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"Science is limitless in its scope. Through the discovery of this rather straightforward technique (the scientific method) mankind appears to have stumbled upon a rather obvious way of reaching a true understanding of anything of interest, including those aspects of existence that religions have regarded as peculiarly their own. However, in the exercise of its power to answer deeply troubling questions, it has had to distinguish apparently real questions from the merely invented." (Peter Atkins)

For me, the question now arises: Who decides what is a 'real question' and what is an 'invented question'? Is there a way to distinguish both objectively?

I guess that Atkins would say that "What are the dominant elements of exoplanet Trappist-f-1?" is a real question (although only a handful of people on earth are posing that question and are interested in the answer), whereas the following question is invented: "Why is there anything rather than nothing?"

Matias 8 Sep 8
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7 comments

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0

Creativity is very different from intelligence. We know from Gardner & others there are many forms of intelligence, verbal, mathematical, spatial, physical, musical, etc..Intelligence operates somewhat like a computer. It does what it is programmed to do.

Creativity may be a subset of intelligence, but appears to operate differently. Einstein came up with his theories not because he was intelligent & could recite the accepted knowledge of his day. He used his imagination to conduct "thought experiments" that asked & attempted to answer novel questions. Creativity goes "beyond the box" to reach new insights.

Creativity has evolutionary value. The environment is constantly changing, physically, socially, mentally. We evolve mainly as societies & not as individuals. If a society has individuals who can think creatively & find novel solutions to problems that arise, even though the applicability of those solutions might not be immediately apparent, that society maximizes survival potential.

There are various psychological tests that supposedly measure creativity, but it is hard to measure or predict accurately because by its very nature it creates novelty, & what is actually novel is a judgment call. Testers might consider things novel that are only refinements of the known.

Also, like intelligence, creativity appears to have many different forms. A person may be creative in one field & not others

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Atkins is asking the wrong question. All questions involve imagination, & so are invented. No question is "real" because it is an inquiry into fact, not an empirical fact itself. Therefore Atkins question is moot & imaginary, because all questions are imaginary, as you imagine what the possible answers might be.

The real question should be is the question useful or not, does it serve a real purpose & can a possible answer be verified. Otherwise we're just "whistling Dixie"

But useful in what sense. We can reduce inquiry to the "bean counter" mentality of what has immediate practical utility. But for many people value judgment questions like "Does my life have meaning & purpose?" or "What happens to me when I die?' have usefulness because they affect one's sense of self. The supposed answers can affect ones actions.

The problem is not is the question imaginary, but that we currently have no way of proving or disproving possible answers. So we are left in the quandary of having useful questions with no real answers, which may prompt some people to say they are "imaginary".

2

My intuition is that real questions have real objective answers and invented questions have unlimited or no answers.

For example, I can ask: Are there any earth like planets around a star? Then follow it up with: Why are their earth like planets around this star? Followed by what caused the stars to form the planets? ad infinitum until you have perfect knowledge of the universe.

The more I think about this, the more it becomes apparent that finding an invented question is harder than it seems. I could ask a totally non sense question, like can you squalop a floop? Because a floop isn't real and no one can squalop, the question has a real objective answer, no, but it can never be scientifically verified because you would need to find a floop and attempt to spualop it before you knew for sure. That being said, it's meaningless to ask this question because it will never be useful to know that info, so it is effectively random noise.

But for more nuanced questions it gets more complex. If I ask, "is there a meaning to life? life is a real thing, and it is possible for something to have meaning, so just like in the nonsense example it could have a real answer, infinite answers, or a no answer.

All I've got is that real questions will be reducible to binary ( yes or no )

4

Matias you raise a good point. It is vital in science that one is careful and deliberate in how they design and tailor the questions that get asked in pursuit of research and scientific truth.

In my Science class I teach that prior to generating a hypothesis, one must review everything that is known about the problem being addressed first. We formally acknowledge this step appropriately as "Prior Knowledge". This step aids in both establishing the limits of the phenomenon being investigated, serves to avoid replication of information and results already known, but also serves to identify the salient variables that will impact delimited the experiment. Research is only as good as the questions asked. A well designed question leads to solid, trustworthy results, and a gateway to further questions, thus advancing our knowledge base.

I also ask my students to design their hypotheses in a system commonly known as the IF>THEN>WHEN format. The IF statement sets up the initial conditions in the experiment. The THEN statement lays out the Independent variable, and the WHEN statement leads to the prediction (hypothesis) of what will occur when the THEN is applied.

The same can be said about statistics. A survey is only as good as the questions being asked. A good survey contains carefully worded questions. Questions that avoid leading or biasing the person being surveyed in a particular direction. The questions and choices should be designed as neutrally as possible.

Statistics do not lie. The tests that are applied to the data mathematically addresses accurately the process they are designed to test. The problem lies in the quality of the questions, and the expertise of the evaluator to understand what the outcomes means. Errors lie in the interpreter and their understanding, and not in the data.

If you select the wrong statistical test to address the questions asked, or the questions are poorly designed, you will get a false perception regarding the results. You will get accurate results, just not the results desired.

In conclusion (making a short story long-lol) a good scientist avoids "invented" questions by a thorough understanding of the "prior knowledge" and using same to direct and avoid superfluous questions.

1

Atkins sounds like a latter-day logical positivist. These positivists held that a question is meaningful (=”cognitively significant&rdquo😉 if, and only if in principle there is evidence relevant to the determination of the truth or falsity of any proposed answer. So, for example, “Is the square root of butter yellow?” is meaningless because there is no conceivable evidence capable of supporting either possible answer. Likewise, “Does there exist a God?” is the same. For example, if everyone were perfectly happy or completely miserable, that would not be evidence; or if the universe were highly ordered or essentially chaotic, that would not be evidence. Etc. Etc. So both these questions are cognitively meaningless; the difference, according to the positivists, is that some people are emotionally involved in the latter but not the former.

Incidentally, logical positivism has been widely rejected in philosophy for several decades; the major criticism is that its criterion of meaningfulness is inadequate.

The emoticon above is a typo. It should be the closing of the quote mark.

1

I am thinking I would hate this Atkins book or whatever it is from.
Not too critical, a little too starry eyed about sciencing and reasoning.

To love something well is to understand its limits. Not all limitations to knowledge are strictly human.

3

Good point. My questions are the real ones. Yours are contrived.

I don’t think the scientific method was stumbled upon. I think intelligent people used their analytic powers, based on conscious awareness and free will to devise ways of testing proposed theories. While the scientific method is a valuable tool, it is fundamentally limited by our peculiar mentality. Science is like a pair of pliers, there to use when it’s needed, but it’s not worthy of worship or adulation, and is not justification for chest beating.

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