]

I didn’t bring it up OM. I just think it needs to be dealt with in some measure.

I know you didn't, Legion. And I understand the need you feel to deal with it.

 

But, the general conversation was just starting down a very interesting path.... and the path got lost in the thickets of Al

 

Anyway..... onto my own thoughts about where the conversation was heading. As we’ve discussed before, any new scientific view of reality must encompass the older – legitimate – approaches. So.. it only makes sense that whatever comes next in Humanity’s ongoing search will not throw out classical physics – but will unify classical physics with quantum physics.

 

The NPR news story: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104351710 - in the original post intrigued me because the study discussed in it is pushing the edges of science as we know it.

 

Another area of scientific research that intrigues me is the search for quantum activity within biological systems. There are those scientists who propose that quantum mechanics plays a roll in our brain functions. It hasn’t been proven, yet. But, scientists are starting to find and prove that quantum mechanics plays a roll in other biological process. The following article is about quantum processes within plant photosynthesis.

 

Quantum secrets of photosynthesis revealed - http://www.physorg.com/news95605211.html

 

Said Engel, "The 2005 paper was the first biological application of this technique, now we have used 2-D electronic spectroscopy to discover a new phenomenon in photosynthetic systems. While the possibility that photosynthetic energy transfer might involve quantum oscillations was first suggested more than 70 years ago, the wavelike motion of excitation energy had never been observed until now."

As in the 2005 paper, the FMO protein was again the target. FMO is considered a model system for studying photosynthetic energy transfer because it consists of only seven pigment molecules and its chemistry has been well characterized.

 

"To observe the quantum beats, 2-D spectra were taken at 33 population times, ranging from 0 to 660 femtoseconds," said Engel. "In these spectra, the lowest-energy exciton (a bound electron-hole pair formed when an incoming photon boosts an electron out of the valence energy band into the conduction band) gives rise to a diagonal peak near 825 nanometers that clearly oscillates. The associated cross-peak amplitude also appears to oscillate. Surprisingly, this quantum beating lasted the entire 660 femtoseconds."

 

Engel said the duration of the quantum beating signals was unexpected because the general scientific assumption had been that the electronic coherences responsible for such oscillations are rapidly destroyed.

 

"For this reason, the transfer of electronic coherence between excitons during relaxation has usually been ignored," Engel said. "By demonstrating that the energy transfer process does involve electronic coherence and that this coherence is much stronger than we would ever have expected, we have shown that the process can be much more efficient than the classical view could explain. However, we still don’t know to what degree photosynthesis benefits from these quantum effects."

I don’t post this to draw any specific conclusions. As I said in the original post, “reductionism and materialism are not scientific givens”. Non-locality is creeping into our awareness and we have to deal with the implications.

 

On a personal level, I am excited … it feels as though we are on a shining frontier with the unknown stretching before us. And what is most fascinating of all is that the unknown is within us and intimately connected to the Cosmos at the same time.

 

I feel sure, that whatever we discover, the answer will be contained in one simple statement, “All is One”.

[Shyone]

 

I feel sure, that whatever we discover, the answer will be contained in one simple statement, “All is One”.

You can't imagine how much less offensive that is than "An ancient genocidal cult god's followers say you must believe or suffer eternal torment."

[Open_Minded]

I feel sure, that whatever we discover, the answer will be contained in one simple statement, “All is One”.

You can't imagine how much less offensive that is than "An ancient genocidal cult god's followers say you must believe or suffer eternal torment."

 

 

You know Shyone... one of the reasons I am so fascinated by this stuff is that I really believe it holds high potential for reducing the rigid fundamentalism so prevelent amongst us. Don't get me wrong, I'm not naive.... extremists ignore the facts and they always will. But... as this research uncovers more and more of reality - and we discover what it really means to say that we belong to an interconnected reality.... there will be less of a need for fundamentalism on all sides.

 

I would add to this that I am not just talking about fundamentalism in religion, but fundamentalism in science as well. Here in the west we've spent the last 300 years defining reality by classical Newtonian physics. This, by definition, means a separation of what I would term our "spiritual nature" from our physical nature. This view of reality is dualistic and sets up conflict between religion and science.

 

As reality reveals itself to us in Unity - there will be less of a need for a dualism and conflict between religion and science. Over time, the fundies on both sides of the equation will die and what will survive will be a kind of pragmatism..... that is my hope anyway.

[Antlerman]

Here in the west we've spent the last 300 years defining reality by classical Newtonian physics. This, by definition, means a separation of what I would term our "spiritual nature" from our physical nature. This view of reality is dualistic and sets up conflict between religion and science.

