Tell me the rule that distinguishes the rules of thumb from physical laws
Patrick Reany
Proof of what? That ohm's law is not on par with newton's second law
in
terms of fundamental principle or proof that you don't understand the
difference?
Patrick says: Whether or not Ohm's law is or is not on "par" with
Newton's Second Law depends on how you define a "physical law." It is
by the definition I gave. The relation "on a par with" is a
definition-dependent relationship.
.....
Patrick said:
>Just define "physical law" to find their similarities.
Bilge said:
For the n_th time, the entire point being made is that defining
it serves no useful purpose. Are you really so dense that you
can't comprehend the responses you've received? I've already
given you a definition that covers everything which has ever been
labeled a physical law. More than once. Try google.
.....
And the point is that no one really cares whether or not you
can't stand not having rigid (even when pointless) definitions
to satisfy some obsessive-compuslive affectation. The rest of
us have no problem using the word ``law'' to be a placeholder
that satisfies some grammatical function and getting the meaning
Patrick says: So now you're speaking for everyone else on the
newsgroup? Or for all physicists as well?
Patrick said:
>Ohm's Law is the association of V=IR with certain
>physical conditions that have to be met.
Bilge said:
In other words, ohm's law is dependent upon a lot of physical
conditions and therefore is a useful rule of thumb, not a law
with any physical content. That has been pointed out to you and
contrasted with newton's second law which _is_ the physical
content of what it describes.
Patrick says: Newton's Second Law is also dependent upon a lot of
physical
conditions (F=ma is not true in a noninertial frame of reference, nor
is it true in the realm of the atom, or if speeds are too high). Does
Ohm's Law get used in practice for any good in physics or electrical
engineering?
Bilge said:
Patrick, you;ve become so entangled in formalism that you've lost
sight of the fact that formalism is supposed to elucidate logical
structure rather than the other way around. Just because you want
a definition of ``law'' that fits everything which has ever been
called a law, doesn't mean that such a definition serves any useful
purpose nor has any physical content.
Patrick says:
Bilge, tell us the OFFICIAL rule that enlightened physicists now use
to distinguish between mere "the rules of thumb" and "physical laws."
That is, whatever rule it is that you seem to use that distinguishes
between the "non-fundamental" and the "fundamental" (your term from
above).
Patrick
Bilge
Fix the indent levels to properly match the author to whom the
text should be attributed. If you're too lazy to properly format
your own post, I'm certainly not interested in reformatting it
for you just to respond.
Dirk Van de moortel
"Bilge" <dub...@radioactivex.lebesque-al.net> wrote in message news:slrncbk9jn....@radioactivex.lebesque-al.net...
I agree. Despite the fact that there is clear indication about
Who said What, this format is very annoying and practically
unusable, simply because the chronological information is
entirely missing: Who said What When and in Which Context?
Dirk Vdm
Patrick Reany
I'll fix it this way:
Bilge, tell us the OFFICIAL rule that enlightened physicists now use
to distinguish between mere "rules of thumb" and "physical laws." That
is, whatever rule it is that you seem to use that distinguishes
between the "non-fundamental" and the "fundamental."
Patrick
Bilge
We use the nature rule. Whatever appears to be a fundamental rule
in nature, we call ``fundamental''. Whatever appears to be a consequence
of the fundamental rules, we call ``non-fundamental''. Since nature
didn't tell us where the stone tablets containing these rules are kept,
fundamental rules get shuffled to the non-fundamental pile on occassion.
Are you really as stupid as your question indicates or are just
so anal retentive that can't deal with uncertainty and need a
prescription for everything, even if it's wrong?
Patrick Reany
I'm only being as "stupid" as science requires, because science is
supposed to be a rational enquiry, not a mystical one.
Bilge, do all physicists agree with your notion of this ineffible
"natural fundamentalism" of human laws of physics, which is knowable
only by intuition?
Patrick
Bilge
>> Patrick Reany:
>> >dub...@radioactivex.lebesque-al.net (Bilge) wrote in message
>> >news:<slrncbk9jn....@radioactivex.lebesque-al.net>...
>> >> Patrick Reany, who can't properly maintain indent levels,
>> >>
>> >> Fix the indent levels to properly match the author to whom the
>> >> text should be attributed. If you're too lazy to properly format
>> >> your own post, I'm certainly not interested in reformatting it
>> >> for you just to respond.
>> >
>> >I'll fix it this way:
>> >
>> >Bilge, tell us the OFFICIAL rule that enlightened physicists now use
>> >to distinguish between mere "rules of thumb" and "physical laws." That
>> >is, whatever rule it is that you seem to use that distinguishes
>> >between the "non-fundamental" and the "fundamental."
>>
>>
>> We use the nature rule. Whatever appears to be a fundamental rule
>> in nature, we call ``fundamental''. Whatever appears to be a consequence
>> of the fundamental rules, we call ``non-fundamental''. Since nature
>> didn't tell us where the stone tablets containing these rules are kept,
>> fundamental rules get shuffled to the non-fundamental pile on occassion.
>>
>> Are you really as stupid as your question indicates or are just
>> so anal retentive that can't deal with uncertainty and need a
>> prescription for everything, even if it's wrong?
>
>I'm only being as "stupid" as science requires, because science is
>supposed to be a rational enquiry, not a mystical one.
at all, since no one really knows what the fundamental physical
laws happen to be. Calling anything at all a ``law'' is just
begging for an inconsistency, since in all likelyhood, it's status
as a law will be revoked eventually.
>Bilge, do all physicists agree with your notion of this ineffible
>"natural fundamentalism" of human laws of physics, which is knowable
>only by intuition?
Lacking the stone tablets upon which nature wrote down the real
laws which are fundamental, preciesly what other means does a
physicist have at his/her disposal to try and decide what is or
is not fundamental? While all physicists surely don't agree which
principles are fundamental in some cases, the physicists we have
recognized as being historically important have been the ones who
have turned out to be right in deciding among the the available
options. We remember eisnstein for relativity, not his attempts
to create a unified theory. We remember maxwell for the displacement
current, not his failed attempt to explain it. We remember newton
for his contribution to mechanics, not his corpuscular theory of
light, etc. In other words, those who have extraordinarily good
intuition regarding fundamental physics are remembered because
of it, not because of the intuition they used which was faulty.
So yes, intuition is how you do physics (or anything else) when
you have to solve a problem and there is nothing else to guide
you.
Patrick Reany
Incorrect. A physical law is not a metaphysical statement; and it
means precisely what it is defined to mean. Physical laws are
statements that apply to idealized representations of reality, and
probably NEVER to reality itself, at least not if those statements are
"precise," because reality is probably too complicated for our claims
to be ever conditioned precisely as required by the laws. No matter. A
physical law is a claim that whenever a set of physical conditions is
true then some physical behaviors or properties is also true. A
physical law finds perfection -- hopefully -- in the idealized model
of reality, even if not in reality itself. We absolutely need laws in
physics! Without them we cannot make physical predictions! We can't
even make imperfect predictions without them.
The set of those conditions which if true implies the conclusion of
the law is also true is called the "domain of applicability of the
law." As part of a physical law (usually provided by a "good" theory)
we need correspondence rules that match ideal conditions in the law to
physical "states," real or theoretical. In the case of Ohm's law we
have an operational meaning to "this is the voltage cross a circuit
element."
It is true that historically some physical laws have had to suffer a
retrenchment in scope. Newton's Third Law does not have unlimited
applicability even in inertial frames of reference in SR. And Newton's
notion of action-at-a-distance is refuted generally. Yet, all of
Newton's mechanics still works VERY well on the "Newtonian" domain of
applicability: 1) The ordinary macroscopic realm in which the
stability of matter is taken for granted, 2) in Galilean inertial
systems with v << c, and 3) in limited regions of space, which
minimizes the effects of the finite speed of transmission of forces
"through" space.
This kind of retrenchment in the scope of a law can be minimized if
physicists would use a conservative protocol in the first place to
keep their claims of physical law close to the base of empirical
knowledge use to justify the law in the first place. Better to
generalize the law later than to restrict it later.
