[Lonergan_l] invariant law

[Joe F]

Dear Phil,

Will you tell more about Lonergan's sense of 'shock'. Those vignettes
are so interesting and most welcome.

Lonergan makes a nice statement of the modern way we think of natural
laws “Not only are scientific discoveries independent of the place and
time of their origin but also they can claim to be equally and
uniformly valid irrespective of merely spatio-temporal differences"

Darwin, in Origin of Species says something like this about Edward Forbes FRS:

"As the late Edward Forbes often insisted, there is a striking
parallelism in the laws of life throughout time and space; the laws
governing the succession of forms in past times being nearly the same
with those governing at the present time the differences in different
areas. We see this in many facts." The Origin of Species chap. xiii
Summary.

Lonergan's view must have its historical origin. And my question: does
anyone know when the present view of invariant law, so well stated by
Lonergan, came into use?.

Joe

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[jaray...@aol.com]

Joe,

You asked a good question which I briefly tried to research. At least I
can give you this googled blurb while awaiting a correct answer from
someone else to your question. I wonder whether the reference below to an "ideal
science education program" correctly or sufficiently suggests 1) how we
can move from experiments to hypotheses and/or laws--thus reflecting your own
interest in a Darwin breakthrough; 2) the role of insights therein.

"Boyle's law is not universal and invariant, as implied by the term 'law'.
It does not hold at high pressures, low temperatures, or low volumes. It is
based on constant temperature and a balanced electric field. It varies for
different gases. Boyle's "law" depends on context. So, too, for many other
laws basic to introductory science education, such as Ohm's law, Galileo's
law of the pendulum, or Mendel's law of independent assortment. The
behavior of gases and other phenomena described by these "laws" are not lawlike
at all. When science educators teach simple laws as fundamental to natural
order, they thus mislead students. An approach to science as seeking laws
interprets nature narrowly, based on a view of society as ordered by
universal rules, or laws. It inappropriately inscribes human conceptions of
machines and power into nature. But what would nature or science look like without
laws? Nature seems complex, with only patches of regularity. Causality may
be framed instead in terms of state-systems. Alternatively, scientists
may, and often do, focus on experiments as concrete models. Boyle's J-tube
offers a basis for analogy, foregoing any reduction to a law. Thinking in
terms of models also highlights the role of scope and context in scientific
reasoning. Science educators may thus begin replacing the flawed concept of
laws with understanding of models and model-based reasoning. An ideal science
education program will thus be rooted in working with apparatus and
teaching concrete experiment-based reasoning."

John

[Joe F]

John,

ThAnk yOu for your reply to my (?)question(?). I am really asking when
the formulation of what an invariant law is came into common parlance.
I know that Galileo derived invariant laws and even 'fire is dry' of
Aristotle could be considered invariant but when did the modern
'self-reflective' affirmation of what is going on in our thinking when
we attend to invariant laws come in to being. My effort is to show
that in that congeniality between Forbes and Darwin expressed in the
Origin of Species, there is the 'outstanding instance' of the
expression of the inception of the formulation itself. Lonergan
associated a Darwinian type of explanation with 'the effecting of a
salutary liberation' of the sciences. I am trying to get in touch with
the Darwinian type of explanation-my inner Darwin. HaPpY hOliDays

jOe

_______________________________________________

[mou...@uw.edu]

Joe, that is an interesting question. With Maxwell at least there is a demonstrated understanding that the Law of Equal Temperatures is not a logical truism or a theory of identity. It is, ``the foundation of the whole science of thermometry.'' Maxwell 1871

On the other hand, Newton proposed Absolute Space as pre-given even-though
he imagined it for his own purposes rather than empirically becoming
aware of that nature. You could also say that the Hebrews accepted the Law without proof or derivation, and Voegelin's thesis is that they explicitly understood the importance and made a refelective record of that understanding about a significant development for mankind (i.e., history). It seems that St. Paul proposes a few invariants as well (and knows that he's doing-so), and the reformed theology caused some of the brightest minds to study how time might be embedded in space long-before Mach rejected Newton's notion or Einstein empirically tested it, and despite the logical contradictions or lack of explicit mathematical maturity.

