Steve Smith wrote at 05/06/2013 02:06 PM:
> It is an interesting paradox to compare "what things are" and "what
> things aspire to be". I do agree that Science(tm) *is* a
> collective/consensus model with some self-limiting features that help it
> to be relatively coherent. But it *aspires* to be a little more
> objective/universal than that (yet the methodology acknowledges the need
> for and therefore dependence on fallible humans).
Hm. I don't think science _aspires_ to be anything. And I'm not just
making a cheap rhetorical jab, either. ;-) Science isn't really a
thing, at all, much less an entity that can aspire. It's an amalgam of
behaviors that we cherry-pick and call "science". In order to impute
science with the ability to aspire, we'd have to go back to our
discussion of Rosen's "anticipatory systems" or perhaps Kauffman's
attempt to place Final Cause in our lexicon. Until we do that, science
is a collection of behaviors we identify through the rearview mirror.
E.g. Jim Carter ("circlons") is not a scientist, whereas Lord Kelvin
was. Etc.
But my point was more the contrast between a collectively defined thing
versus a consensus thing. And that distinction leads us back to the
discussion John Kennison started about whether there can be science
without language. Behaviors (like using a stick to catch ants, or
learning to be afraid of snakes) can be learned without the super
structure of what we call language. (I maintain that it still requires
the substructure for language, namely empathy and the ability to point.)
Perhaps there exist collectively defined things (like science) that
don't really depend on consensus so much as a shared physiological or
anatomical structure?
Of course, one might argue that consensus doesn't _have_ to come about
through language. Perhaps consensus isn't necessarily about "thought
agreement" so much as it is "behavior agreement". If that's the case,
then one could argue that consensus and collective are synonymous. But
I think that would seem strange to most people, at least until you
co-learned enough, interactively behaved together enough to agree that
they were the same. ;-)
--
glen e. p. ropella, 971-255-2847, http://tempusdictum.com
The assertion that our ego consists of protein molecules seems to me one
of the most ridiculous ever made. -- Kurt Gödel.
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