The scientific method is itself outside of the material universe

[grasping the after wind]

Thought is not material (it cannot be seen, heard, felt, tasted or smelled as a physical material substance can) so the OP has a point in saying the scientific method is not part of the physical/ material universe.

We must always use assumptions of some kind in order to reason anything so pointing out that to engage in scientific inquiry one must make assumptions is really not controversial at all.

I would suggest that any scientist would agree that scientific inquiry is an attempt to understand the material world using abstraction and not using a naturally occurring thing.

I would further suggest that reason in general and the scientific method in particular have proven to be excellent tools for understanding the material world.

I would also suggest that the imaginary can be useful in functioning in the physical world, for example all of geometry is based upon an imaginary thing called a point. A thing that cannot logically exist in the material world as it has no physical dimensions. Yet geometry makes it possible to do amazing things in the material world.

 

[durangodawood]

A recipe is a physical symbolic representation of a sequence of physical operations. We often talk about such indirect representations in terms of abstraction and conceptualisation, but it's just another (simpler) meta-language (a way of representing representations).

Thats not the recipe. Thats the physical representation of the recipe.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Thats not the recipe. Thats the physical representation of the recipe.

That's all a recipe ever is - and when we talk about recipes, that too consists of physical representations (in the brain) that refer to recipe representations and the concept of a recipe (i.e. meta-representations).

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Thought is not material (it cannot be seen, heard, felt, tasted or smelled as a physical material substance can) so the OP has a point in saying the scientific method is not part of the physical/ material universe.

Thought is very physical - it's processes in the brain, consisting of patterns of neuronal activity. Interfere with that activity and you interfere with thinking. You can conceptualise it in the abstract, but that also consists of patterns of neuronal activity.

We don't normally look at it this way - we're inclined to think in terms of conceptual abstractions which seem somehow removed from their subjects and more nebulous than physical, but they also really only exist in physical form - patterns of activity, symbols, etc...

 

[Ophiolite]

A good observation. But the descriptions of the universe do not include such a principle or property as mind or consciousness. That's my point: science depends upon something existing that it denies the existence of.

Frumious Bandersnatch has already refuted this remarkable statement of yours. It might help others to understand the concept you are trying to express if you could explain why you would make such a statement that, to my self and others, is so obviously wrong. Actually, you have made two clearly incorrect statements.
1. The 2002 CD edition of Encyclopedia Brittanica contains 1030 references to "consciousness" and 2276 for "mind". Since the Encyclopedia is one example of a "description of the universe" your statement is clearly wrong. So, what were you actually trying to say?
2. As Frumious already pointed out there are many thousands of research papers on the subject of mind and consciousness, so what led you to say science denies their existence?

 

[Steve Petersen]

I guess you could say that when we imagine things that do not yet exist, we are in some sense beyond the universe. The first our our evolutionary ancestors who picked up a bit of flint and imagined a spearhead, then MADE the darn thing, leapt outside of time and turned an immaterial image into a real thing. Thought preceded the thing.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

I guess you could say that when we imagine things that do not yet exist, we are in some sense beyond the universe. The first our our evolutionary ancestors who picked up a bit of flint and imagined a spearhead, then MADE the darn thing, leapt outside of time and turned an immaterial image into a real thing. Thought preceded the thing.

Yes, we find it helpful to think in terms of categories, such as 'the physical' and the 'non-physical' (e.g. concepts, ideas, abstractions), but fundamentally that thinking is information processing in a physical system (our brains).

 

[Steve Petersen]

Yes, we find it helpful to think in terms of categories, such as 'the physical' and the 'non-physical' (e.g. concepts, ideas, abstracti.ons), but fundamentally that thinking is information processing in a physical system (our brains).

The thing imagined doesn't exist in the material though until the material is manipulated.

 

[durangodawood]

A recipe is a physical symbolic representation of a sequence of physical operations. We often talk about such indirect representations in terms of abstraction and conceptualisation, but it's just another (simpler) meta-language (a way of representing representations).

I'm going to admit that I will have to puzzle over this, as seems to lead into a hall of mirrors situation, conceptually.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

I'm going to admit that I will have to puzzle over this, as seems to lead into a hall of mirrors situation, conceptually.

The point was to raise the question of what concepts, ideas, and other abstractions actually are. We use high-level language to divide things in our world into categories - including concepts, ideas, and other non-physical abstractions - mappings and associations of generalisations, types of things. But ultimately these abstractions are themselves physical.

