Chemistry question - heat of reaction problem...

[tris-]

and it is great that you are not willing to accept it. without people disbelieving it then it wouldnt really exist in the first place.

consider this, i think its easier to understand.

you got a lucky mate right? always wins jackpot on the fruitys and never loses on the roulette. for him to be lucky, someone else has to be unlucky. without one there isnt another. if we only ever knew darkness then there would be no such thing as light to counteract it.

do u see what im trying to say?

 

[Lamp]

In our every day experiences, dead and alive are mutually exclusive.

But what about undeath ? You know, zombies, and the like.

Im kinda tempted to say that if its moving about its alive. Dead means, well, dead ! Using that binary logic, they are mutually exclusive

 

[noblok]

Haggus: Science may not be how reality truely is, but it is a strategy to get out of nature what you want (i.e. laws, certainty). You don't see mathematics in nature, in reality 1+1 != 2, but using a mathematical model to interpret reality works surprisingly well and gives us some certain ground to build upon.

This is no different than what we do in everyday life. When you see someone being hit by a car and that person gets hurt, you assume that it was because he got hit by the car. You don't see causality though. What you see is a) the person being fine before the car hits him, b) the car hitting the person and at the same time the person getting hurt. Causality implies something more though, a necessary connection and that is something which you don't see.

I am not saying that you shouldn't believe anything before you have solid proof. I think it'd be wiser to believe something if it's been sufficiently corroborated and not falsified. "It is not reason which guides us in life, but custom."

 

[Lamp]

using a mathematical model to interpret reality works surprisingly welland gives us some certain ground to build upon.QUOTE]

Very true. Just look at the stochastic volatility jump-diffusion model (Black-Scholes alternative pricing method) to model log uniform jump amplitudinal stock returns !

 

[Ormorof]

hehe thats what science is about imo, questioning things, not accepting them

if no one ever questioned things surely there would be no change? (nothing annoys me more than the "because we've always done it this way" answer argh )

 

[Lamp]

There's a flip side to your first statement, Orm

Science questions things, not accepting.

Very true.

Mankind's combined scientific knowledge and theory is (understandably) based on what it thinks it can prove or explain.

There may very well be a universe out there where the laws of physics (for want of a better phrase) are so alien that they are utterly beyond our comprehension.

Even at the centre of our own galaxy - the Milky Way - we do not know how a singularity can exists. We don't even have the mathematical models (aka quantum theory of gravity).

Science is great - but what we term science fiction, or fantasy, or stuff that cant be proven because its based on belief - may very well become science itself !

 

[noblok]

I don't think I fully agree with that. Science doesn't question it's own method and that is it's strength. If science would keep questioning it's own methods, it wouldn't make any progress. The fact that there are things which cannot be discussed (like mathematical axioms) make progress possible, since it gives you a stable ground to build upon.

Developments in modern science usually* don't come along because someone just wants to try something new. Science started making progress when it started paying attention to the experiment and built theories based upon the experiment. Now you have a theory to explain something you see happening. When you see something which doesn't fit into the current system of laws and theories, the laws and theories must be adjusted.

So in a way science is about questioning things, but not questioning things without a reason. Theories are only questioned once a situation arises which cannot be explained within the current set of theories. They are not questioned just because one can't see why it should be that way. At least, that's what I think .

 

[Ormorof]

questions without reasoning behind them are pretty useless anyway

chemistry is a great example where lots of "rules" are put down and accepted and yet they dont fit in every case, and as such exceptions are made, thats why things should be questioned, to allow us to make progress

 

[Lamp]

OK. Thats fair enough.

So lets put science aside for just a moment.

I have a question. I can't answer it. So I throw some ideas around. Lots of people throw their thoughts on the question. No one knows the answer. Someone may have stumbled on a possible explanation by random. Either way, I decide that I'll keep my mind open to every possible explanation as being possible.

In an infinite universe nothing is impossible.

Time passes. I decide to publish one possible explanation to the problem.

Scientists read it. They then develop theories based on it.

So in the end science has no end. ITs always stumbling on new / alternate explanations. Its what keeps it alive. I has to question itself if it can't explain something.

Look at all the academic theoretical science papers out there.

 

[noblok]

True, science does develop due to questions, if you mean that kind of questions. Questions which can't be answered within the current set of theories or questioning a system because it needs to many exceptions to correspond to our experience. In that case we agree.

It's not just questioning though, by which I mean that you won't question a certain axiom/law unless you have a reason to. As Ormorof said: "Questions without reasoning behind them are useless." The fact that a question is considered useless says much about science, how can a question be useless? A question is scientifically useless when it isn't aimed at a better understanding of reality. Questions are viewed in function of progress.

These questions which are useless for science are often considered useful and interesting in other domains such as religion and philosophy though .

edit: Thanks for an interesting discussion by the way, it helped me a lot with arranging my toughts and I learned some new things .

 

[Lamp]

Can't argue with that

 

[Ormorof]

i guess it start becoming philosophical once you start considering "reasoning"

for example a reason might be valid to one person (the one who asks the question?) but not to another

 

[Lamp]

a reason might be valid to one person (the one who asks the question?) but not to another

Exactly. Belief.

Ask me how the big bang started and I'll answer you in scientific terms. Ask someone else and they'll say God. Both parties are perfectly entitled to their view, whether based on theosophy or science. Neither can prove the other right or wrong. Having an open mind means accepting the possibility that either, none, or both is the answer.