"science" is only an established method for systematically examining the way the universe is put together

science can't have an end because it isn't actually a thing

and there is always a new frontier to be studied

I am merely pointing out that there is a scenario in which Science does actually truly end. Yes, I do believe that it is possible that life capable of science could cease to exist anywhere in the universe.

It is very very possible that humans could annihilate themselves! Oh yes, they have had lots of practice and have all the tools available now many times over.

What makes me think it could happen? Oh - simple observations of historical genocides and a lack of appreciation of our limited resources locally and globally and oh let me see weaponized anthax attacks and radical Islam....for instance...

Do I predict it? No. Like Obama, such predictions are "beyond my pay grade".

Now I hope you are right when you say, "That's not going to happen." But it could happen. It has been proposed that the human genome indicates how humankind nearly became extinct just 70 thousand years ago. Google "Toba". Humankind in particular is very fragile and there are many many many ways in which humans can hasten their own extinction.

Grim...I know...

Any thing is possible. I will figure this out someday/sometime/somement(short for some moment)/SW(short for somewhere), sorry about the abbreviations, but according to the mayans, we only have about five years left before earth is destroyed. so I though I would start writing a quicker way to communicate so as we may be able to figure out these important issues before the end of time.

I see your point, and I raise you one point.

Is math a thing? Math is the relationships between numbers and is a way of representing things in the natural world.

If all creatures capable of math died out, but left libraries of math around, and billions of years go by, and new life forms and develops and finds those libraries . . . did math really stop existing, then start to exist again once a creature capable of understanding it formed again?

Would science be different? Science is the relationship between knowledge and nature.

I have never seen, read, or heard of what the bleep do we know, do you have a link? I guess I could search . . is it really bleep? hmm, I am thinking not.
No not junk science just not theory. A theory is supported by evidence, and is testable. You can have scientific hypothesis that is backed up with evidence, but is not concrete enough to be considered theory. Each claim should and is weighed based on its own validity and ability to be proven true.



You should quote me on this one, then we can wile out the nature of my argument, I can guarantee I do not feel that QM is bubkus considering that the field of nano tech and particle physics of which I am a student is founded on QM.



I am glad I do not believe this. This is such a simple outlook that it would be frightening to think anyone would believe this. A Hypothesis must be formed before a test can be devised . . . that is basic.
I have nothing to say about this except that this is NOT how I feel, and I sure am glad of that fact.


I agree, except its spelled presumptuous.


Totalitarian statements are idiotic in general. That I would agree with. Anytime someone says "always", or "all things" in regards to a conversation that is dealing with complex and variable ideas would be idiotic, that I can definitely agree with, its much better to present specific ideas and conclusions about specific topics, or even better details within those topics which is what I try to always refer when disusing anything.



I post new discoveries at least every week as I find them somewhere on this forum either in a new topic, or in a given thread that is relevant. So I ask again, if you have specific statements of mine that lead you to this analysis of my thought processes and understanding of the universe I would love to see them, and maybe we can analyze what I was really saying line by line for you.

Scientific advance seems to be accelerating, not growing slower.

This would seem to indicate that there remains many new discoveries to be made.

Science has just reached appetizers. It has only begun. More astonishing discoveries will be discovered in our lifetimes.

Hopefully good ones at that

If it doesn't go bang!! boom!!! or kapowy!!! and destroy centuries of habitable planet time....it isn't REAL science....

Science has not even come close to reaching it's limit. Scientist are still finding things out about the world around us. Some of the things they've are weird and hard to define. Things so small, smaller than atoms that they cannot be defined so they give them names like Flavor and Beauty.

Hell in our life time they built the LHSC. Science marches on.

Look back over the past few years and you can see that science keeps progressing and refining itself.

Bushidobillyclub pretty much nailed everything I wanted to say (by the way, I'd love to have a chat with you sometime billyclub).

However, I wanted to touch on a topic the original post brought up.

