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From: biep@cs.vu.nl (J. A. "Biep" Durieux)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: What is a methodology
Message-ID: <866@klipper.cs.vu.nl>
Date: Sun, 23-Aug-87 14:59:37 EDT
Article-I.D.: klipper.866
Posted: Sun Aug 23 14:59:37 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 23-Aug-87 23:46:25 EDT
References: <850@klipper.cs.vu.nl> <3692@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu>
Reply-To: biep@cs.vu.nl (J. A. "Biep" Durieux)
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Organization: VU Informatica, Amsterdam
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[Non-related question to Sarge Gerbode: what is meta-psychology?]

	In article <3692@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu>,
	myers@tybalt.caltech.edu.UUCP (Bob Myers) writes:
>Where I had problems with your initial comments (way back when) was
>your statement science is not creative: in particular, that the
>methodology tells you what hypotheses to consider.
			...
>Science is not a mechanistic, but a human endeavor. One doesn't go
>blindly following methodology and come up with full-blown theories.
>Creativity, most especially in the formation of hypotheses (personal
>opinion), is a very important part of science.

OK, three points.

1) I think I have good reasons to keep playing the devil's advocate. Not
	that I don't believe scientific behaviour is creative, but my
	current task is to build a system in which actors (say robots)
	solve problems and make plans. One of the hopes I have with this
	discussion is to find rules of behaviour that are absolute (=
	programmable). If I now just admitted you are right, I might
	never find any such rules. So let me challenge you to point out
	something which is or was really creative in science. Then I'll
	try to find a general rule catching that case. I'll promise to
	avoid any conscious use of the hindsight criterion in the use
	of the rule (but not in stating it, of course). I only hope I
	will know something about the field you'll choose.

2) At the moment scientific behaviour is certainly creative, as (as I
	have said) "philosophers aren't ready yet". You may hold they
	never will be, and I don't disagree beforehand. But I do feel
	it's possible to formalize scientific methodology much more
	than is usually done (and I am trying to do so - see point 1).
	I had hoped many people would have attacked (or commented on)
	specific rules from my list, so that I might have refined or
	changed them.

3) This is just a question of definition, of course, but I think that
	if a scientist makes conscious ("externalizes" ?) a methodo-
	logical rule (or simply: a method, a way to do something), he
	is doing philosophy. This is not true if he just uses some
	conscious or unconscious rule. Now a methodology may contain
	rules that state that a scientist should do so, i.e. that he
	stops and reflects about how he has been trying to get things
	done, and to find out which ways worked and which ways didn't.
	At that point the scientist is doing meta-<discipline>. (The
	prefix "meta-" is much used, but to my knowledge ill-defined.
	Does anyone have a better def than the (conflicting)
	- meta-X == X of X
	- meta-X == the science studying X as object
							? )

Please keep those objections and counter-arguments coming...
-- 
						Biep.  (biep@cs.vu.nl via mcvax)
	As the NSA is now skipping last lines of articles,
	let's discuss our anti-american conspiracy over here.