[1] We live in an ordered universe that can be understood by humans.
[2] The universe consists entirely of physical substances - matter and energy.
[3] These substances behave in accordance with scientific principles, laws.
[4] Scientific laws are mathematical in nature.
[5] The same scientific laws apply throughout the universe and at all times.
[6] The behaviors of substances are caused.
[7] Substances are indestructible, although they can change to something else.
[8] The universe is continuous. Between any two points there is at least one other point.
[9] Space and time are separate and absolute.
[10] Something can not be created from nothing. — T Clark

I don't think most of these are presuppositions of science.

1. I mean, science is an attempt to understand the universe by humans, so... yeah this one's a presupposition, but a rather agreeable, obvious one. The alternative to trying to understand the universe is not trying, and not trying doesn't seem to have many returns on (non)investment, so we might as well try.

2. Nope, not a presupposition of science in the slightest. Science has access to matter, and thus that naturally makes it easier to find out things about matter than ... things we don't have access to. It's not a presupposition of science, our focus on the physical is just an inevitable consequence of what it means to do science. Plenty of scientists do science just fine while also presupposing physical substances AREN'T the only things that exist. I'm sure some scientists do science well while assuming physical substances don't exist at all (surely some scientists are idealists of some kind).

3. Maybe?? I don't even think this one is - just because science tries to find principles and laws to describe behavior doesn't necessarily mean that in order to do science, one must presuppose substances all behave consistently in according with those principles and laws. I'm not convinced of this one, but I suppose I'm open to a solid agument that science presupposes this.

4. It happens to be the case that a lot of what we know about matter is describable mathematically - the fact that that's the case doesn't require a presupposition that it's a universal truth. I don't think this one counts.

5. Most scientists presuppose this, I think, but I again don't think it's a necessary presupposition. Someone could easily conduct science without that presupposition, right? Like one can imagine certain things we call laws fluctuating over time.

6. Yeah this one's probably fair to call a presupposition, although many scientists I'm sure are very questioning of the very concept of causality itself. So I'm inclined to say a very tentative 'yes, you're right' about this one.

7. Not a presupposition. This is a belief that's a consequence of experience and observation. If human scientists lived in a different universe where we experienced and observed very different things, we could easily have a science that has substances which are destructable. Come to think of it... don't matter and antimatter destroy each other? I give this one a 0/10, big fat NO on that being a presupposition.

8. Not a presupposition. Not even a universal belief among scientists.

9. Definitely a big fat no on this one. Separate? Have you literally never heard of spacetime?

10. Not a presupposition. At best, it's a similar situation to 7 - a belief that arose from experience and observation. Different observations could have yielded a different scientific belief.

The premise being pushed here in this thread is a misunderstanding of the situation — Punshhh

Is that the "premise being pushed"? Aren't both sides being argued for in this thread?

What about that guy sentenced to years in jail for telling his mom something racist in their own home? — Jeremy Murray

What about it? I obviously don't know about it - and I still don't. You've just written a sentence on a forum, not given me a link to a reputable source about it. I want something real man, not just people blabbering. I want to -know- it's happening. You telling me is next to useless, link me up.

When I google, "guy sentenced to years in jail for telling his mom something racist in their own home", I get no results. You haven't even given me a name to google.

That example doesn't come close to incitement. "For all i care" — AmadeusD

I have moments where I kind of agree, but the fact that hotels really were being lit on fire kinda changes the vibe of it a little bit. It sounds like a suggestion. It's definitely some kind of APPROVAL at the very least. It's certainly not neutral on violence.

I definitely see where you're coming from, but it's not cleanly divested from violent rhetoric enough for me to say "oh the uk jails anybody for saying anything non-woke". Someone would need to be put in prison for a tweet that had no suggestions of violence or approval of violence at all for me to say that, which is what I'm looking for. Like, just tweeting "I hate that so many immigratns are in our country" or something like that.

People have been temporarily jailed for tweets completely devoid of suggestions of violence, but never fully sentenced and imprisoned. Jailed is, of course, already too far, and I consider that a trampling of free speech in its own right, but of course not quite bad as sentencing and imprisoning.

Can't believe you teased us with this but then said we have to wait until March.

If gender is entirely and exclusively a social construct, as many feminists and even trans people like to say, then trans women are just men who want access to women's spaces.

On the other hand if gender has a real biological/psychological basis, then it seems at least imaginable that there could be people born with a penis but who are nevertheless psychologically or neurologically "female".

For what it's worth, I don't think gender is entirely and exclusively a social construct, and I believe a large fraction of trans people have some biological, neurological real explanation for their transness that science has yet to discover.

I don't think there's as much presupposition as you think - I think moreso, it's about the obvious fact that we can experiment on the physical world and come up with causal explanations in a way that we can't do with the "non physical mental world" you suppose exists.

I can hit a ball into another ball and watch the second ball consistently and reliably react in physical space. If I know both of their masses and the first balls speed, I can fairly consistently calculate the next sequence of events - I can calculate, given the surface they're on, how far the second ball will roll before it stops, and I'll be pretty darn close to right if I'm using the right equations.

There's nothing comparable about this mental world. Nobody's even sure if there is a mental world separate from the physical world. Some people suppose there is, but nobody has the faintest idea about how it's supposed to work.

So of course there's no literature, right? What are they going to write about? Experiments they can't do on a substance they can't observe?

The closest we have is psychology, and there's no lack of literature on that.

there's naturally not a lot of literature because the ideas in that other thread are pure speculation - possibly worse than pure speculation.

I consider all physical particles as the physical substance. Different particles are manifestations of different vibration modes of a single string at the end. — MoK

That seems like just a made up view to justify your current line of thought.

You think you need multiple substances to interact. It just so happens physics already has multiple interacting substances. Arbitrary reasons to decide that for you, those don't count as multiple substances is... Not it man.