In physics, Galileo knew and accepted Merton's Rule, and he performed experiments to quantitatively prove it. Snell's Law was a foundation for Descartes and Fermat who both used it to argue their view about the nature of light. The argument didn't amount to much because no experiments could be done and no one could conceive of path integrals.

Your reference to the self-reflective affirmation might be a worthwhile classification similar to how the ancients conceived of the earth's shape, or how many stars they believed were in the sky. They knew it was round like they knew the number within a couple thousand, and the curious feature compared to our modern sense is how little it seemed to matter to them if we judge by how they reflected in writing on the meaning of these facts or that knowledge (i.e. science). Doug

[Joe F]

Dear Doug and John,

Thanks and your post bears much further thought. But what is Merton's
rule. It can't be real because it seems I can't google it. Also even
toward the end of your post where you bring up the ancient's 'self
reflective' take on the roundness of the earth. Still the roundness is
the phenomenon. I am asking when human beings began saying: Hey,
science is a quest for invariant laws, laws which remain more or less
consistent throughout time and space- or devoid of spatio-temporal
considerations. Thus it is not the invariance of H20 but the
invariance of the knowledge that a natural law is invariant. But all
that about St.Paul etc. is interesting. St.Paul was knowledgeable
about 'rightly dividing' and so when we have Wm James asserting that
Darwin divided explanation into explanations of causation of
production and of causation of preservation of spontaneous variations,
we see that Darwin also was a 'right divider' or a 'right explainer'.
So I do find the references to St. Paul and others of interest.

Aristotle also knew science to be a quest for invariant natures or
principles but did he engage in a philosophy of science to the extent
that he reasoned to the nature of natural law. I think this all began
around the mid nineteenth century. Again, I hold and believe that
Lonergan notices something in Darwin's ability to explain that is
relevant to the personal subject, something ubiquitous in explanation
that we should grasp. Therefore it is not far removed from
self-affirming as a knower- just another approach- and a goal

Joe

[Joe F]

My references to Darwin must seem completely out of left field to
anyone not inclined to pursue Lonergan's 'illustration of scientific
intelligence' involving Darwin. It is a brief mention in a huge work.
But I could explain how it works out for me. I am not specifically a
devotee of Darwin. He made mistakes I feel. But something about
explanation was taking place in his collegium: Hooker, Lyell, E.
Forbes, etc. Something I feel we should attend to with some urgency.
But that's a personal note, I guess. I am not trying to sell my idea.
I am really testing the water for any interest about something so
astounding. Lonergan asserts that a type of explanation introduced by
Charles Darwin is associated with the effecting of a liberation of the
sciences. This is an astonishing claim.

[mou...@uw.edu]

Sorry Joe, try the "Merton Theorem," developed by mathematicians at Merton College in the 1300's.

And, sorry again, I meant that the ancients weren't reflective about the shape of the earth or the number of stars, but they were self-reflective about other, important knowledge.

In any case, you know me, I can't agree that science is a quest for invariant laws. I can agree that Lonergan identifies an important foundation with his example of inverse insight. Limits open new fields of study, and now I am wondering when that definition for what an engineer does (design under constraint) became common, and is that important?

[Joe F]

One has to go back and forth a few times in order to determine what
the other fellow is saying so no prob. No question that
self-reflectivity is nothing new. But I just wondered when that very
modern sounding formulation of invariant law became popular. Why is it
important? I think it is important to figure out if part of Lonergan's
surmise about a successful Darwinian type of explanation included the
formulation of invariant law. Lonergan mentions Sorokin and Sorokin
predicted our sensate culture would re-enter a dark age, and Santayana
advised we understand history. To look into Lonergan's surmise about
Darwin and get it right may be vital to the discussion of progress and
decline. Regards, Joe.

[Joe F]

"As the late Edward Forbes often insisted, there is a striking
parallelism in the laws of life throughout time and space: the laws
governing the succession of forms in past times being nearly the same
with those governing at the present time the differences in different

areas. We see this in many facts.” Origin of Species (1859) Chapter
XII. Summary

On 12/17/09, Joe F <172...@gmail.com> wrote: