On Tue, 14 Jun 2005, ravi wrote:
> On 06/13/05 22:07, Miles Jackson wrote:
>> A pragmatic argument: look what we've been able to accomplish with this
>> "lawful universe" hypothesis! Perhaps you could buy Nietzsche's
>> argument that it's a useful fiction?
>>
>
> indeed i could. but what is its use? would any less have been achieved
> (given sufficient discipline) without a 'lawful universe' hypothesis,
> especially in a sort of thorough-going platonic sense? i can predict and
> shape the world and its behaviour using a particular theory or practice.
> to say that that is so *because there are universal laws that the world
> obeys* -- what does that gain me *technically*? i can see its
> motivational value... it helps to believe that the universe is lawful...
If I believe that the world is chaotic and disordered, and there are no universal laws, I wouldn't do any scientific research. The belief in the lawful universe, for better and worse, is the ideological lynchpin of scientific practice.
> but that leads me back to 'god'. the 'god' hypothesis may also be shown
> to have "helped" (in quotes because of the ambiguity of what sort of
> "help" it is) various accomplishments. in fact, IIRC, edward wilson, the
> biologist, has argued that it (the "god meme" as dawkins might call it)
> has a significant evolutionary fitness advantage.
Scientific practice is not contingent on belief in God. If you had to help science along in the next millenium, which belief would you indocrinate: "God exists" or "the universe is lawful"?
--And you're just pushing my button with that evolutionary argument, right? That's a magnitude of order goofier than the "we must have five fingers because of natural selection" argument.
Miles