>
> >Bilge, do all physicists agree with your notion of this ineffible
> >"natural fundamentalism" of human laws of physics, which is knowable
> >only by intuition?
>
> Lacking the stone tablets upon which nature wrote down the real
> laws which are fundamental, preciesly what other means does a
> physicist have at his/her disposal to try and decide what is or
> is not fundamental?
Bilge, you just don't get it all, do you. Every damn bit of science,
except for meter readings (measurements) themselves, is the invention
of the human mind. If you want to distinguish "fundamental" from
"non-fundamental" laws, fine. But don't expect that we need a
revelation from on high to define this. And don't try to use the lack
of such a revelation as any excuse. ALL of science was invented
arbitrarily anyway. If you have a propsal for "fundamental," then
propose it. But make it rational and clear; otherwise, don't bother.
In any case, what is fundamental is relative to the base of
assumptions one has chosen to form convention in physics. Changing
what is convention can change what's fundamental. This is precisely
what happened when Einstein changed the convention on the notion of
time. When he changed time to an operational meaning, that had the
effect of changing the meaning of the Lorentz transformation. But
Einstein was only looking at time because he had formally changed the
perspective of the Priniciple of Relativity from being explainable in
terms of physical interactions and laws to a primitive principle which
guides the formulation of physical laws. To Einstein the PoR was
fundamental, whereas to Poincare it was non-fundamental.
It is for this reason at least why the notion of "fundamental" should
not be used to distinguish between your "rules of thumb" and physical
laws. Physical laws are the most objective products of physics, and
they should not be politicized by any subjective notion of
"fundamentalness." However, that doesn't mean that one cannot define a
distinction between fundamental and non-fundamental laws. Physical
laws of direct empirical content are things which remain invariant
under a change in convention or in formal point of view!
> While all physicists surely don't agree which
> principles are fundamental in some cases, the physicists we have
> recognized as being historically important have been the ones who
> have turned out to be right in deciding among the the available
> options. We remember eisnstein for relativity, not his attempts
> to create a unified theory. We remember maxwell for the displacement
> current, not his failed attempt to explain it. We remember newton
> for his contribution to mechanics, not his corpuscular theory of
> light, etc. In other words, those who have extraordinarily good
> intuition
This intuition was not about absolute TRUTH of nature, but was
relative to some formal point of view.
> regarding fundamental physics are remembered because
> of it, not because of the intuition they used which was faulty.
> So yes, intuition is how you do physics (or anything else) when
> you have to solve a problem and there is nothing else to guide
> you.
This is not correct. We remember Einstein for his relativity because
to date his approach has been more successful than that of Poincare
and Lorentz. Who's to say, however, that in the end their approach of
treating the PoR as explainable will not be fulfilled?
Patrick
Bilge
>Incorrect. A physical law is not a metaphysical statement; and it
Same bullshit, different day.
Patrick Reany
> Patrick Reany:
>
> >Incorrect. A physical law is not a metaphysical statement; and it
>
> Same bullshit, different day.
Then tell us all, O Great Wiseone, what is a physical law really?
Patrick
Bilge
>>
>> >Incorrect. A physical law is not a metaphysical statement; and it
>>
>> Same bullshit, different day.
>
>Then tell us all, O Great Wiseone, what is a physical law really?
Look for any of the zillion responses you received previously.
jmfb...@aol.com
Steve Carlip told you.
/BAH
Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail.
greywolf42
news:40c0595c$0$2950$61fe...@news.rcn.com...
So did many others. But nobody told Patrick what he wanted to hear.
--
greywolf42
ubi dubium ibi libertas
{remove planet for return e-mail}
Patrick Reany
> <jmfb...@aol.com> wrote in message
> news:40c0595c$0$2950$61fe...@news.rcn.com...
> > In article <844a1b64.04060...@posting.google.com>,
> > re...@asu.edu (Patrick Reany) wrote:
> > >dub...@radioactivex.lebesque-al.net (Bilge) wrote in message
> news:<slrncbuov9...@radioactivex.lebesque-al.net>...
> > >> Patrick Reany:
> > >>
> > >> >Incorrect. A physical law is not a metaphysical statement; and it
> > >>
> > >> Same bullshit, different day.