 

As reality reveals itself to us in Unity - there will be less of a need for a dualism and conflict between religion and science. Over time, the fundies on both sides of the equation will die and what will survive will be a kind of pragmatism..... that is my hope anyway.

Well said. And the important aspect of that is not so much that we approach 'God' through science, but to recognize that the aspect of our human experience that can be called 'spiritual', is much more than anything simply tied to mythological creations and imaginings and is not so easily chucked out with the bathwater. As you say, the end result is not some turning back the clock to pre-rational systems of myth, but to take what was there even before the myths, and deepen it through Reason.

 

What happened as rationality emerged and differentiated out of mythology, it that instead of incorporating it and moving it forward to a new level of awareness, a new level of consciousness, and consequently a new depth. Instead it took that new level of consciousness and swung its focus to the other half that the Church had suppressed and denied, "God" in the natural world. And so the natural world became everything, and any pursuits of the 'spiritual' (which had been the broken sole pursuit of the Church), was dismissed as unattainable, unimportant, and inappropriate. So now, what you had in effect was an emergence and a reactionary shift against the Church in its suppression of embracing the natural world, to the opposite side, embracing the natural world only as goal and focus of human aspiration. Flip the coin.

 

So I agree with what OM and many who say we need to integrate these pursuits through Reason, and beyond. In no way at all, does this turn the clock back to the notions of the mythic gods, such as your traditional mythic-religious systems framed an understanding of the world through, like YHWH and the like. And to answer LR's question about it having scientific validity, I would say it would, but it would not, nor can possibly be apprehended internally, existentially, through science. It can be measured, and talked about objectively, but its apprehension is an internal experiential reality. That subjectivity is not some runaway, anything goes sort of thing - as I know OM can give great explanations of why it isn't. Nor is it emotionalism. It's something of depth that embraces both spirit and reason, and builds to a consciousness of non-duality, where as she says, "All is ONE". I agree with this.

[Legion]

Look, I think it may in fact be that “All is one”. And I think the very word “universe” reflects this. And I agree it likely that our notion of a clockwork universe has in crippled the Western mind to some extent. However science is an endeavor aiming to create one product, models. These models are examples of explicit understandings. If we want to find alternatives to reductionism and yet still remain scientifically valid then I think we must remember that we still want to create models.

[Antlerman]

Look, I think it may in fact be that “All is one”. And I think the very word “universe” reflects this. And I agree it likely that our notion of a clockwork universe has in crippled the Western mind to some extent. However science is an endeavor aiming to create one product, models. These models are examples of explicit understandings. If we want to find alternatives to reductionism and yet still remain scientifically valid then I think we must remember that we still want to create models.

Of the exteriors. What they look like on the outside. But that never defines its experienced depth.

[Legion]

Look, I think it may in fact be that “All is one”. And I think the very word “universe” reflects this. And I agree it likely that our notion of a clockwork universe has in crippled the Western mind to some extent. However science is an endeavor aiming to create one product, models. These models are examples of explicit understandings. If we want to find alternatives to reductionism and yet still remain scientifically valid then I think we must remember that we still want to create models.

Of the exteriors. What they look like on the outside. But that never defines its experienced depth.

I'm not sure Antlerman, but I think you may misinterpret me when I say "model". I'm definitely not talking about scale models. Let me try to give some idea of them.

 

Analogies have historically been of great value to science. And I think this is because with an analogy (this natural system is like that natural system) the two systems share a common model. All we need do is imagine the richness of analogies that have been and could be drawn to see some of the potential of models.

[Open_Minded]

If we want to find alternatives to reductionism and yet still remain scientifically valid then I think we must remember that we still want to create models.

Legion, you make a good point. Actually there are hints of this point earlier in the discussion - on page 4 to be precise. But, maybe this discussion has progressed far enough that we can start to tackle what was only hinted at before:

 

Florduh...I look forward to what you have to say on this point... But... I must admit to wondering....

How does one observe:

 

* The moment of the Big Bang

* What was "before" the Big Bang

* A multi-verse

* A non-local consciousness

* A non-local anything

Science is rapidly moving into uncharted territory. Just an observation....

 

And....

 

The same way we "observe" the climate during the Pleistocene era, or the eating habits of the Woolly Mammoth, or anything else which occurred during pre-history: we observe the remnants of the original phenomenon, develop hypotheses based on extrapolation, devise ways to test these hypotheses (if X happened then we should observe Y today), and refine the hypotheses based on the outcome of our testing.

 

Continue researching, add new data, wash, rinse, repeat.