It's been quite some time since I've seen anything related to What The Bleep Do We Know (WTBDWK). However, it is best described as pseudoscience (and I'll be more than happy to take a look at it again if you feel my points are invalid).

WTBDWK attempts to draw conclusions from quantum mechanics that simply aren't scientific. I recall their coverage of the famous dual-slit experiment at the quantum level and they suggested the particles knew they was being watched to add a layer of mystery to it. The problem with this line of thinking is *no one* knows why things behave the way they do at the quantum level. It's true that the wave function of a particle collapses to a single value when you measure it (instead of retaining its superposition of values) but we don't know any more than that. We just know it happens. So WTBDWK's attempts to include QM into a spiritual mindset don't pull it out of the realm of new age philosophies.

I don't mean to say you can't use QM or science in general in your spiritual beliefs, I'm just saying you can't call it scientific.

Well, working on the basis that I have just found out that science discovered that at 70mph, when you sneeze you travel 300ft with your eyes closed, it is very possible that science could not possibly have discovered everything there is to know.

Hellfire we are still debating the lack of proof of god and that has been ongoing for centuries!

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081222221537.htm

Here are some of the kinds of discoveries that have been capturing my attention lately.

I have even entertained the idea of switching majors to evolutionary biology.

Science has reached its limits. Game over! No more! Finished!

Science is as infanint as the space it tries to discribe!

Moondark

Can you imaging how boring the life would be for intelligent people if there were no more science?
Lets hope we never discover everything, if that's even possible.
Seems the more we learn the more we realize we don't know all that much.

"We" being defined as anyone who seeks to learn.

on mingle2 it has, yes!

So what was the final score?

Or was it one of those newfangled polite interactive games where there are no winners and losers?

Just curious.

I fell asleep during the game and didn't catch the last quarter.

I don't have anything stunningly intellectual to add to this discussion. All I have to say is that I want to marry this thread because it has restored my faith in humanity.

Since this is 'Science & Philosophy', I thought I would take the 'phil' angle to the question.

'... Has science reached it's limits? ...'

Can't answer!

THE QUESTION IS 'WRONG' !!!

It's a bit like asking: 'Does 1+1 really equal 'CAR''?!?!?

Well it's not '1+1's job to equate directly to 'car', and it is not 'car's job to equate directly to '1+1' !

As it is with the question. It is not 'science's job, or purpose, or mission to answer 'limit' as an end, and as such, 'limit' surely has no 'purpose' to 'IMPOSE' finality on 'science'.

But I'm glad you raised this 'wrong' question, because you are raising it as a genuine question, as 'science' does.

Science wasn't designed to 'answer' finality, on the contrary, it's sole purpose is to endlessly 'question' (without final answers ever) the 'infinality' of 'unknowns'!!! No end in sight!!!

That being said, the post raises an interesting question:

... if the question makes no sense in addressing 'science',
(and yet I thank our host for posting it, because it is being insistently posed as a false debate by many)

... where, or from what mentality is this wrong question even raised ??? (other than the genuine inquisitive perspective of our host)

... whom, or what mentality (perspective) feels existentially threatened by the 'forever-infinite-unknown' which science questions endlessly???

A question! Not an answer!!!

no, but you look like a 2070 bad ass. no offense please.

The next thing to happen that will really let science thrive is a new religious since, one attached to the facts of nature and the cosmos. I think there will soon be ideas that question the eternal truths, timeless laws and predictive determination that generally characterize solid science. If people got freaked out over the shift of perspective regarding the sun moving into it's correct dominance in the solar system, imagine what the idea that there are no strict laws in nature and that novelty exist will do. Can you think of what moralists might do with such inspired whims? It makes me want to puke already. But science is at a stalemate right now, and I really do have to pin it to a religious epidemic. There is a need in science to feel connected agian, to be guided by a spirit of physics and to imagine in a new thought environment, one where inspiration leads to correspondence with reality. Love of nature should come first, and science follows. When one wants to explain the sense of moreness and have it as their own understanding, that's when the cold wind starts to blow...