Since the early days of humankind, people have been asking questions about Nature of two kinds: why did that happen? And how can that be used? In a broad sense, science was born that day. We show indeed that science has two complementary and interdependent souls that aim, respectively to how understand how to control Nature. Through a broad historical analysis, this essay aims to (1) give an account of the development of science developed as an oscillation and an interplay between its two intrinsic natures, (2) demonstrate that this happened already in ancient times starting from the 6th century BC, and (3) the fact that in different periods one of the two natures was largely favored over the other is a consequence of science being a cultural product of the different social-historical contexts. This reconstruction would allow to make hypothesis on how science could be different.

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    7 days later

    Science (the desire for knowledge and understanding), a product of the evolution of the instinct of self-preservation - the interest to survive has developed into an interest to know and understand. This is the development of functionality.

    While not the main topic of the essay, i have to say that:
    the difference between what humanswant and do and what humans do without realising ,has increased quantitatively . (with small effects not at individual level)

    For a simple example, take an ancient person with a backpack to a walk around a city , he might find plenty of highly advanced objects but abandoned and dropped on the road or in various places .enough to fill the backpack fully. He might look at public wastebaskets with wonder ,and with an external eye it will be indistiguishable from a homeless person .

    an other idea i remember playing a computer game named black and white ; the player is a an administrative God that it is by the Choices he make good or evil. and at some point in the game playing the devil there is a worship site where people die from not being fed, and the Angel narrator say how dumb is this people are dying at the worship site, in todays western world people people don't die from hunger any more to a large extent, but the objects that people are fabricating live in an shadow of the obsolete . or of a single purpose and indefinitely archived/ stored . This is definitely not a defining characteristic at least in the biosphere part of nature .The point being not necessarely to worship objects, to be more considerate with them(those already produced for example opposed to fabricating all new)
    And this is resonating with the essay conclusion that is a cultural social issue.

    Science is build as the oscillation betwen to undrestand what happen and controlling Nature as argue the author. It is natural that when we understand a phenomenen than we want to find an application issue for it in the benefits of humanity. But science is not only this oscillation. Science is to control fire and when you are the first to control fire you become the power who decide the future of humanity.
    The author miss an important period of history for science development: science translation from Greeks to the Islamic world and its transfer from islamic world to the romans ( Avicenne, Logharithm, Ibn El Haythem-the sinus la in optics-...etc.).
    Now science is in crisis because because there is no significant discoveries (theoritical or experimental) to make a big shift in human development. When science slow down than wars appear.
    There is a big problem to resolve in physics which is the disparency in values in vacuum energy from relativity theory to quantum theory. The problem remain for mor one hundred year unresolved because the quatum theory of Planck is so built solid.
    Planck spokes about vacuum energy since 1911 is his book "Thoery of heat radiation" and also he found an explanation of his constant as the action integral. Planck conclude that atoms are fill with energy when he consider the mean energy of an oscillator as the sum of its level n and its level (n+1) divided by 2: Planck remain in the classic description of energy (Boltzman description). By 1927 the quantum mechanics of Debroglie-Shrodinger gives another signification of the ground state of an oscillator and Bhor by its priciple of correspondance conclude that for great quantum levels the classic measure and the quantum measure are the same. Bhor argue also that the principle of correspondance is also applicable for low quatum levels and there is always a "classic" measure which correspond to it: This the clue to resolve the problem of vacuum energy and so science can be different. Of course if resolved by this oscillation, Nations will try to control vacuum energy and the first one to do it will the most powerfull Nation. Waiting for this wars will occur and occur...etc.

    Flavio Del Santo Hi RustHarrier,

    just read your abstract and thought that we independently had the same idea for our essay! Then I saw that you are more aiming at the historical account while I focus on the methodology. In any case, highly interesting, thank you very much for these inspirations and if you want to read another turn that your abstract can take, have a look here: https://forums.fqxi.org/d/3955-of-senses-and-sciences

    All the best,
    the BeigeBandicoot.

      quote
      As Plank himself stated in a famous quote, “a new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and
      making them see the light, but rather because its opponents
      eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.” [23]; a rather ironic remark, since after igniting
      the revolution he remained a leader of the “conservative faction” for the rest of his life. In fact, it was a new generation of very young physicists—encompassing W. Heisenberg,
      W. Pauli, P. Dirac, together with the less young M. Born and
      E. Schrodinger—that lay the groundwork for the new quan- ¨
      tum theory in the mid-1920s. Quantum physics, while being
      extremely successful for predictions (more than any other theory ever formulated) shattered many of the mechanistic beliefs
      that had characterized the form of explanation of the previous
      physics (which, by contrast, is now called classical physics).
      It abandons the idea of causal determinism, i.e. that the laws
      of physics determine uniquely the past and the future evolution of physical objects (and ultimately of our universe), providing only fundamentally probabilistic predictions. It introduces discreteness over classical continuity, the impossibility
      of measuring certain pairs of physical variables at the same
      time (Heisenberg uncertainty principle), and forces us to rethink our idea of locality (i.e., that systems cannot influence
      each other at-a-distance). And it even questions the existence
      of an objective reality independent of an observer. Note that
      these positions, that are still the object of debate to date, are
      really radical and open science to a kind of explanation that
      would have not been considered scientific in the previous centuries.
      end of quote
      A. It is a misnomer to state that changes in scientific thought await the death of an old guard. In between the Michelson Morley experiment and Special and general relativity, there was the death of the Ether proposal , and then a long decades long interrugum where until Einstein did get its results about NO basic understanding how or what would replace the Ether hypothesis

      Now here is the supreme irony, some of the Ether hypothesis is now bunded by a few as DARK ENERGY, albeit in a completely different stand point than what was demolished by the Michaelson and Morley experiment

      B. The death of locality and simple minded action at a distance. UM not exactly, see quantum ENTANGLEMENT and the EPR paper

      C. Quantum physics shattering the mechanics view of the Universe
      tHOOFT has proposed a variant called DETERMINISTIC quantum mechanics, which in fact is a way to embed 3+1 dimensional quantum mechanics say within a 5 dimensional deterministic structure

      there are yet other ironies

      Point is that the delineations of the scientific revolutions we have seen are now shading into each other. and that its not simple to make clean delineations as we have been wont to do

      This means that our ideas of culture have to change, and to realize that there is in certain fashion a recycling of older physics memes in new guises

      7 days later
      8 days later

      In the conclusion of "Global Externalities & a New Science, it makes a similar statement you make paraphrased: "Could the society of human be different?" in response to "how science could be different. It says the contest question, in effect, is asking if human evolution and development can be different. That "shift in the mindset, in the way we teach and communicate science, which, regrettably, far too often regards with indifference or even with reluctance philosophical thinking (and historical approaches) that could lead to novel understanding" reminds my my proposal of scientists studying and helping to correct "human mal-development features of humankind to contribute to cultural change and a different, more pure science."

      8 days later

      An interesting and thought-provoking essay.
      I have to admit I am still a bit fuzzy on your distinction between "understanding" and "control". Sometimes it seems you mean that "control" implies "practical-technological applications", while other times it seems you mean any empirical research ("providing quantitative predictions, isolating systems and phenomena, and therefore being able to replicate the effects of interest on demand"). If the latter is "control", then the distinction seems blurry, given that such research is conducted with the immediate (and often exclusive) aim of "understanding".

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