Obviously that doesn't mean there aren't any non physical substances at play, it just means you haven't proven it with your logic here.

Therefore, we are left with vertical causation, which requires at least two substances, namely the Mind and matter. — MoK

Physical already includes multiple substances. There are many interacting quantum fields. If all this proves is that you need multiple substances, you haven't proven anything.

I don't think this proves you need multiple substances anyway, of course. Without any disrespectful intent, this doesn't seem like a particular deep or meaningful train of thought. Conway's game of life is an apparent example of a causal universe with a single "substance", that substance being the cells in the game.

That seems not to be quite right to me. It seems reasonable to say "I do prefer not to have existed.", but to claim that in case one had not existed one would have preferred it, is a step too far. That my existence is unhappy, does not entail that my non-existence is happy. — unenlightened

I think you're reading too much into it lol. "I'd prefer" is just a colloquial phrase.

But as T Clark points out, one's own happiness and preference is unimportant; it's other people's happiness that makes a wonderful life — unenlightened

Nobody would be missing much in my absence, and my life isn't wonderful.

I'd prefer to not have existed.

Two spam bots in the same thread? Do you two know each other or is this just a wild coincidence?

You're supposed to just accept that his hands are functioning scissors and not to delve too deeply into how the prop functions. — Nils Loc

When I watch the movie that's exactly what I do. This thread is just for fun really.

no picture?

The spring scissors are more flexible. — boethius

I don't know what that is. You mean spring loaded scissors or something else?

the problem is scissors aren't freely moving joints that just happen to connect sometimes. The blades in a pair of scissors rotate such that the blades are always rubbing against each other, not just when the angle is just right.

they can make as scissoring motion when placed next to another wrist, just like knuckles can. Any joint can.

that can, among other things, provide a scissoring motion — boethius

Lots of things can provide a scissoring motion. My wrists can provide a scissoring motion, that doesn't make my hands scissors

The chef accidentally scissored his thumb — frank

Does that make his thumbs scissors

well obviously knuckles provide that connection of two blades. — boethius

Is that obvious to you? It's not to me. Each of my knuckles is connected to one finger only, and allows a pretty wide range of motion that the blades of scissors don't have.

do you call two knives "scissors" just because you momentarily rub them against each other?

The fingers are connected together at the fulcrum that is the knuckle — boethius

You must have very very different knuckles from the rest of us.

You can see in this clip that they are moving independently of each other - he can rotate one without keeping it in friction with any adjacent ones, just like your own fingers.

https://youtube.com/shorts/KikEXZ95ygQ

As for others, it's a safe bet that they are beings just as I am - that everyone is 'me' but from their own unique perspective. Hence the maxim to 'treat others as you yourself would be treated'. — Wayfarer

Only humans? Or all conscious creatures?

right, so you saying table is concrete and photon is not is... not quite it then is it? Our mental facilities are set up to receive tables as concrete objects, whereas it takes a lot of work for us to even learn that photons are a thing, but that's a human limitation and not a fact about the world.

and you think that's not true of a photon?

I actually think a table is MORE abstract than a photon. A table is emergent at best. A photon has fundamental causal real-ness to it. A table is half way towards being a figment of the imagination.

sorry buddy, "table" is a concept in the English language, and concepts are something abstract.

material and immaterial — RussellA

So give me an example of something material.

You said

"photon" is a concept in the English language, and concepts are something abstract.

So give me an example of something that I can't say that sort of argument about please.

But "photon" is a concept in the English language, and concepts are something abstract. — RussellA

So is "chair", so is "photon", so is "atom". Have we now debased the word "immaterial" so much that EVERYTHING is now immaterial?

Words need boundaries. Words without boundaries are usually words without meaning. If everything is immaterial, the designation "immaterial" has no weight.

Whether a photon is material or immaterial depends on one's particular viewpoint. — RussellA

Sure, BUT if you're calling photons "immaterial" as if to compare them to something abstract, I think that's a mistake. Matter or not, mass or not, they're a part of physics.

Other physicists say that matter is categorically distinct from energy. For example, Matt Strassler. — RussellA

That article also says unambiguously that photons are STUFF, like matter. So if we're going by that article, photons are material, as are electrons and protons and neutrons

I think the very concept of original and duplicate breaks down entirely.

What's interesting is that the universe doesn't have a sense of identity for things like atoms. At a fundamental level, the universe can't tell the difference between one electron and another one, one atom and another one.

So if a god steps in and separates all the atoms in your body, and then puts together a bunch of "different" atoms in the exact same arrangement half a meter to your left... who is to say that those aren't "your atoms"? Atoms have no identity, so they have just as much a claim to being your atoms as any other atoms do.

you didn't give any reasons in that post I replied to. Did you give reasons somewhere else?

If done perfectly, the replica would not know he wasn't me. But he wouldn't be. — Patterner

Why? Because he doesn't have your soul?

what do you think of the answer? I think it's really weird that someone can say something everyone knows, and it still be used as if it were new information.

I'm not being pedantic. Read the whole original post. I don't care if you call her a shaman or guru or whatever, that's not the point of what I said. Whether you call her a shaman or a guru, if you read the whole post, you'll see that it's given what this person says. That's not the question.

Right at the end:

"I can see someone who has blue eyes."

Who leaves the island, and on what night? — flannel jesus

All the shaman has to say is — Illuminati

Nobody asked you what the shaman has to say though. I told you what the shaman says. You've solved a question that isn't being asked.

have you seen the canonical answer?

we know that materialism fails since it cannot explain how ideas emerge and how they can be causally efficacious in the world, given that ideas are irreducible and have no parts — MoK

Maybe that's a given for you. Idk what "we" you're referring to, there's no expert consensus that that's the case.