Re:Myths about how the brain works
by ad404b8a372f2b9 on Thursday March 04, 2021 @08:49AM
(#26342338)
Wish someone had told me that I wasn't doing real science before I started in academia, would have saved me a lot of time and effort.
On a more serious note, seems like weird gatekeeping of what constitutes scientific discovery and what doesn't.
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Re:Myths about how the brain works
by killtimeatwork on Thursday March 04, 2021 @09:52AM
(#26343132)
Scientific discovery is learning new facts about the world. Inventing new contraptions to help us in our goals is technology. I.e. I don't think anyone would call Henry Ford a scientist or Albert Einstein an inventor. I thought it's basic and well-understood distinction.
Re:Myths about how the brain works
by beaconstudios on Thursday March 04, 2021 @10:37AM
(#26343733)
If you follow the constructivist philosophy of science (spoiler alert: I do) then absolutely Albert Einstein is an inventor. He invented a mental model (essentially a lossy compression) of some parts of reality that better fit observed phenomena than its predecessor. Our mental/scientific models are not descriptions of reality; objective reality is unknowable. What they are, are tools (technologies!) that we can use to predict effect, given a cause and a state.
Re:Myths about how the brain works
by benlivengood on Thursday March 04, 2021 @12:56PM
(#26345638)
Is constructivist philosophy of science an independent axiom or does it have testable predictions? E.g. is there a function from theorems of ZFC to {invented, not invented}?
Re:Myths about how the brain works
by beaconstudios on Thursday March 04, 2021 @01:05PM
(#26345805)
it's a philosophy, so no it doesn't have testable predictions - but neither does objectivism, its counterpart. But then, testable predictions don't tell you about the nature of reality so c'est la vie.
> is there a function from theorems of ZFC to {invented, not invented}?
Can you derive definitions of inventions versus discoveries from set theory? No, probably not. You can't derive the smell of a rose from set theory either though so it's probably not a very good theory of everything.