> > >
> > >Then tell us all, O Great Wiseone, what is a physical law really?
> >
> > Steve Carlip told you.
Carlip said that we should dispense with the term "physical law"
altogether, if I recall correctly (the "dispensibility" argument). He
maintained that it lives on only in deference to its historical
inertia. Hobba said that we shouldn't bother to try to define it, or
model, theory, or hypothesis. Physicists know what these things are,
even if they can't communicate their meaning to non-physicists (the
"don't-get-too-technical" argument). Bilge said that there is this
ineffible distinction between "fundamental" and "non-fundamental"
rules of thumb which "nature" somehow "tells" us (the "mystical"
argument). The "fundamental" rules of thumb are to be called
"physical laws." But this ignores the fact that what may be
"fundamental" in one formal point of view may be "non-fundamental" in
another.
Daniel Weston hasn't said anything specific yet, if you can call any
of that above "specific." In the logical sense, Carlip's choice is the
most defensible, though very impractical. If science is not about
scientific laws, established by the scientific method, which can be
held in common between scientists of widely varing beliefs and formal
points of view, then wherein does science declare a common base of
knowledge amongst scientists? The laws of science are the most
objective practical knowledge that science produces. Furthermore, they
are they least altered by changes in convention of in formal points of
view. Either the world behaves in a certain way or it doesn't,
regardless of human theories or philosophies.
What is it in science that gives the scientist the greatest
justification and confidence for being able to make what we could call
a "scientific prediction" of some sort? I KNOW that under suitable
conditions in an electrical circuit, I can declare a specific
relationship among V,I,R in the form V=IR. Why? Because the laws of
physics tell me so. I am not scandalized in the least that V=IR is not
necessarily true for cotton candy or for certain solid state
components, or that it can be derived from other laws. So long as
sufficient conditions for the relation to hold are correctly specifed,
and that set of conditions is realizable to some degree of
approximation, then it is a physical law.
>
> So did many others. But nobody told Patrick what he wanted to hear.
So, greywolf42, you will now bless us all with your insight into this
term "physical law"?
Patrick
Patrick Reany
> news:40c0595c$0$2950$61fe...@news.rcn.com...
> > In article <844a1b64.04060...@posting.google.com>,
> > re...@asu.edu (Patrick Reany) wrote:
> > >dub...@radioactivex.lebesque-al.net (Bilge) wrote in message
> news:<slrncbuov9...@radioactivex.lebesque-al.net>...
> > >> Patrick Reany:
> > >>
> > >> >Incorrect. A physical law is not a metaphysical statement; and it
> > >>
> > >> Same bullshit, different day.
> > >
> > >Then tell us all, O Great Wiseone, what is a physical law really?
> >
> > Steve Carlip told you.
Carlip said that we should dispense with the term "physical law"
>
> So did many others. But nobody told Patrick what he wanted to hear.
So, greywolf42, you will now bless us all with your insight into this
Robert J. Kolker
Patrick Reany wrote:
> So, greywolf42, you will now bless us all with your insight into this
> term "physical law"?
An assumption or hypothesis which can provide specific quantitative
predictions about what will happen in the world. For example, Newton's
Law of Gravitation. Using this law which gives of the magnitude and
direction of a force and all othe other laws of mechanics the motions of
the planets and the occurance of the tides can be predicted.
Newton's -Principia Mathematica- describes and specifies a mathematical
system for cranking out predictions of how thing in the world will move
under specified conditions.
As for knowing -why- even Newton did not know -why- gravitation worked
the way it did. He said hypothese non fingo -- I feign no hypothesis.
Laws are prediction cranker-outers.
Bob Kolker
greywolf42
news:844a1b64.04060...@posting.google.com...
> "greywolf42" <min...@marssim-ss.com> wrote in message
news:<10c1jsd...@corp.supernews.com>...
> > <jmfb...@aol.com> wrote in message
> > news:40c0595c$0$2950$61fe...@news.rcn.com...
> > > In article <844a1b64.04060...@posting.google.com>,
> > > re...@asu.edu (Patrick Reany) wrote:
> > > >dub...@radioactivex.lebesque-al.net (Bilge) wrote in message
> > news:<slrncbuov9...@radioactivex.lebesque-al.net>...
