[betty boop]

[What is or is not] a useful model of the universe ... will ultimately depend on what verifiable evidence we can discover to either exclude your model (if that's even possible) or to support your model. It's very early days for this kind of thing, from a strictly scientific viewpoint.

I definitely agree with you there, Patrick, times two.

Model building (or theorizing) usually happens after there's a body of data to be modeled.

I'm not quite sure that's true in principle. I suspect the likes of a, say, Albert Einstein would find something incomplete, and therefore, unsatisfying in that proposition.

The practical problem seems to be this: Before one can even begin to select what data qualifies as "evidence," one must first have a sense of what could possibly constitute the qualifications by which otherwise inchoate data can be qualified as direct, germane evidence in the first place.

To put it in a nutshell, it seems to me that before one can formulate a proper question, let alone array direct evidence pro or con in its case, one must first have had some intuition or imaginative experience in which such a question could arise in the first place, so as to become directly relevant in the instant place.

Capice, amici?

It seems to me there is a profound difference between the "strictly scientific," rationalist, "blinkered" viewpoint so mindlessly promulgated by persons and institutions in positions of power these days, and the viewpoints of everybody else. The latter actually consult reality every now and then, up close and personal.

But "direct consultation with reality" is the sort of thing that ideologues ever seek to avoid -- like a vampire avoids garlic, crucifixes, mirrors, and silver stakes....

But of course, all this is conjecture, given the state of the evidence I've seen so far (which I'm sure is partial, incomplete).

Must leave it there for now, dear Patrick. Thank you so much for writing. Good night, and God bless!

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you for the ping to your discussion with PatrickHenry! Excellent points!

To put it in a nutshell, it seems to me that before one can formulate a proper question, let alone array direct evidence pro or con in its case, one must first have had some intuition or imaginative experience in which such a question could arise in the first place, so as to become directly relevant in the instant place.

Your argument reminds me of Albert Einstein who famously conducted many thought experiments before proceeding. His quest was always the "lofty structure of all that there is" and his dream was to transmute the basewood of matter to the pure marble of geometry.

Or as Dallaporta observed:

An interview with Nicolò Dallaporta

Today the emphasis in the world of research and also in the university is to go to extremes in the pursuit of details…

… Often it happens that each person is pushing one little channel and doesn't know anything but that. The great themes have very little resonance. But the problem is that today scientists no longer have time to think. Physicists have "thought" up to the generation of Hesemberg and Shroedinger. After that, there has been no time for this. The quantity of knowledge and information has grown so fast that it is increasingly difficult for a scientist to have a view of the whole.

This, I think, is a tragedy of modern science.

[Dataman]

It seems to me there is a profound difference between the "strictly scientific," rationalist, "blinkered" viewpoint so mindlessly promulgated by persons and institutions in positions of power these days, and the viewpoints of everybody else. The latter actually consult reality every now and then, up close and personal.

But "direct consultation with reality" is the sort of thing that ideologues ever seek to avoid -- like a vampire avoids garlic, crucifixes, mirrors, and silver stakes....

You're in good company:

Schaeffer's allegory of "the universe and two chairs." The parable says that there are two men sitting on their chairs in a closed room. The room is all there is, so that it would be possible to study the room and come up with some valid theories about it within a relatively short time. But the one man is a materialist and the other is a Christian. When the materialist finishes his study, in which he benefits from the tools of modern disciplines such as chemistry, biology, physics, etc., he shares his conclusions with the Christian, who then tells him his findings are "drastically incomplete." What he is missing is the Bible, which holds the key to the story. Without it, the materialist will never know the origins of the universe, nor the reality of the invisible world, nor a true philosophy of history.

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