Imagine that a group of explorers spot another group of people playing a board game (think checkers/draughts) using some stones to represent their pieces
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It would be more like looking very very carefully at the shape of a puzzle piece in order to figure out where the piece goes, although that analogy is also inadequate. In short, having a highly detailed understanding of the existence and properties of new and also known particles will give us a good idea about all sorts of other stuff, such as just how the big bang worked, how dimensions interact with matter on a fundamental level, if there are additional unknown dimension, and so forth. I mean, at one point, we had the same issue with atoms, and also quarks, and understanding each of these fundamental components of material things started with discovering them somehow, and examining their properties. Once we understood that, the games began, so to speak.
If the only thing you can ever encounter are the completed jigsaw puzzles, and they never fall apart whilst being used, what's the point of looking at an individual piece?
I don't really grasp where you are intending to take the analogy, but that's not surprising since it was a strained one at best. But, lets try this another way. In fact, it is unclear to me what exactly it is you want to know. Do you want to know what material benefits this may have? Do you want to understand how the knowledge gleaned from the HSC may be converted into applications? What is it exactly you are trying to understand? To me the whole thing seems pretty clear. Greater understanding of the building blocks of matter gives us more accurate theories, and with more accurate theories, we can actually do applied science. It's not much difference from, say, how the theory of the atom was changed with the actual means to observe and interact with atoms, and how that new knowledge was essential to things like nuclear science, chemistry, computing, and a bunch of other stuff. Without verification of a hypothesis, we are flying blind. Once we get that verification, we can understand what hypothesis are correct, and how to direct our
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Greater understanding of the building blocks of matter gives us more accurate theories, and with more accurate theories, we can actually do applied science.
I think it's this idea I don't necessarily agree with. Understanding micro-scale (even elemental) properties doesn't necessarily provide any useful insight into the behaviour of macro-scale phenomena, even when the latter is comprised entirely out of (emerges from) the former. We are macro-scale phenomena. Everything we can intuitively understand and care about is macro-scale phenomena
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But it seems it is possible to develop, for example, various medical technologies that 'work' (e.g. penicillin) without a clear idea of how and why they work. (If the effectiveness of a drug could be deduced from first principles, for instance, then there'd be no need for randomised control trials.) 'Stuff' that happens closer to our scale of existence tends to be so irreducibly complex that bottom-up knowledge is all but useless. Sure, because they work on two entirely different principles. Nuclear reactions require exacting manipulations of an incredibly small scale timed with incredible perfection, all of which was only determined because of elaborate experimentation on a super small scale, and which I am highly confident could never have been replicated without that precise knowledge and means
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I think here you're arguing for the sane kind of clear ontological distinction - between micro-level and macro-level 'stuff' - that I'm arguing for. My point, however, is that once one accepts this kind of distinction then the relevance and usefulness of knowing about micro-level stuff to our macro-level existence can't simply be assumed, but must be justified. My main objection to the kinds of arguments and soundbites that seem to be put forward in approval for the LHC is that they tend not to acknowledge that this ontological distinction exists, and to simply assume that all 'real' knowledge must be 'bottom-up' (deductive rather than inductive or abductive).
I think that:
The kinds of physical structures that people manage to utilise through trial-and-error tend to be much more complex and intricate than those that we utilise through bottom-up logical-deductive reasoning;
Trial-and-error has created what I presume is the most powerful nuclear reactor the human race will ever know: The Sun. Since the emergence of life, completely
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The kinds of physical structures that people manage to utilize through trial-and-error tend to be much more complex and intricate than those that we utilize through bottom-up logical-deductive reasoning;.
Well, I'm not sure I agree with that, unless you include biological structures or composites, such as a City or other abstract conglomerate, or just the sheer volume of trial and error products. Even supposing they do, complexity in itself really isn't a virtue, unless there is a specific justification for it, so I am not sure as to the point of that.
Regarding DNA: remember that the term and concept of 'natural selection' was created in contrast to, and based upon, the farming practice of selective breeding. People have been genetically engineering crops and animals for millennia, without knowledge even of evolution, let alone DNA.
Right, but there is an inherent limit in such a thing, in the forms of time and structure. You cannot radically re-engineer life via artificial selection, even over thousands of years. You can
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The only thing I will say about the plant analogy is that, if you think of entropy in terms of information retention, then yeah, plants and life in general are actually fantastically good at that. After all, we pass on DNA with very few replication errors over millions of generations, and DNA is ultimately a power system, in that it creates localized order at the expense of wider entropy. But, I think you will agree that that discussion is getting off the rails a bit.
...unless you include biological structures or composites, such as a City or other abstract conglomerate, or just the sheer volume of trial and error products. Both. ...complexity in itself really isn't a virtue Yes: but it is the justification for taking the position that purely deductive, bottom-up explanations for macro-scale phenomena aren't necessarily the best explanations for the phenomena.
You cannot radically re-engineer life via artificial selection, even over thousands of years. Disagree here, though perhaps the disagreement pivots on different interpretations of the word 'radically'. I think chihuahuas are radically different to wolves, for example, and domestic cattle are radically unlike anything that does, or could, exist in the wild (not least because milk cows are bred to have udders so huge they would be incapable of escaping predators in a hostile environment, and are thus completely dependent on humans for survival).
Yes: but it is the justification for taking the position that purely deductive, bottom-up explanations for macro-scale phenomena aren't necessarily the best explanations for the phenomena.It really depends. Getting to the essence of a thing can be just as useful as having an overarching view. Understanding and reducing a problem to a point that can be very clearly articulated and understood makes the manipulation of that thing much more accurate, and the outcome way more predictable. Macro scale stuff, not operating on those kinds of deductive principles, relies on getting something that works without really caring much about why or how
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I think it's this idea I don't necessarily agree with. Understanding micro-scale (even elemental) properties doesn't necessarily provide any useful insight into the behaviour of macro-scale phenomena, even when the latter is comprised entirely out of (emerges from) the former.
We are macro-scale phenomena. Everything we can intuitively understand and care about is macro-scale phenomena ( ... )
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I think that:
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Well, I'm not sure I agree with that, unless you include biological structures or composites, such as a City or other abstract conglomerate, or just the sheer volume of trial and error products. Even supposing they do, complexity in itself really isn't a virtue, unless there is a specific justification for it, so I am not sure as to the point of that.
Regarding DNA: remember that the term and concept of 'natural selection' was created in contrast to, and based upon, the farming practice of selective breeding. People have been genetically engineering crops and animals for millennia, without knowledge even of evolution, let alone DNA.
Right, but there is an inherent limit in such a thing, in the forms of time and structure. You cannot radically re-engineer life via artificial selection, even over thousands of years. You can ( ... )
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Both.
...complexity in itself really isn't a virtue
Yes: but it is the justification for taking the position that purely deductive, bottom-up explanations for macro-scale phenomena aren't necessarily the best explanations for the phenomena.
You cannot radically re-engineer life via artificial selection, even over thousands of years.
Disagree here, though perhaps the disagreement pivots on different interpretations of the word 'radically'. I think chihuahuas are radically different to wolves, for example, and domestic cattle are radically unlike anything that does, or could, exist in the wild (not least because milk cows are bred to have udders so huge they would be incapable of escaping predators in a hostile environment, and are thus completely dependent on humans for survival).
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