What is beyond the reach of science?

After reading some recent posts I was reminded of something my father told me. He said " Watch out for the true believers, they are always blind to something." I always thought that he was referring to the vehement theists but I am wondering if it doesnt apply in a more general sense.I am not a theist, at least not by any definition that I have seen. A couple of years ago a cousin of mine died. I had a box of old cigarette packs that were covered in notes that he had kept. Things like how much he had to drink, how much he had smoked. I was cleaning up one day and threw the box on the fire. Clear as a bell I hear his voice saying "Hey, dont do that". It freaked me out because it didnt make sense. It didnt and doesnt fit with the way I KNOW that the universe works.Is my 'faith' in the scientific method blinding me to something?
Is there anything beyond the grasp of the scientific method? Will it eventually provide the correct answer for any question?I am not sure where these questions belong and please excuse my pedestrian mind for wandering out onto the highway.Edited by Dogmafood, : Changed title/clarification

Removed.Edited by Dogmafood, : Irrelevant.

Edited by AdminPD, : Rendered Invisible PNT Discussion - Unnecessary for Thread

Edited by AdminPD, : Rendered Invisible PNT Discussion - Unnecessary for Thread

Thread copied here from the What is beyond the reach of science? thread in the Proposed New Topics forum.

No - you are just ignorant of a certain fact about the way the universe works. Or more specifically: how the human mind works. Hearing voices is quite common. It doesn't mean you are necessarily delusional or what have you. Nor does it mean your dead cousin wanted you to preserve some notes.I'm not going to pretend to tell you the exact mechanisms behind your auditory experience but it is quite banal as far as temporary hallucinations are concerned. It being 'clear as a bell' doesn't reduce the chances of it being a hallucination. Who is the better music composer? Mozart, Beethoven, Rossini? Soft Cheese or Hard Cheese? Tastes Great? Should Shatner have played up the Latin and not split an infinitive in "To boldly go...' or should he have stuck to the wording which splits it to allow for a more poetic delivery with the stresses in the most assertive/bold places?Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

Yes, "true believer" is often used in a non-theistic sense. It is used to refer to people who seem absolutely committed to a particular view, and seem completely immune to any evidence to the contrary. For example, it is used to refer to some people who believe that the Twin Towers of the trade center were actually taken down by explosives set up on the inside, presumably by the US government. Such people are usually called "conspiracy theorists" because they see massive conspiracies everywhere. But when their arguing style shows that they will ignore all evidence that disagrees with them, they are called "true believers".You can google "true believer" (with the quotes) for more information. These sorts of incidents do occur. I think most psychologists would say that it is your mind playing tricks on you. That is, the events evoked some old memories.I'm inclined to think that might well be the explanation. However, such events are rare and sporadic, so hard to investigate. You should not be depending on faith here. The scientific method works mainly because it is based on skeptical observation, rather than faith. There are certainly questions that science has not yet settled, and perhaps may never settle. The mandate for science is to investigate what it can, and follow the evidence. There's no requirement that it answer everything.Should I eat steak or chicken tonight? Now there's a simple question which is outside the province of science.

I dont have the intellectual capacity or the time to vet every bit of scientific observation. I accept that the scientific method is sound and that the scientific community does its due diligence. Isnt this faith? I understand that we dont have all of the answers yet but are we not on the road to omniscience? Isnt there? If I could prove that there was a quantity but that it was unknowable isnt this injurious to the scientific method?

I think all of these questions could be answered if the objective parameters could be established.

No, for everything you did check, it turned out to be correct, therefore, it is safe to assume that something that is reported from science is tentatively (This is important) true. Hardly, for the very simple fact that we'll never know if we know everything. That is not to say that we know a great deal already though, and that at some point, we will reach a point of knowledge that we really have no need to learn more, but that doesn;t mean we know everything. Nope. I'm sorry you lost me there. Also, if something is unkowable now doesn't mean it will be unknowable for ever.

No, we are not on that road. I'm inclined to think that the idea of omniscience is merely a myth, anyway. We know that the ratio is a quantity, but we also know that we cannot find the exact decimal expansion by scientific or mathematical means. This does not seem to pose any problem for science or for mathematics.(I'm not sure if latex support is broken. Preview is not working for this post. I'll try submitting as a post and see what happens.)This is what happened on submission: I am disabling the latex, to try again. Latex is working now - the text and background colors are incorrect, but that will have to wait. --AdminEdited by Admin, : Correction.Edited by Admin, : Rerender after latex fix.

There is alot for me to digest here. I should have taken AdminPD's advice more to heart when s/he suggested that I clarify my OP.This question is like a splinter in my mind. I ll leave it for a while and consider again what it is that I am trying to get at.

Yeah - but it's the establishing of objective paramaters that is impossible since questions necessarily rely on subjective judgements.