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Why does it even matter? If it works, it works, doesn’t it? Some — your correspondent included — would say quite so. | Why does it even matter? If it works, it works, doesn’t it? Some — your correspondent included — would say quite so. | ||
But there is a strand of [[scientism]] that sees science as an enterprise converging on “reality”, or “the truth”, and not just “a handy set of tools for the time being”. To their program, progress — betterment against an abstract gold ideal — is | But there is a strand of [[scientism]] that sees science as an enterprise converging on “reality”, or “the truth”, and not just “a handy set of tools for the time being”. To their program, progress — betterment against an abstract gold ideal — is important. Our theories must ascend a grand epistemic staircase towards enlightenment. Those that do not are diverting but, well, literally, diverting. Diversion from the path to enlightenment is at best wasteful and at worst destructive. | ||
On this theory there is at the top of that grand staircase (often the metaphor is literally inverted, and the progress described as a descent | How one knows one is on the path to enlightenment is just the question, of course, to which epistemic priority gives an answer. If only we could all agree about it. | ||
On this reductionist theory there is, at the top of that grand staircase (often the [[metaphor]] is literally inverted, and the progress described as a ''descent'' into structural engineering of the basement, but a “stairway to heaven” seems to us a much better image) a grand unifying theory of everything. when we have that, then — well, supporters of the grand unifying theory haven't carried on that thought experiment. But notice how it cleaves to the idea the universe is a bounded, time-bound, ''[[finite]]'' system. | |||
If this is right, then epistemic priority is important for the second order connections it vouches safe. Rather like a crossword solution that looks right, but isn't, and thereby buggers up the rest of the grid, a valuable but wrong theory will lead to trouble down the line if it isn’t rooted out pronto. | If this is right, then epistemic priority is important for the second order connections it vouches safe. Rather like a crossword solution that looks right, but isn't, and thereby buggers up the rest of the grid, a valuable but wrong theory will lead to trouble down the line if it isn’t rooted out pronto. | ||