Does science exist outside of human minds? Yes, or no.

And, do you require the physical sciences to prove that the moon existed before people?

Science is a method. It's not inside or outside of the human mind. What do you mean?



I don't require anyone in particular to prove to me anything. But scientists have proved that the moon existed before people. If you deny this, you may as well deny the majority of what science tells us, since the evidence for this is so overwhelming.

The enterprise of science is not a method. It is performed by people.

He did not ask whether science was needed to prove anything to you, but to prove that something is true.
I suppose that a lot of people believed that the Moon was older than people, and that some did not, and that some had not even thought about it. But I don't see the point of his question. What difference would it make?

I don't know where's he's going with it.

If you mean that the method is performed by people, that is certainly true. But science is a method (the scientific method).

He couldn't have been sincerely asking whether humans could perform scientific experiments if humans did not exist, could he?



I don't know where's he's going with it.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Pythagorean
Does science exist outside of human minds? Yes, or no.

And, do you require the physical sciences to prove that the moon existed before people?

1. No. Science is a human enterprise.
2. Yes, of course. Especially if "prove" means, "give good reasons to believe it". Just as I would need science to prove that the rock over there is older than people (if it is). Why do you ask?

I think he was just saying that science is a social phenomenon. There is the scientific method, but I don't quite know what it means to say that science is a method.

No, I don't think that anyone really knows where he is going with this.

1) science exists only in the mind and
2) proof of the moon's independent existence depends upon science, then
3) proof of the moon's existence is also dependent upon the mind.
4) Therefore, the moon's independent existence is dependent upon the mind.

The conclusion does not follow. Proof of the moon's independent existence, and the moon's independent existence, are two different things.

1) Scientific truths exist in the mind
2) The moon exists independently is a scientific truth
Therefore, the scientific truth that the moon exists independently exists in the mind.

I think is what you're getting at. But what does that show?

Wiki:Idealism is the philosophical theory that maintains that the ultimate nature of reality is based on the mind or ideas.
This seems to mean "Idealism consists of the belief that reality is all in the human mind", to me.

But you must keep in mind that you cannot just change a theory to your liking simply because you may believe in another theory which differs. Idealism is how we have defined. That's what it is. And, yes, it is unintelligible. Now, maybe you have some other theory which is correct which isn't idealism, but that's another matter..

Representational realism, related to indirect realism, is a philosophical concept, broadly equivalent to the accepted view of perception in natural science. Unfortunately, the meaning of the theory is dependent on the user's pre-interpretation of words like 'perceive', 'reality' etc. such that in the longstanding debate between representational (indirect) and naive (direct) realists each side will always claim that the other has not understood their position. Thus, readers of this account must ask what the writer(s) believe(s) their words to mean.

Representational realism states that we do not (and cannot) perceive the external world as it really is; instead we know only our ideas and interpretations of the way the world is. This might be said to indicate that a barrier or 'veil of perception' prevents first-hand knowledge of the world, but the representational realist would deny that 'first hand knowledge' in this sense is a coherent concept, since knowledge is always via some means.

An indirect realist believes our ideas of the world are interpretations of sense data derived from a real external world (unlike idealists). The debate then occurs about how ideas or interpretations arise. At least since Newton, natural scientists have made it clear that the current scope of science cannot address this. Nevertheless, the alternative, that we have knowledge of the outside world unconstrained by our means of access through sense organs that does not require interpretation would appear to be inconsistent with every day observation.
Aristotle was the first to provide an in-depth description of indirect realism. In On the Soul he describes how the eye must be affected by changes in an intervening medium rather than by objects themselves. He then speculates on how these sense impressions can form our experience of seeing and reasons that an endless regress would occur unless the sense itself were self aware. He concludes by proposing that the mind is the things it thinks. He calls the images in the mind "ideas".

We are perfectly justified in maintaining that only what is within ourselves can be immediately and directly perceived, and that only my own existence can be the object of a mere perception. Thus the existence of a real object outside me can never be given immediately and directly in perception, but can only be added in thought to the perception, which is a modification of the internal sense, and thus inferred as its external cause ... . In the true sense of the word, therefore, I can never perceive external things, but I can only infer their existence from my own internal perception, regarding the perception as an effect of something external that must be the proximate cause ... . It must not be supposed, therefore, that an idealist is someone who denies the existence of external objects of the senses; all he does is to deny that they are known by immediate and direct perception ... .
[RIGHT]- Critique of Pure Reason, A367 f.[/RIGHT]

If

1) science exists only in the mind and

2) proof of the moon's independent existence depends upon science, then

3) proof of the moon's existence is also dependent upon the mind.

4) Therefore, the moon's independent existence is dependent upon the mind.

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No, that argument is invalid. It does not follow that because our proof of the existence of the moon is mind-dependent, that the existence of the moon is mind-dependent. All proofs are mind-dependent. But the existence of what we prove need not be mind-dependent.

What does the evolution have to do with matter? Premise #1 involves knowing the definition of idealism. I don't see how it has anything to do with the mind existing by virtue of evolution (which is in fact true, though).

Idealism is the philosophical theory that maintains that the ultimate nature of reality is based on the mind or ideas.

This seems to mean "Idealism consists of the belief that reality is all in the human mind", to me.

But to humor you, how does idealism understand mind?

If you think mind is only a recent arrival on the scene in the universe, there is no god, mind is emergent, mind is rare, mind is only present in man and a few higher animals, the universe is basically a dead inert mechanical deterministic machine in which mind is but a rare, brief and insignificant flicker, then idealism will look silly or incomprehensible to you.

Idealism is how we have defined. That's what it is. And, yes, it is unintelligible.

What is it that distinguishes 'the proofs themselves' from 'what it is that we are proving' - ? How can we come to know that that which we are proving is independent from the proof itself ? There seems no way to know it without recourse to our proofs.

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You mean that if I prove the Pythagorean theorem, then the Pythagorean theorem is the proof? That would mean that I could not know what the Pythagorean theorem was unless I could prove it. But that is clearly false.