Change?

[naut]

You don't think anything has changed? That people just believe what they are told? Maybe so. But, I'll tell you what has changed, the method by which people have developed these big ideas. Instead of a bunch of Germanic pagans sitting round a fire celebrating the fertility of mother earth and exchanging stories about how they believe everything came to be. Or instead of the Canaanites worshipping Ba'al, Asherah, El and Yahweh because their ancestors dreamed them up. Or instead of Jews worshipping Yahweh, borrowed from their Canaanite neighbours, and believing in a heaven, borrowed from their Greek neighbours. These creative processes have been replaced, to some extent, by rigorous scientific method. Science isn't dreamed up on the spot, it's hypothesised then tested, then experimented, then discussed, then concluded. And if the conclusion isn't conclusive enough, then it's all done again. Even theories have basis in basic physics, otherwise they'd be disregarded out of hand by the rest of the scientific community.

And in this day and age it is your own fault if you are ignorant to the at least the basic principles of the Universe. You don't have an excuse any-more, the information is readily available almost anywhere for you.

[Aemilius Paulus]

I would not go so hard on The Stranger... I mean, from what I saw it as, he is not touching upon any specifics or the living standards, etc. I though he was speaking about the general collective spirit, the culture, the intellectual side. At least that is what I saw it as . I doubt he was simply discounting most of what science has done in practical applications. the only problem is, theory is the grandmother of invention and what seems theoretical today will soon find practical application to-morrow

[The Stranger]

I would not go so hard on The Stranger... I mean, from what I saw it as, he is not touching upon any specifics or the living standards, etc. I though he was speaking about the general collective spirit, the culture, the intellectual side. At least that is what I saw it as . I doubt he was simply discounting most of what science has done in practical applications. the only problem is, theory is the grandmother of invention and what seems theoretical today will soon find practical application to-morrow

you saw correctly :)

science at the top may be questioned, and there it continues to grow... but no one is checking the foundations... no one is looking wether they are even there.

take causality for example, how can we explain that? is it truly so that one thing causes another? or is that the way we immanently look at things? if not, then can we look at it in a different perspective? is it possible for a human being to see one ball touch another and not think that one caused the other? and if not, is that so because it is truly and beyond question objectively TRUE and so that the one causes the other, or is it because we cannot see it different than that?

[The Stranger]

You don't think anything has changed? That people just believe what they are told? Maybe so. But, I'll tell you what has changed, the method by which people have developed these big ideas. Instead of a bunch of Germanic pagans sitting round a fire celebrating the fertility of mother earth and exchanging stories about how they believe everything came to be. Or instead of the Canaanites worshipping Ba'al, Asherah, El and Yahweh because their ancestors dreamed them up. Or instead of Jews worshipping Yahweh, borrowed from their Canaanite neighbours, and believing in a heaven, borrowed from their Greek neighbours. These creative processes have been replaced, to some extent, by rigorous scientific method.

do you have any proof that this method isnt wrong? can you prove without using science, that this method is right. do you believe there is just one objective truth (or many objective truth, but atleast that there is a notion of truth that can be known by humans objectively)? and if so, given the possibility of alien lifeforms, do you believe that would have the same method (given that they are "advanced" enough by our standards).

Science isn't dreamed up on the spot, it's hypothesised then tested, then experimented, then discussed, then concluded. And if the conclusion isn't conclusive enough, then it's all done again. Even theories have basis in basic physics, otherwise they'd be disregarded out of hand by the rest of the scientific community.

true, theories and methods within science (which we would describe as a scientific method) have been discussed, tested, discarded, concluded started again blabla... but not science itself, not the scientific method, which is partially discussing, testing, discarding, concluding, restarting until we come close to that notion of objective truth. BUT what if there is no such objective truth.

And in this day and age it is your own fault if you are ignorant to the at least the basic principles of the Universe. You don't have an excuse any-more, the information is readily available almost anywhere for you.

only if the information presented to me is correct and presented in a comprehensible form. which is debatable.