Do you believe the sun will come up in the morning? [View All]

[bluedawg12]

OK- this is not a call out for any previous thread,etc. It is for skeptics, sort of something I have been thinking about, namely Karl Popper's ideas. I would enjoy some feed back from skeptics here. :hi:


Do you believe the sun will come up in the morning?

Do you know if the sun will come up in the morning?

I predict it will come up in the morning. I don’t actually “know” for sure.

I understand it to be true, based on observation that the sun has come up every single day of my life.

If I were in ancient Greece, I might believe that Apollo will ride his fiery chariot across the skies.That’s not the kind of belief system I mean. That is one belief system, it’s just not mine.

My system is based on empirical observation. I understand that the sun rises in the east daily and sets in the west every evening. It’s pretty solid, but still a prediction based on observation, although those are facts.

If I had more data about the sun, it’s energy stores, it’s energy consumption, it’s means of energy utilization I might “know” more about why the sun will, or will not, come up in the morning. I don’t have such data, so I understand a fact to be true based on my observation of the world I live in.

If I knew more data about the sun, for example, it’s life expectancy, then, with that calculation I could say I know to a reasonable degree of certainty that it will come up tomorrow. My prediction may be more accurate and may even be predictive further out in time. Like the future.

Then, I could answer that I no longer believe the "Sun-Apollo" will come up, tomorrow.
I know it will come up! All things being equal, like Apollo not running his chariot directly into the eyeball of the sun and killing it.

That’s how it seems to work for humans. We observe things in the physical world and when there is no explanation at all and when we have no system for analyzing reality, we tend to think of physical phenomenon in terms of spiritual principles.

When, we have some organized way of thinking about reality, some experience with logic then we are able to draw conclusions from the physical world. We can understand that empirical data and know that recurring events tend to reoccur.

When I want to know more about the sun and believe less, I may keep records, collect data, record cycles. Now, sooner or later the two systems diverge. Apollo goes his merry way, with or without me.

Apollo does not need me to measure anything about the Sun’s physical characteristics in order to be meaningful as a spiritual entity and conversely, knowing that the sun was formed about 4.57 billion years ago when the rapid collapse of a hydrogen molecular cloud led to the formation of a third generation T Tauri Population I star does not lessen any attribute of Apollo. (1) OK, he is not THE sun, rather he rides up every morning to draw the curtains.

This it seems, is why the systems diverge sooner or later and the spiritual realm remains a matter of faith and belief, while science marches on trying to learn more and more about the sun and nothing at all about Apollo.

So when do we know things in science and when do we not?

If it can’t be disproved, it is not scientific.

It’s not good enough to say that the sun is there, so we know it can be analyzed scientifically. That could still be a matter of the spiritual realm. Science has the potential to study everything except the unknowable. There is one more criteria for something to be science. The theory has to be falsifiable.

There has to be a possibility at the very essence of the question that possibly the sun may not be there.

If we posit that Apollo is divine and always was there and always will be by virtue of his pre-defined divinity, that is not science. It is belief.

In scientific analysis, not only is it possible that a universe without our sun could exist, but the possibility is allowed that it was not always there and may not always remain there. Hence, we have data about the age of the sun and it’s life expectancy.

This came from thinking a little about Karl Popper.

“Popper coined the term critical rationalism to describe his philosophy. The term indicates his rejection of classical empiricism, and of the observationalist-inductivist account of science that had grown out of it. Popper argued strongly against the latter, holding that scientific theories are abstract in nature, and can be tested only indirectly, by reference to their implications. He also held that scientific theory, and human knowledge generally, is irreducibly conjectural or hypothetical, and is generated by the creative imagination in order to solve problems that have arisen in specific historico-cultural settings. Logically, no number of positive outcomes at the level of experimental testing can confirm a scientific theory, but a single counterexample is logically decisive: it shows the theory, from which the implication is derived, to be false.

Popper's account of the logical asymmetry between verification and falsifiability lies at the heart of his philosophy of science. It also inspired him to take falsifiability as his criterion of demarcation between what is and is not genuinely scientific: a theory should be considered scientific if and only if it is falsifiable.” (2)

That’s the good news. For something to be scientific there has got to be a possibility that the theory can be disproved. If it cannot be disproved, then more good news, it’s not science and it may be a matter for some other system, such as faith, and the two should not be in conflict...unless we twist the rules and make it so. It’s good news because it seems somewhat organized and defined.

“In Popper's view, the advance of scientific knowledge is an evolutionary process characterized by his formula:


PS 1 –> TT1–>EE1–> PS2

In response to a given problem situation (PS1),
a number of competing conjectures, or tentative theories (TT),
are systematically subjected to the most rigorous attempts at falsification possible.

This process, error elimination (EE), performs a similar function for science that natural selection performs for biological evolution.

Theories that better survive the process of refutation are not more true, but rather, more "fit"—in other words, more applicable to the problem situation at hand (PS1).

Consequently, just as a species' "biological fit" does not predict continued survival, neither does rigorous testing protect a scientific theory from refutation in the future. Yet, as it appears that the engine of biological evolution has produced, over time, adaptive traits equipped to deal with more and more complex problems of survival, likewise, the evolution of theories through the scientific method may, in Popper's view, reflect

a certain type of progress: toward more and more interesting problems (PS2).

For Popper, it is in the interplay between the tentative theories (conjectures) and error elimination (refutation) that scientific knowledge advances toward greater and greater problems; in a process very much akin to the interplay between genetic variation and natural selection.”(2)

Or as Popper said: “that while there is no way to prove that the sun will rise, we can formulate a theory that every day the sun will rise—if it does not rise on some particular day, our theory will be disproved, but at present it is confirmed. Since it is a very well-tested theory, we have every right to believe that it accurately represents reality, so far as we know.” (2)

That’s my best shot at Karl Popper for the moment. Any thoughts or ideas on how else to explain the scientific method? Or to add or subtract from it? Unless it has been discussed to smithereens already? :evilgrin:



(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun

(2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Popper