We call their physical instantiations representations because they can take many forms but still have the same meaning - but this meaning is only expressed by physically relating these patterns of symbolic information; i.e. by processing them; their meaning is in the patterns of activity they trigger. For example, the written or spoken word must be translated into the pulsed firing of sensory neurons, then decoded into the activations of associations and mappings between neurons and their patterns of activity; all physical processes. We categorise them as physical or non-physical according to their indirectness (or 'aboutness') - not according to what they consist of (physical patterns).

Just sayin'

Note - I'm putting these ideas forward for discussion as a plausible description, not as an assertion of belief.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

The thing imagined doesn't exist in the material though until the material is manipulated.

It exists physically as the connectivity and patterns of activity of neurons in the brain that imagines it. We just tend to use a different language when describing things that happen in the brain than we do for things that happen outside it.

 

[RealityCheck01]

What about a recipe?

A recipe is not the scientific method. A better example would be all of the records of the material universe in scientific literature. We take the things we observe about the material universe and write them down. These records of the material universe often become the basis for the next generation of scientific enquiry. That is an essential part of the scientific method.

 

[RealityCheck01]

A good observation. But the descriptions of the universe do not include such a principle or property as mind or consciousness. That's my point: science depends upon something existing that it denies the existence of.

Science acknowledges the existence of mind and consciousness and investigates them as part of the material universe.
There is also this neat web site: Mind Science.
Explore the role of observers in physics (they have to be able to observe!).

 

[grasping the after wind]

Thought is very physical - it's processes in the brain, consisting of patterns of neuronal activity. Interfere with that activity and you interfere with thinking. You can conceptualise it in the abstract, but that also consists of patterns of neuronal activity.

We don't normally look at it this way - we're inclined to think in terms of conceptual abstractions which seem somehow removed from their subjects and more nebulous than physical, but they also really only exist in physical form - patterns of activity, symbols, etc...

The process of thinking is physical but thought itself is not.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

The process of thinking is physical but thought itself is not.

What is thought but the action or process of thinking; i.e. cogitation?

Please explain what you mean, this is an interesting and controversial topic.

 

[grasping the after wind]

What is thought but the action or process of thinking; i.e. cogitation?

Please explain what you mean, this is an interesting and controversial topic.

Unfortunately I have time constraints at the moment but I would be happy to expound in more detail upon that subject at a later time. For now, sticking with the OP's contention that the scientific method is not part of the material universe I would say that the scientific method has no taste, no smell, does not make a sound , one cannot see it with one's eyes and it cannot be felt with one's tactile sense , therefore it is not a physical thing and not part of the material universe. That does not invalidate it, it simply classifies it as something that is not material in nature.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Unfortunately I have time constraints at the moment but I would be happy to expound in more detail upon that subject at a later time. For now, sticking with the OP's contention that the scientific method is not part of the material universe I would say that the scientific method has no taste, no smell, does not make a sound , one cannot see it with one's eyes and it cannot be felt with one's tactile sense , therefore it is not a physical thing and not part of the material universe. That does not invalidate it, it simply classifies it as something that is not material in nature.

OK; I can wait for some substantiating argument or evidence. My argument remains as previously stated - that it exists only as physical patterns of various forms with common meaning, and that calling it non-physical or non-material is a descriptive convenience.

 

[durangodawood]

What is thought but the action or process of thinking; i.e. cogitation?

Please explain what you mean, this is an interesting and controversial topic.

What if we examine it in terms of "meaning" rather than "thought".

I mean, I can see how its reasonable (whether correct or incorrect) to reduce thought to physical brain activity alone. Especially if was consider it comparable to computer processing.

But meaning? I'm having difficult time here conceiving of the material component of the "bridge" between signifier and signified. My sense is that there really is no 'signified' per se to a computer.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

What if we examine it in terms of "meaning" rather than "thought"
....
But meaning? I'm having difficult time here conceiving of the material component of the "bridge" between signifier and signified. My sense is that there really is no 'signified' per se to a computer.

Meaning is just the associations triggered by a particular pattern of stimuli (e.g. by pattern matching, content-addressable storage, etc). In the brain, a particular stimulus pattern will activate pathways that have activated previously as a result of that, or similar, patterns, and they will, in turn, activate other pathways that were activated by them previously; associated pathways may be primed or suppressed by ongoing activations at a higher/wider scope (i.e. context).

I see no reason, in principle, why it couldn't be done in a computer; but I suspect you'd need a learning system (e.g. neuromorphic) to do anything significant.

 

[AnotherAtheist]

How are rational human observers outside the material universe?

They seem very much within it to me.

And our thought processes which contain all of philosophy are inside the material universe too.