{"id":683,"date":"2026-04-09T18:20:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T18:20:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harmenscholte.com\/?p=683"},"modified":"2026-04-09T18:20:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T18:20:11","slug":"the-study-of-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harmenscholte.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/09\/the-study-of-science\/","title":{"rendered":"The Study of Science"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The relevance of philosophical enterprises is sometimes questioned. This is not entirely unexpected since great theoretical problems like the trolley problem<\/em> might not seem very relevant to practical bodily <\/em>life. In a previous post I have argued already about the relationship between science and philosophy (multiple articles actually) and this metastudy will expand that investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To build on on aforementioned preliminary thought I propose that we introduce the alien-perspective. Humor me to imagine a alien that is observing the universe. This entity is alive following our conventional notions of aliens. Now how would this alien, who is lone in his genus come to a account of knowledge?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This thought experiment assumes that knowledge is something to strive for, that entities willingly pursue a “knowledge,” a understanding of the world. Whether this understanding viz. the desire to arrive at knowledge derives from prior universals is not relevant in this possible world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now the alien has a body which is airproof, which has the consequence that she can float in “empty” space indefinitely. The alien could naturally arive at the existence of numbers perhaps, since she can count stars. Is there inherent <\/em>meaning in counting? Perhaps not, what would the alien do with the concept of the number? Does “5” have any inherent meaning? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a lone alien floating through space it seems difficult to make the case. Alternatively why would “5” not have any inherent meaning? Since the conscious or unconscious act of counting seems to derive from a desire it can be interpreted as denying<\/em> to judge said practice meaningless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let us continue our case and see where it leads. Now the alien counts 1, 2, 3, till 100.000 stars. Would said being infere that there are larger numbers than 100.000? If the being has a sense of self she can infere that at least 100.001 exists, 100.000 stars plus her self. But numbers beyond that? It does not seem emperically <\/em>obvious that higher numbers exist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But if she has the ability to track time, to keep track of time, to keep a mental account of her mental states previous to the arrival at the state of the counting of star number 100.001 she can judge that since at a moment in time there was 1 (star) and then 2 (stars) there seems to be something going up. A “counter.” Now to consider such mental disposition of a hypothetical figure is understood as a possible world inside <\/em>a possible world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is kripke’s semantics or rather a molested version of it. To return to the second-order judgement of the existence of the counter we (in base reality\/first level reality) know that mathematics has concepts like infinite series etc. Would the alien be able to infer the concept of a infinite series from the act of counting the perceivable objects? Perhaps the being realizes that she can go to 100.002 if she counts the blackness of empty space as another thing to be counted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this then finally seems to end the practice of counting. Or is the mental state at ariving at the “end” of counting not another thing in itself? If this is the case the count is 100.003 and will grow infinitely since there are always more mental states. (100.003: the “end” of counting, 100.004: the mental state of the realization that event 100.003 was not really the last thing to be counted. 100.005: counting “event” 100.004, 100.006: counting event 100.006, etc.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To be continued.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The relevance of philosophical enterprises is sometimes questioned. This is not entirely unexpected since great theoretical problems like the trolley problem might not seem very relevant to practical bodily life. In a previous post I have argued already about the relationship between science and philosophy (multiple articles actually) and this metastudy will expand that investigation. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[70],"tags":[93],"class_list":["post-683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-metaphysics","tag-kripke"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/harmenscholte.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/harmenscholte.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/harmenscholte.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harmenscholte.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harmenscholte.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=683"}],"version-history":[{"count":61,"href":"https:\/\/harmenscholte.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":744,"href":"https:\/\/harmenscholte.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683\/revisions\/744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/harmenscholte.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harmenscholte.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harmenscholte.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}