[strogonoff]

> We know, for example, that we cannot solve the halting problem, we cannot predict chaotic systems, etc.

This violates the second axiom I assume: in your examples, we know where the incompleteness lies. If you disagree that not knowing that would necessarily hold for modeling the system that we are part of, then perhaps we won’t be on the same page to argue productively.

[lisper]

Sorry, that didn't parse. What do you mean by "the second axiom"? What axioms are you talking about?

[strogonoff]

> My pet theory is that success of predictions of modern science helped us achieve a local maximum which, while useful, also makes it difficult to evolve towards a higher (globally) maximum.

> The axioms are:

> 1. Some models are useful, but all models are necessarily incorrect, incomplete, and/or unfalsifiable. (This can be restated in an unsettling, for a natural science enthusiast, manner as “there is always the unexplained”.)

> 2. We cannot know where the incorrectness/incompleteness lies.

(It is an axiom because I strongly suspect I will maintain this position but am not willing to spend time defending it. Maybe I should call it “assumption”.)

[lisper]

Ah. Sorry, I'm responding to a dozen different threads and I'm having trouble keeping all the context in my head.

I think your axiom #2 is almost certainly correct. But just because we can't know where all of the uncertainty lies doesn't mean we can't know where some of it does.

[strogonoff]

I think of models as maps—sure, we are able to map Earth with high accuracy (though still have numerous maps all useful for different things), but only because we are now able to be outside of it; this will never be true for the system that we are modeling using scientific method and that we ourselves are part of.

We will forever have many incomplete maps. Scientific method offers one such map, a product of a particular way of attending to the world, and while it is useful for some purposes I am not sure it is inherently better than other maps. It does not help that it tries (maybe not by design, but at least that’s how it seems to be playing out so far) to sidestep the fact that our minds are both map-creators and part of the territory.

[lisper]

> ignoring the fact that our minds are both map-creators and part of the territory seems foolish

That's a straw man. Of course it's foolish. No one is ignoring it.

[mistermann]

You are literally ignoring it, you speak as if your opinion of reality is a 1:1 match for the thing itself.

Can you link to:

1. Two of your comments in this thread where you express uncertainty in any of your assertions?

2. Two comments where someone disagreed with you, and you acknowledged (in the comment itself) your prior incorrectness/imperfection?

[strogonoff]

Yeah, I edited it after I noticed that myself, apologies.