A new definition of science: the textual basis that represents the real world
Wikipedia defines science as follows. Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. The definitions of various sources have to do with knowledge, research, study, observation, experimentation, laws, structure, behavior, explanation and systematicity.
They describe science and scientific activities, rather than pointing out what the company is. What does science look like? Nor do they point out what science enables, why, and how humans gain the ability to advance science. They describe the appearances and many facets of science, but they do not reveal the nature of science. let’s find out
After writing some articles on the relationships between written language and science, it is time for us to provide a new text-based definition of science, which is important as a basis for future discussions on related topics. We have already proposed in previous works that written language is the foundation of science.
The idea of excluding non-texts
We consider the written language as the core of science, while the non-texts are the objectives, the materials and the occurrences.
Indeed, scientific activities include both texts and non-texts. Both are indispensable, with the non-texts they seem to be the real things. Without non-texts, the world would not exist, not to mention science. However, judging by the properties, we now decide to exclude non-texts from science. Otherwise, science would include practically all the information that we can experience. That could lead to uncertainty, vagueness, misunderstandings, chaos and confusion.
Also, we learn science mainly from books and articles. The achievements of scientists are judged by their publications. Some great discoveries are incidental. But they must fit into the existing textual framework to become part of the science.
When science is defined based on texts, its nature and properties will be well presented. Science-related investigations will have a clear foundation. In fact, this definition does not contradict common definitions, since the texts constitute the systematic company that supports the functions that science fulfills.
non-scientific texts
Texts are omnipresent in our lives, recording everything. But only a part of them are considered scientific texts. Scientific or non-scientific texts do not differ in that they are symbolic and sequential. Although they have the capacity to be science, they do not necessarily fulfill the function.
Descriptive texts
Texts of literature, narrative, fictions, art, instruction, music, advertising, daily conversation, chat message, etc. they are descriptive and transmitters. The good of them is to describe the non-textual reality, which is the target, in the center and being emphasized. These types of texts are important to document, communicate the events, whose understanding is not related to the texts. Texts are peripheral to non-texts and do not attempt to build their own base. On the contrary, scientific texts are necessary to understand the phenomena due to the properties of the texts and the difficulties in observing the phenomena.
mentalist texts
These types of texts are foundational but do not represent facts. Collectively, we call them mentalist texts. They include texts on religion, ethical belief, moral concept, philosophy, and pseudoscience. They tend to focus on texts, but are not based on facts, are based on vague facts, or only reflect biased facts. Representing reality is not his goal. They are also not meant to be verified. Subjectivity is a common element in this type of text. It is a kind of description or insistence on one’s own thought, opinion and argument, refraining from changes, refusing challenges or denying their lack of explanation of the facts.
Although these texts do not claim to represent reality, most of them are derived from facts or imaginations. They serve as emotional need, spontaneous mental behavior, and alternatives to science in some cases. Although they are not scientists, they can still establish.
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There is no absolute distinction between descriptive, mentalistic and scientific texts. Some portions in descriptive texts or mentalistic texts may be scientific. The same facts can be studied in different types of texts. For example, history texts can be descriptive if they focus on events; or scientific if they derive some regular patterns; or mentalists if they adhere to creationism.
In fact, scientific texts could have evolved from descriptive texts and mentalistic texts. That is why modern science was previously called “natural philosophy”, which arose from the integration of the description of nature and the representational aspect of philosophy.
The definition of text-based science
Then comes the third type of texts: science, defined as:
Science is the textual basis that represents the real world.
Criteria of this definition
For key properties of written language and science, see the document “Language – The Core of Science”[1]. The basics are sequentiality and clarity. Now we add a third property: representation of reality. Being representational involves being processed, foundational, established, and centered.
All three properties are used to judge whether or how scientific a text is. In the article “Scientific Strength of Writing Systems: The Issues,” we explain the issues of sequence and clarity. The “reality representation” aspect is discussed in the next subsection.
Establishing the representation of reality through visual processing
The key difference between representation and description is that the focus is the texts for the former while the non-texts are the focus for the latter. The accumulation of science is based on existing representational texts, while descriptive texts fit the facts as they are. Since they focus on non-texts, the properties of texts given in The Paper are not fully exploited in descriptive texts, although they may choose appropriate or beautiful language in their composition.
The visual characteristic of texts makes them suitable for visual processing, which is necessary to build a representation of reality. Through the mental processing of representative texts, we can extract consistency, commonalities and regularity, clarify, refine and simplify information, find contradictions, discover new theories through reasoning, approve or disapprove a new theory, incorporate new theories. on existing knowledge, to establish relationships between existing knowledge, to organize and categorize knowledge as it expands. All this is achieved through intensive textual thinking.
The sequential growth of symbolic representation is constantly checked against facts, observations, and experiments for validation. The explanation of events in textual media is precise and deterministic, unlikely to change and relied upon, while represented non-texts are not sequentially related, not clearly observed, or even invisible. Due to the infinite expansion of observations and experiments, the textual representations also expand accordingly in an orderly fashion.
conclusion
Given the new definition of science, our discussions of science-related matters will follow a clear, focused, and specific course. It is clear that the science-centric world is essentially based on scientific texts and the textual mind. Technology, engineering, and many life-changing practices are integrated and related to textual representations.
In the science-text unit, we had put more emphasis on written language. Now, as we move towards science, there is a new horizon ahead.
References
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_academic_fields
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science
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[1] Hereinafter referred to as “The Paper”.