Sylvie: What's the difference -- if any -- between science and
technolgy? Who or what controls it or them?
Voice of Reason: hey guys
Voice of Reason: i am very reasonable
Sandman: science is the means in which technology is created.
technology is science alive.
Voice of Reason: be careful
Voice of Reason: science is very much alive too
Sandman: true, but how ?
Voice of Reason: technology could be called the enhancement of
science or the progress of science
Sylvie: science is the observation and understanding of actual
relationships in the physical world while technology is it's application
and development
Sandman: could technology exist without science? will it in the
future?
Voice of Reason: does technology always have to do with science
Voice of Reason: ?
Sylvie: no
Voice of Reason: i think technology could exist without science
Voice of Reason: in the future for sure
Sandman: maybe..but somehow they seem dependent.
Sylvie: technology utilizes basic scientific principles
Sandman: perhpas after we know all we can know (?) technology
will be it's own self-supporting branch
Voice of Reason: maybe because we have such a broad category
of what people consider "science"
June: Well, I have a question: do you guys think
there is any such thing as Pure Sceince?
Sylvie: how would a tv work if we didn't know about electricity,
light waves etc
Voice of Reason: we can never know everything because how could
you put a limit on knowledge and know when you got there?
Voice of Reason: where you been, june?
June: Just got here...
Sylvie: is there a limit on technology?
Voice of Reason: coming in late in the game
June: What do you mean a limit, Sylvie?
Annie: I don't think there can be a pure science... You
can't know anything for sure...
Sandman: technology is based off of our scientific principles,
no doubt. but after this basic assumption, how much does technology become
its own thing is my question.
Annie: Well, if there was a pure science it would beyond our
grasp as humans...
Voice of Reason: there is not a limit on technology because we
are discovering new things every day
June: What I mean by "Pure" is this idea that science is the
pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, not for profit
Sylvie: if we will never know some aspects of science, then the
application oif technology may then also have a certain limit
Voice of Reason: science was invented by humans so i dont know
if we could call it "pure"
Sylvie: but it observes natural relationships
Annie: I think there are some scientists who do it for the love
of science and not for the $$.
Sylvie: the word "human" was made by humans but we are real
Sandman: yes, but what are they discovering and for whom?
Voice of Reason: it is relationships observed by us humans
Annie: I mean look at Galileo - he was persecuted and all by
the church, but he still went ahead and tried to figure out who things
work.
Annie: I mean how things work
Voice of Reason: human was made in an attempt to describe our
whole species
Sandman: good point
Annie: Maybe they're discovering it for themselves - people are
naturally curious
June: V of R: right. Scientific principles are just
facts of nature. Science I guess is what happens when we study them.
Sylvie: science was made in an attempt to describe the whole
physical world
Voice of Reason: yes
Voice of Reason: exactly
Voice of Reason: but how do we know the limits of the physical
world?
Voice of Reason: science has no bounds because it is what we
make of it
Sandman: so why do we still need science now that we "know" these
principles? how has this changed?
Sylvie: just the limitations of our interpretation of it
Annie: Ok, I have a bioethics question. If a human being
can be manufactured like in brave new world, would that person have a soul?
June: There's so much we don't know about nature it's literally
mind-boggling.
Voice of Reason: of course
Sandman: wwhy woulen't they
Sandman: they're not robots
June: I think in fact that we know so little that our technology
is dangerous -- its exceeds our knowledge!
Sylvie: children are created, do they have soul's?
Voice of Reason: if that person could think and have some kind
of self conception then a soul would be there too
Voice of Reason: children are not engineered--unfair comparison
Annie: Yeah, I think they would too - lots of people think they
wouldn't though... I think the Church has a problem with saying that
science can manufacture people with souls...
Sylvie: computers thinks and know they are there. They
are pushing more and more towards thinking type abilities, they mioght
have souls
Sandman: well, the church has a problem with a lot of things.
Sandman: but that's beyond the point
Voice of Reason: well the church has a problem with all science
Sandman: yup
June: Basic question: what do you mean by soul? Does
it just come along with the machinery?
Voice of Reason: can computers describe themselves and their
relationships
Voice of Reason: ?
Sylvie: it does every time it is started up
Sandman: i hope not. that's almost a breach of human privacy.
Voice of Reason: i think that the soul is some kind of self-conception
that one can express
Sylvie: well, we usually dismiss computers because we can turn
them off. Who knows that we aren't sporadically turned off?
Have you heard of deja-vu?
Voice of Reason: but the computer does not think on its own.
it only thinks because it has been hard-wired that way
Voice of Reason: i had deja-vu once. but that is a whole
other story
Sylvie: we are also hard wired with neurons etc. We are
meat machines
Annie: Well, our brain works with electric signals too.
Ok, our brains are more complicated I admit it. But what happens
when circuits get as complex/efficient as us?
Sandman: but we act on our own accord
Voice of Reason: right-o, sandman!
Sylvie: we have evolved, can 't computers
Voice of Reason: i dont think so
Annie: No - computers aren't meant to compete with each other
and they can't reproduce
Voice of Reason: they only evolve because we change them
Annie: They can evolve only if we build better and faster ones.
Annie: And that's not really evolution.
Voice of Reason: we are the gods of computers
Voice of Reason: they should pray to us nightly
Voice of Reason: sacrifice also
Sylvie: the best and fastest computers aren't thrown away
Sylvie: darwinism
Sandman: the whole natural selection process all over again...darwin
would be proud of computers
June: Okay. Changing the subject a bit: what about
the question of who controls science? who controls technology and
why? In BNW government does, right? What about here, now?
Voice of Reason: but the computers dont compete to survive like
in darwinism
Sylvie: who knows?
June: who knoes what?
Voice of Reason: we control technology
Sandman: true, vor. but we sort of compete ourselves through
the computers.
June: who the hell are WE?
Voice of Reason: technology only occurs through human invention
Annie: The desire to learn more about the world is an all of
us - I think science is in control of those who are the most curious.
Voice of Reason: humans
Sylvie: if they are competing or not, we have a human cognitive
bias that dismisses any idea that we may not know everything about what
we create
Sandman: we -the scientist and the little men and women living
in the underground labs.
Voice of Reason: computers are pawns in our chess game
June: Okay. But doesn't buisness control technology?
It's sonsumerism.
June: consumerism. sorry
Voice of Reason: but who controls business? the humans
Annie: Well technology is different than science. Science
is the discovery of new things/observing about the world. Technology
is machines, etc. made possible by science.
June: But what's the motive? Knowledge? Money?
What?
Sylvie: need
Sandman: the whole shabang is our motive
Voice of Reason: i would say that technology is discover and
science is quantifying natural phenomena
Annie: I think for some it's $$, but those people usually aren't
too innovative. Curiosity I think drives it.
June: Hmmm. Need That's interesting. That means that
consumers direct technological development?
Voice of Reason: some people will work pretty damn hard for money
Sandman: technological development in turn makes us think we
NEED it.
Annie: Yeah, that's true. But I think the great discoveries
in science weren't done for $$
Voice of Reason: the airplane wasnt invented for money, i dont
think
Annie: galileo, einstein, newton - not for money
Sandman: bye, guys.
Annie: bye
Voice of Reason: well, time to go. it has been real
Sandman: chow
Voice of Reason: see you all later
Voice of Reason: ciao
Sandman: thanks
Sylvie: there are two theories: technological determinism, technology
directs how we interact as humans and use machines etc 2. Societal
determinism stresses that we need things and they are developed
Sylvie: I am Jamari