Where did you get the idea of "scientific"? Where did you get the idea of "begin"? Where did you get the idea of "definition"? Where did you get the idea of "physical"? Etc. You didn't create any of those ideas. Are you seeing how many ideas you are borrowing from society in a single sentence? I see society dancing through your mind!
And if I keep going through your entire answer, "most" of the ideas are borrowed. Your "value-addition" is re-arrangement. In this case, the way you've arranged the ideas is full of holes (and eventually not enough to 'pass the test of reality') :)
But outside of security concerns, if you have developed in a culture that contains the concepts of abstraction, general encoding and a basic set of abstract thinking primitives, have enough of abstract thinking skill and an inclination to think autonomously, you can rebuild any concept that you should care about practically. I posit that only the more "basic", primitive ideas are vital for effective thinking. If you lack them, you are screwed, but if you just lack higher-level ones, you can work around that easily if you care. And I think that the abstract thinking skills needed to build ideas are in large part not acquired directly from culture; they consist of some elementary abstract thinking ideas together with higher-level methods and other private mental tools which are rarely shown to you and which you typically develop on your own.
I can see that one can be (un)privileged to develop in rich/poor enough culture. But one can audit their understanding of a culture - at least always in a most basic way, and again by a degree dependent on the amount of "hints" from cultural environment and personal capability.
"The idea of audit" consists of 3 concepts available virtually to all, so if it isn't available, which it almost always is, it can be rebuilt if you care enough.
Culture feeds you, but it can control you only by omission of essential general ideas of various levels. There aren't many of them, and they are self-evident, useful strictly for the user and can be used to rebuild any ideas missing from your environment that are needed to conduct a lot of stuff.
> Are you seeing how many ideas you are borrowing from society in a single sentence?
At least, when I borrow stuff, I analyse it, sometimes modify and then subscribe under the result. If I am sure that it is good for me, it can become mine.
I have emotionally audited all of my thoughts.
> Your "value-addition" is re-arrangement.
On which level, though? You probably know how big is the myriad of electronic circuits that can be made from simple elements such as wires, resistors, capacitors, inductors, transistors and diodes and seldom other. And more complex circuits are made from simpler ones with ease (I don't mean effort, I mean viability of a decent result) using composition and interfacing, given decent skill. About "rearrangement", same applies, skill here being abstract thinking - although thinking is far more complicated than circuit design, I believe thought is compositional. Of course, there is no way around the dictionary of basic primitives, but it is available almost everywhere where there is relevance.
Creation of data is "rearrangement" of a tiny set of digits.
> the way you've arranged the ideas is full of holes (and eventually not enough to 'pass the test of reality')
Either substantiate or don't write this. This is not helpful without an explanation.
I would be interested to hear you address my point about construction of ideas.
The kind of reasoning you are engaging in now was done by Descartes long ago, during Newton's time. It involves building up knowledge from the bottom up, starting with first principles. Descartes had some genuinely interesting ideas about how perfect concepts could be constructed. You can read his book on methods; they are remarkable, but they do not tell the whole story. Descartes himself made many scientific errors, despite his "perfect" and "rational" system for arriving at "true and sound conclusions." Popper's falsifiability is not the end-all-be-all of scientific thought either. Both Descartes and Popper do not represent the final word on what science is or should be.
Unlike Descartes, we observe real scientists supplementing rational ideas with empiricism—how actual people learn and think in their daily lives. How they go about life matters. Especially with Large Language Models, we see how essential a large knowledge corpus is for generating new variations. Marvin Minsky referred to it as "common sense," etc. It's important to remember that the concepts of "Expert systems" and "heuristics" did not work on their own back in the day (though they are not without utility in enhancing new methods).
Progress typically requires a societal-level effort in any field. It involves communication, challenges, numerous guesses, trial and error, and so forth. Therefore, the development of new ideas and the exploration of new frontiers are deeply interdependent at the civilization level.
In summary, I believe that "individualism" is incompatible with reality; the true nature of reality is "interdependence." Dependency is a fact of life. However, due to certain surface-level cultural ideas and the significance people attach to their self-importance, the unrealistic concept of "individualism" often prevails at the linguistic level over the more realistic idea of "interdependence."
I don't see it, sufficiency doesn't entail necessity.
> It's important to remember that the concepts of "Expert systems" and "heuristics" did not work on their own back in the day
Expert systems are about automation of decision. I talk not about automation, but just a minimal, basic dependency on culture as opposed to complete dependency and no hope of novel thinking outside of it.
> Progress typically requires a societal-level effort in any field.
I want to know how this requirement would be quantified. Which society do you need for a given amount of progress?
> "individualism" is incompatible with reality
Why can't one, in principle, recreate some design on their own that they lack, of less complexity than rocket science or AGI?
