EDIT: this thread, and the downvotes against this specific post, only demonstrate the futility of trying to debate with philosophers. For a philosopher, everything simultaneously is, and is not, science. For a scientist, Creationism is not science and doesn't belong in the classroom. Take your pick.
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> There are things in the world which are physically true or false.
We're not discussing the world. We're discussing science.
> Put differently, there is an objective reality, and science is a method for investigating it.
(a) False as stated. (b) You skipped the part where we address the role of truth.
> The fact that you can't declare victory ...
Meaning discover absolute truth? That's not science's criterion for victory.
> ... or the claim that the purpose of science is to attempt to model it [ "it" apparently meaning "arrive at a flawless transparent understanding of the objective reality" ].
That is not science's purpose. That's religion's purpose. Science has realistic goals, religion doesn't.
> Without that basis science makes no sense in the first place ...
Maybe not to you, but to a scientist, it makes perfect sense.
This conversation reminds me why Richard Feynman disliked philosophers so much. Philosophical debates can produce anything except a working vaccine.
Fascinating. How do philosophers and scientists react to Godel's incompleteness theorem w.r.t. falsification? To me, at least, it seems to suggest that falsification is a flashlight that for whatever reason fails to illuminate certain otherwise possible paths.
(I understand that the theorem applies in the context of "consistent" formal systems, and that falsification is about the process of refining models of systems to be more consistent. It's interesting that the emergent properties of the pursuit of falsification bring about a paradoxical system in the limit.)
> How do philosophers and scientists react to Godel's incompleteness theorem w.r.t. falsification?
I can't speak for philosophers, but as to scientists, the issue of falsification and irreducible uncertainty are separate in nearly all cases. Remember that the Incompleteness Theorems address true assertions that cannot be proven within reasonably complex axiomatic systems -- that's a fair remove from empirical science, just as mathematics is.
> To me, at least, it seems to suggest that falsification is a flashlight that for whatever reason fails to illuminate certain otherwise possible paths.
Not at all. Falsification is a very reliable test that can be used to eliminate theoretical assertions from any further consideration, as in the classic "black swan" example already given above. It's unambiguous.
> It's interesting that the emergent properties of the pursuit of falsification bring about a paradoxical system in the limit.
No, neither paradoxical nor ambiguous. A classic falsification has properties that eliminate theories from consideration, period, full stop. Examples abound -- the Ptolemaic system, the ether theory, phlogiston, and so forth.
Is empirical science really so far removed from complex axiomatic systems? Isn't the point to learn how all of this universe works together? Suppose we solve gravity, QM, and the rest, then we'll have a complex system of rules which nevertheless must be incomplete and therefore flawed. I think that's fascinating -- Sisyphus is Science (not that we don't discover useful and amazing results along the way!).
> Is empirical science really so far removed from complex axiomatic systems?
Yes, absolutely. Empirical science is driven by observations of nature. Axiomatic systems are much more self-referential. It is the self-referential property of axiomatic systems that lie at the heart of the Incompleteness Theorems.
> Isn't the point to learn how all of this universe works together?
Which universe? That of nature, or that of intellectual representations? They differ in some very basic ways.
> Suppose we solve gravity, QM, and the rest, then we'll have a complex system of rules which nevertheless must be incomplete and therefore flawed.
Most people who understand Gödel's work will argue that the effect of the Theorems is overstated with respect to what we can reliably know about nature.
If we find a TOE (Theory of Everything), it will probably remain incomplete, not because of Gödel, but because of irreducible observational imperfections.
I would suspect the downvotes (not from me) have more to do with the fact that your reply is a mere polemic, lashing out about how you hate philosophers and Feynmann was right, and rather than rationally responding to my argument. The way we scientists respond to arguments is not to go on hysterical and absurd rants, in this case how I must be a Creationist (?) because I'm defending the rather common view (among scientists) that science is a method for discovering facts about the external world. Arguing that via the scientific method we've arrived at a fairly good understanding of how humans evolved which is likely true in important parts is, in fact, quite the opposite of being a Creationist.
If anything, that view is unpopular among philosophers, where various kinds of social constructionist views are more prominent. Those views emphasize (as you do) that we cannot have unmediated access to the real external world, so instead they focus on the sociological processes by which scientific theories get proposed, popularized, abandoned, etc.
It is indeed true that science can produce a working vaccine.
> rather than rationally responding to my argument.
There is no rational response to your argument. That's why I replied as I did. Philosophy isn't a science, amenable to scientific debate and a conclusion based on evidence, which is why philosophical arguments have the character they do -- interminable and inconclusive.
> that science is a method for discovering facts about the external world.
Necessary but not sufficient. When a theory about observations is proposed and then tested, it is then that we cross the threshold of science. "Discovering facts about the external world" is not science, otherwise my saying "stars are little points in the night sky" would qualify as science. It doesn't, because no testable, falsifiable explanation is proposed.
My saying "I have a cure for the common cold -- I shake a dried gourd over the patient" is not science, both because it doesn't consider other explanations and because it doesn't propose an explanation. I have "discovered a fact about the external world" but what I have done is still not science.
Science is not "discovering facts about the external world". Science must include falsifiable explanations, explanations that are cast out if they fail subsequent tests.
> Arguing that via the scientific method we've arrived at a fairly good understanding of how humans evolved which is likely true in important parts is, in fact, quite the opposite of being a Creationist.
That's true only if we try to explain what we have observed, and accept the possibility of falsification of our explanations. Creationism and evolution don't differ as descriptions, they differ as explanations, and by the property that a falsification would destroy the nicest-sounding theory.
The above is what separates science and philosophy -- in science, concrete statements lead to concrete procedures for weeding out indefensible ideas.
It should be noted that Feynmann himself believed that science revealed truth, as he said so on numerous occasions. Here's one example:
"[The Big Bang] is a much more exciting story to many people than the tales which other people used to make up, when wondering about the universe we lived in on the back of a turtle or something like that. They were wonderful stories, but the truth is so much more remarkable. And, so, what’s the wonder in physics to me is that it’s revealed the truth is so remarkable.”
Eh, it seems more that it's just hard for some people to know when to stop trying to apply philosophy to something. I find myself often engaging in a whole lot of philosophic thought, but I know better than to think that has any bearing on science.
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> There are things in the world which are physically true or false.
We're not discussing the world. We're discussing science.
> Put differently, there is an objective reality, and science is a method for investigating it.
(a) False as stated. (b) You skipped the part where we address the role of truth.
> The fact that you can't declare victory ...
Meaning discover absolute truth? That's not science's criterion for victory.
> ... or the claim that the purpose of science is to attempt to model it [ "it" apparently meaning "arrive at a flawless transparent understanding of the objective reality" ].
That is not science's purpose. That's religion's purpose. Science has realistic goals, religion doesn't.
> Without that basis science makes no sense in the first place ...
Maybe not to you, but to a scientist, it makes perfect sense.
This conversation reminds me why Richard Feynman disliked philosophers so much. Philosophical debates can produce anything except a working vaccine.