Celestial Mechanic wrote:I cannot name any meaningful ideas or projects pushed aside. That was only mentioned as a possibility. As for the conclusions you draw from the Hubble Telescope, it can view all kinds of things, but not the universe itself. Certainly it can be used to determine the properties and histories of the things it can view. However, the connection between things observed and a thing not observed can only be arrived at mentally by the process of logical reasoning. Logic is one of the branches of philosophy. The situation is not one of science or logic; it is science and logic; it is science and philosophy.

Celestial Mechanic also wrote:The word ‘cosmos’ and the word ‘universe’, though now often used as synonyms for each other, did not originally have the same meaning. ‘Cosmos’ originally meant ‘the arrangement or order of things.’ ‘Universe’ originally meant ‘one turn’, what that shell of stars seemed to do: turn as one thing.

Celestial Mechanic also wrote:Don’t castigate all of philosophy because of some of Aristotle’s mistakes. While it is true that Aristotle made a mess of physics and cosmology, his three fundamental laws of logic (the law of identity, the law of non-contradiction, and the law of the excluded middle) have held up as the foundations of logic. Logic is the art of non-contradictory identification. Without non-contradictory identification there could be no scientific method, no objective science. Without philosophers like George Boole, Augustus DeMorgan, and John Venn, who contributed to our knowledge of logic, there could be no switching circuits, logic circuits, computers, computer programs, internet, or Hubble Telescope.

The mind operates on knowledge. Similar to a computer, it is a GIGO machine: garbage in – garbage out. So how do we know if the knowledge we give the mind does not include bad stuff? Knowledge of logic lets us weed out the bad stuff.

Epistemology, one of the branches of philosophy, deals with the nature of knowledge and how we know what we know. Surely epistemology should be of special interest to scientists who use old knowledge and create new knowledge. Our predecessors have handed down much of our knowledge. Some of that knowledge has been around for a very long time. Frequently new evidence forces us to rethink and abandon some old knowledge. Galileo Galilei’s new evidence about falling objects resulted in the trashing of Aristotle’s physics. Tycho Brahe’s careful astronomical measurements, and especially those of comets, cast serious doubt on the shell of stars idea. The subsequent invention of the telescope led to the measurements of star distances, confirming that the shell of stars idea was false. Yes, the universe idea is a given, given to us by our predecessors. But, were they less prone to error than we are?

Celestial Mechanic also wrote:The universe itself cannot be observed directly or indirectly. Therefore, there cannot be an experiment to justify the universe idea. The only other way to justify the universe idea is to think about it.

Thinking consists of identification and assimilation. When an idea is defined it is identified. However, an idea can only be defined in terms of other ideas. Therefore, to be assimilated an idea must not contradict any previously held idea, else its definition would be self-contradictory and violate Aristotle’s second law of logic. Usually such contradictions only become evident after successive substitutions of meanings for terms in the definition. When there is such a contradiction one must seek to determine which of the two contradicting ideas is false.

To justify the universe idea one must show either that there is no self-contradiction hidden in its definition or, if there is a hidden self-contradiction, that it can be eliminated. To eliminate such a self-contradiction, one of the contradicting ideas must be replaced by another that does not lead to a self-contradiction and does not destroy the original intent of the definition. I have not been able to logically justify the universe idea; perhaps someone else can.