 

It's true that the mathematical models of the Big Bang are far more complex than the models of radioactive isotope decay in fossils, but the process is essentially the same. It's also helpful to keep in mind the fact that all you need to do in order to see millions of years into the past is go outside at night. Those lights you see in the sky? Some of that light left another galaxy a few million years ago. That means that what we see now is actually what happened a few million years ago.

 

With space telescopes, we can see 13 billion years into the past. That number will keep growing with the next generation of space telescopes. It's not mere speculation. And moving into the realm of the unknown is what scientific exploration is all about. We go there so that it might become the realm of the known.

Hello Davka:

 

You are right, the light we receive from space is a literally picture of the universes ancient history....

 

But... as to the mathmatical models.... what I meant when I observed that science is moving into uncharted terrritory is simply that at some point the mathmatical models must give way to imperical data. That is becoming harder and harder to do. That's all I was observing.

 

It's a wonderful problem to have, if you think about it. Uncharted territory is where the adventure usually begins..... right....

 

So ... here Humanity is .... with non-locality we're stretching the outer limits of what can be shown with mathmatical models and even more so... we're pushing limits on what can be shown imperically.

 

Where do we go from here?????

[Legion]

Where do we go from here?????

Well I try to bear in mind that mathematics (free creations of our subjective minds) is itself developing. I think we have only just begun to create mathematics with the richness of entailment necessary to model nature’s complexity.

[Open_Minded]

Look, I think it may in fact be that “All is one”. And I think the very word “universe” reflects this.

Legion, I've a question.

 

In your mind - when you say that the word "universe" reflects "All is one".... do you include the inner living experience .. consciousness, etc... as being part of the "universe". I ask that question because, curiously enough, the clockwork universe seems to exclude it (or boil it down to a side-effect of material causes). That is why so many people find strict reductionism so unsatisfying.

[Antlerman]

Look, I think it may in fact be that “All is one”. And I think the very word “universe” reflects this.

Legion, I've a question.

 

In your mind - when you say that the word "universe" reflects "All is one".... do you include the inner living experience .. consciousness, etc... as being part of the "universe". I ask that question because, curiously enough, the clockwork universe seems to exclude it (or boil it down to a side-effect of material causes). That is why so many people find strict reductionism so unsatisfying.

This BTW, is what I've been attempting to put into words....

[Legion]

In your mind - when you say that the word "universe" reflects "All is one".... do you include the inner living experience .. consciousness, etc... as being part of the "universe". I ask that question because, curiously enough, the clockwork universe seems to exclude it (or boil it down to a side-effect of material causes). That is why so many people find strict reductionism so unsatisfying.

OM I was somewhat anticipating this question. This is part of the philosophy of science. I think there are many admirable philosophies which do not lead to science. And we can adhere to those philosophies and do something cool other than science. But if we wish to do science then I believe we must divide The One into objective and subjective. But I do believe that understanding itself implies that subjective and objective are intimately entwined.

[Guest Davka]

Two things:

 

First, Legion, you make an excellent point about creating models. In fact, I suspect that much of the rigidity in both science and religion occurs when people start to mistake models for the real thing. Models are extremely useful, but they are naturally limited by the fact that they are, in the end, just models.

 

Let's keep creating models of reality as a tool for understanding. And let's keep remembering that they are only models, and if they turn out to be wrong, we can safely change or even discard them.

 

Second - and this is a much more difficult thing to express - WTF do you mean when you say "all is one"? I've heard this phrase my whole life, going back to Baba Rum Raisin's Be Here Now, through Maharishi and Rajneesh and all the New Age blather and the Beatles I Am The Walrus . . .

 

But what does it mean? Everything is part of the same big thing? Well, yeah, by definition that would be the Universe, the sum total of all that exists. Or I am he as you are he and we are all together? OK, so we're all god - so who's going to do the dishes? Or does it mean that everything is interconnected like the cells of my body, so that everything affects everything else?

 

Or . . .?

 

Seriously, this is bugging me. Please define this seemingly mushy phrase.

[Legion]

In fact, I suspect that much of the rigidity in both science and religion occurs when people start to mistake models for the real thing. Models are extremely useful, but they are naturally limited by the fact that they are, in the end, just models.

 

Let's keep creating models of reality as a tool for understanding. And let's keep remembering that they are only models, and if they turn out to be wrong, we can safely change or even discard them.

I agree with this Davka. I think we make a mistake when we confuse our models for reality. And I have come to suspect that our understanding of even the smallest complex natural systems will always be incomplete. I think there will always be room for improvement.