The problem of demarcation in modern science. Vadim Shmal

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СКАЧАТЬ and when they observed certain black holes, these anomalies told them that the second law of thermodynamics might not always be true. Since then, Krauss has made a career of applying science to questions that physics and theology cannot answer, from the philosophy of space and time to the problem of free will. Krauss drew an excellent analogy for scientific discovery, but there is another serious objection. Krauss argued that when a human form, such as a cell, encounters a certain obstacle, it can be in a state of thermodynamic imbalance or in a state of unstable disorder. But what does this have to do with the nature of things in the universe? For example, if the ocean suddenly dries up, how can we explain this? If our eyes could perceive physical changes, we might assume that whatever we perceive and perceive as an abstract phenomenon is created at this very moment – something really happens the moment our eyes detect the image. However, the presence of the «emergent effect» makes us realize that the scope of what we can observe was limited. An emergent effect, by definition, does not imply a change in the physical world. Thus, thermodynamic disequilibrium describes a macroscopic phenomenon, while emerging dynamics is a way of describing the microscopic itself. For example, William J. Boyd, a philosopher of science at Duke University, argues that the well-known observation of the three lobes of the brain suggests that some distinction still needs to be made between micro and macro.

      Metaphysical tautology

      Judging the veracity of statements about how reality functions based on their simplicity may seem like a remarkable achievement. Who can be sure, with all our modern technologies, that the Universe is what we see in front of us? Applying the Pythagorean theorem or saying that God is omnipotent is like using a ruler to measure the curvature of the universe. This, of course, does not mean that we cannot understand how true these and other self-evident statements about the nature of reality are. The problem, however, is that the enormous vastness of the universe and the extremely complex processes that we observe can be so overwhelming that they prevent us from thinking about possible alternative possibilities. We may want to change our minds, change our understanding of the world, but changing our perception is difficult, since most of what we observe is impossible to know. There are probably a million elements, each with a trillion different properties. And we cannot know with certainty about their internal structure or their functional interaction with each other. This fact does not prevent us from noticing them, using our feelings and interacting with them, but makes us very suspicious of their origin and existence. When we find ourselves in such mysterious situations, we are disturbed by the feeling that something is wrong with our knowledge. We use words such as tautology and contradiction to describe situations in which there are seemingly mutually exclusive statements describing the same situation. This is similar to the tautological statement, «A rose is a rose is a rose,» which is obviously true, and yet can be used as proof of the absurdity of the entire biological kingdom. The many patterns of experience that we perceive make us realize that something is fundamentally wrong with our state of knowledge. And we are both puzzled and suspicious of this «mistake», as if we are in the position of an innocent person being questioned by the police. Why can’t we just understand reality as it is? Why does the laws of nature seem to be created for our own amusement? This is another reason for the lack of a rational connection between science and theology. Both disciplines require knowledge that we cannot acquire in this way.

      To understand what appears to be meaningless, there must be some transcendental reality to which the laws of nature do not apply. The existence of God provides this transcendental basis for understanding the world and allows us to recognize that we do not know the nature of reality at best.

      We use our senses and think about experience in a way that completely avoids the rational aspect of our brains. The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle in his work «Physics» argued that our perception of the world does not reflect external reality. His view of consciousness and our mental processes was that they do not reflect external reality. In his work, he has developed a body of knowledge related to a subset of the natural world, including the composition of matter, the movement of celestial bodies, the study of the growth of plants and animals and so on. His «philosophy» was based on his understanding of how these processes work and their implications for human existence. His view of the world was empirical, since he believed that our observations of the natural world can only be explained by reference to physical processes. The problem was that he could not explain why our observations of the world did not reflect the external reality of the world in any objective, scientific way. His explanation of consciousness, based on external reality, was also unsatisfactory.

      Aristotle argued that the reason things seem to us to correspond to external reality was because we are unconsciously influenced by other beings we perceive, but this cannot be the reason that we observe things in the same order. The problem is that we are usually unaware of these influences, and therefore we have no way of knowing how the forces that act on us affect our perception. Thus, although it seems that we should see something this way because we experience it in this way, we do not. Moreover, we cannot use our senses to analyze how we perceive the world. This is the case where the explanation for perception must come from some form of externalism, in which our experience is not controlled by our brain, but rather determined by other external factors. For example, imagine that we are in outer space and look at the Earth, which for our senses seems like a distant star. In this case, we would be in an alien and alternative reality, and our experience would not have a basis in the nature of reality.

      Another problem with the experience system, which must proceed from external reality, is that it cannot explain the diversity of our experience. We are in a system that gives us multiple and different experiences. While externalism gives us an explanation of why our experience is like this, it cannot give us an explanation of why our perception of these things is different. Thus, some externalist views argue that it is simply how differently we perceive things; others argued that different experiences could be explained on a more primitive or psychological level.

      The philosopher William James developed an important doctrine to justify his view of the externalist theory of experience. This teaching is known as the law of similarities. James argued that each of us associates a stimulus with a certain object with which it has no physical connection, but is an object with which we can interact. We can imagine this object as having a different physical form or appearance than the object we originally responded to.

      The similarity law is an explanation of why we perceive the world in this way. This explains why the externalist explanation of our experience of things does not work.

      While the law of similarity itself is not a general explanation of how we perceive things, it explains why we are able to react to things differently from how we react to things that we encounter in the outside world. However, this does not explain why some people have different sensory experiences. This question has long been discussed in philosophy, but the most commonly proposed solution is related to cognitive abilities. One position is that the law of similarity explains why there are some people who do not perceive things in the same way as others. However, the hypothesis that this law is based on a general truth, the truth that explains why people do not see things the same way, is usually viewed as not supported by most philosophers. Instead, the main explanation suggested is that some of the differences in sensory experience can be explained on a more subtle level. For example, we may see an apple differently because of what we know about that apple. We know that the green apple was of the same species as the apple we see in front of us now, and therefore the differences in perception that we see are due to our knowledge.

      Proponents of this mistaken view often misuse the law of similarity. While the concept of the Law of Similarity explains why we perceive things differently than other people, it does not explain why we perceive things the way. In my opinion, the reason why we perceive the world the way we do it is related to the processes of perception, which are not limited to similarities.

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