Is Science the Search for Objective Truth in an Objective Reality

No. The scientific method is just as predictive inside The Matrix as it would be in "real life". Science is the search for the predictive model, not the search for truth.A lot of people get that wrong, though. No surprise - the results of science are typically so useful that they seem so true.

Yeah, but that doesn't mean using science within the matrix develops predictive models about reality. In fact, that's the point of the matrix - it's a set of rules that are different from reality, so therefore predictive models developed based on observations arising from the rules of the matrix are only valid under the rules of the matrix. Since the matrix insulates you from observations of the rules of reality, the scientific method within the matrix isn't able to develop models that would be valid under the "real" rules.(Did all that bake your noodle, or what?)

I guess, but if you've defined the supernatural as undetectable, then by necessity it's irrelevant - there's no such thing as an undetectable effect, since its by effect that we know something happened.Define the supernatural to be undetectable is you wish, but in doing so, you've rendered the supernatural completely powerless in the natural world, and how is that fundamentally different than saying the supernatural doesn't exist?

By how predictive the models are. Better models make more accurate predictions than lesser models. Technology is the ultimate "prediction" of any model; the predicition is "this will always happen under these circumstances."Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.

Predictive as compared to what we wind up observing and experiencing. Why does it need meaning? Predictive power would seem to be pretty useful in it's own right.

So you videotape it. Science can deal with events that are sporadic. Impossible, since eyes and cameras work the same way. (How do you think we invented cameras?)

Why? I don't know. Possibly, Einstein's model is closer to the "real" model, but I don't know how we could know that for sure, or really, what that would even mean. It's concievable, sure; I don't know one way or the other whether or not it's possible. Perhaps the only way you can perfectly model the universe is with a universe. But at this point I think we're outside of science as scientists practice it.

No, but light is. Unless you're saying ghosts emit supernatural magic light? Light that somehow is able to detect whether it's about to be absorbed by a human eye or something that is simply like a human eye?Flights of fancy disclaimered by a willingness to suspend what we know about the universe doesn't strike me as an effective way to determine what is true - rather, it's just a way to make up stuff. And the thing that's almost always true about things that are just made up is that they're false, which is why I think the supernatural is pretty well disproven. If there's no way to know anything about the supernatural except to make up things about it, clearly the supernatural is not something that can be said to exist.

Science isn't defining the supernatural at all, because nothing supernatural has been put forward for science to have to deal with. The only people who have defined supernatural as anything, as far as I'm aware, is Wizards of the Coast:

quote:

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Supernatural abilities are magical and go away in an antimagic field but are not subject to spell resistance. Supernatural abilities cannot be dispelled. Using a supernatural ability is a standard action unless noted otherwise. Supernatural abilities may have a use limit or be useable at will, just like spell-like abilities. However, supernatural abilities do not provoke attacks of opportunity and never require Concentration checks. Unless otherwise noted, a supernatural ability has an effective caster level equal to the creature's Hit Dice.
The saving throw (if any) against a supernatural ability is 10 + 1/2 the creature's HD + the creature's ability modifier (usually Charisma).

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(Courtesy the brilliant guys over at Rockstars' Ramblings and the Monster Manual 3.5 edition.)Even the proponents of the supernatural can't really define what it is.

Without a specific experience to explain, any explanations of mine would also be making things up. I've never seen a ghost, and considering I've worked (and lived) in theatres all my life, that's quite noteworthy. (All theatres are haunted.)But I can say this - anybody who says something like "ghosts can do this" or "ghosts have these powers" is just making things up. Pure invention, pure fantasy. (If we're going to just choose our fantasies about ghosts, then I choose to believe everything the Monster Manual says about them, like their malevolence ability, their residence on the Ethereal Plane, and their +4 turn resistance.) That's not the only reason. The other reason is that all knowledge of ghosts comes from make-believe, and there is no reason to believe that make-believe is true. (You wouldn't think you would need to tell an adult that.)

No, of course not. What do you have to be to cast ethereal jaunt? Something like 6th level? You just pop yourself into the Ethereal Plane with any number of spells that do that, and you can make all the scientific observations you care to.The issue here is that all the fantasy stuff described by the Dungeons and Dragons rules are only fantastic to us. To the deizens of that world, displacer beasts and blink dogs aren't animals with magic powers; they're animals with the powers that they have and that's completely natural. A beholder's eye rays are no more "supernatural" to the beholder than an electric eel is a supernatural creature to us. It's a normal part of our world; magic and the supernatural is an entirely natural part of that world, and perfectly ameinable to "scientific" study. That's how people become wizards, after all. (That's why wizards cast spells from their Intelligence attribute.) Sure. But you'd also hear reports that you don't hear in reality - reports like "I cast dimensonal anchor to force the ghost to manifest, and then I stabbed it with my +1 ghost touch shortsword."

They don't need to be simulations of anything. A simulation, as defined by Baudrillard, is a copy of something with no original.When I play Dungeons and Dragons, I simulate the interactions between (for instance) a party of adventurers and some orcs or whatever. Neither wizards, nor halflings, nor orcs exist. The game is a simulation, but it's not a simulation of anything real. Video games are the same phenomenon. It's surperior if the understanding is testable. Otherwise, an untestable "understanding" is something to cut away with Occam's Razor. The testable, tested understanding leads to new avenues of research, usually, so it has some value there. But I'm not convinced that there's any difference between "understanding" and "being able to make accurate predictions." If you're making accurate predictions, in what sense do you not "understand" something? How would we know if it was or not? That's the issue. You can suggest it, but I don't see any reason to believe you. How would we know if it's the better predictive theory that most matches reality or not? Even if we had a model that perfectly matched reality, how would we know that it did? Couldn't a wrong model make accurate predictions?