tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7126049.post380084910344831005..comments2024-01-22T11:42:42.772+08:00Comments on FideCogitActio : omnis per gratiam: Nature makes sense to whom?Codgitator (Cadgertator)http://www.blogger.com/profile/00872093788960965392noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7126049.post-5014739670869465442009-04-27T16:51:00.000+08:002009-04-27T16:51:00.000+08:00One problem with that point of view is that Modern...One problem with that point of view is that Modern Science also is not fundamentally based on "truth", but pragmatism. Ockham didn't argue that the simplest explanation was the one most likely to be true, but the one most likely to be simple - and simplicity is valuable because of its pragmatism. If two methods return the same results reliably, but one is vastly easier to perform, then that's the one you use.<br /><br />On the other hand, many times this struggle to include as few entities as possible (or, more specifically, to desperately keep certain particular entities from entering the picture) ends up yielding an incomplete or awkward result of our investigation. And of course, the modern trend seems to be away from reductionism in general.Crudehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04178390947423928444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7126049.post-31424860337498206642009-04-22T01:53:00.000+08:002009-04-22T01:53:00.000+08:00"The goal, and boast, of modern exact science has ..."The goal, and boast, of modern exact science has been progressively to strip away layer after layer of "common sense" about nature in order to reach the most basic truths about the natural world. Its goal and boast have been continuously to reduce one level of phenomena to a more basic, and again more basic, level of physical order."<br /><br />Isn't that the point of Ockham's Razor, on which Modern Science itself is fundamentally based?<br /><br />That is, to strip down to the barest essentials and not multiply hypothesis without necessity?<br /><br />This kind of reductionism is unavoidable but even a 'must' in the sciences.<br /><br />I could be wrong, but perhaps it is this very reductionism that, quite ironically, Nietzsche himself had expressed such vehement displeasure at, appreciably recognizing the kind of harm to the individual that ultimately results from such an atrocious 'dissection' of life and noting the excruciatingly sterile confines and draconian rigidity of science, which Nietzsche found quite repugnant and utterly unacceptable.e.noreply@blogger.com