> > > >> Patrick Reany:
> > > >>
> > > >> >Incorrect. A physical law is not a metaphysical statement; and it
> > > >>
> > > >> Same bullshit, different day.
> > > >
> > > >Then tell us all, O Great Wiseone, what is a physical law really?
> > >
> > > Steve Carlip told you.
>
>
> >
> > So did many others. But nobody told Patrick what he wanted to hear.
>
> So, greywolf42, you will now bless us all with your insight into this
> term "physical law"?
Patrick, you know the answer. I've given it to you at least a dozen times.
The term physical law simply describes a consensus of wishful thinking by
ivory tower plains apes. It is a social convention, having nothing
whatsoever to do with science, physics, or the universe. However you want
to define those latter.
car...@no-physics-spam.ucdavis.edu
> In the logical sense, Carlip's choice is the
> most defensible, though very impractical. If science is not about
> scientific laws, established by the scientific method, which can be
> held in common between scientists of widely varing beliefs and formal
> points of view, then wherein does science declare a common base of
> knowledge amongst scientists?
In the real world, very few working scientists use the term ``law,''
except in the few cases that a phrase incorporating the word has been
established historically. In particular, almost nothing that has
been discovered in the past century or so is called a ``law.'' And
yet science still functions, and scientists manage to work perfectly
well with our ``common base of knowledge.''
Go figure...
Steve Carlip
Patrick Reany
How is your definition of "physical law" different from mine: "an
invariable relationship on physical values and/or events"?
Patrick
Patrick Reany
Let's recap:
Carlip gave us the "dispensibility" argument. Hobba gave us the
"don't-get-too-technical" argument. Bilge gave us the "mystical"
argument. I'm still working on Kolker's argument. Now, greywolf42
gives us the "semantic-illusion-that-fooled-everyone" argument.
The claim you made above implies that nothing ever called a "physical
law" in physics from 1600 to today actually had/has anything to do
with physics. Ludicrous.
In any case, you didn't answer my question: If physicists do NOT have
a collection of "physical laws" as a common ground of predictive
physical knowledge, on what basis do they claim to have a common
physical knowledge useful for prediction? What is it that the
scientific method produces as predictive knowledge?
Patrick
Robert J. Kolker
Patrick Reany wrote:
>
> How is your definition of "physical law" different from mine: "an
> invariable relationship on physical values and/or events"?
I do not hide my instrumentalist inclinations. Cranker-outer is
admirably correct. It feigns no illusion about understanding Deep
Reality which no doubt exists, but is out of our reach now, and perhaps
for all time.
I accept our limitiations: mediocre eyes and three pound brains.
Bob Kolker
Robert J. Kolker
Patrick Reany wrote:
> In any case, you didn't answer my question: If physicists do NOT have
> a collection of "physical laws" as a common ground of predictive
> physical knowledge, on what basis do they claim to have a common
> physical knowledge useful for prediction? What is it that the
> scientific method produces as predictive knowledge?
What is wrong with "physical law = predicton making machine"? We have
machines that turn out sausages, why not machines that turn out predictions?
Bob Kolker
Daniel Weston
aspect of nature works.
At least that is one way to look at it. This whole discussion is a
tempest in a tea pot. What happens if an hypothesis is called a law, or
a law is identified as an hypothesis? Nothing. What you call it is NOT
important. What is important is the value of the set of statements
under consideration.
Anybody can call anything a law. For practical purposes a law only
becomes a law if there is general agreement that is a law. A law
consists of 2 basic ingredients, its underlying facts and its
accompanying logic.
In modern science development, callng something a law is out of fashion,
rather it is called _principle_.
---------
Weston's Law: The amount of junk that you keep, always expands to fill
all available storage space.
Patrick Reany
That's precisely what I'm trying to do -- to figure this mess out.
>
> Steve Carlip
I am going to take the liberty to interpret your term "scientist" as
"physicist" to keep the discussion within physics.
Now, what physicists have grown accustumed to doing over the past
century and what they ought to have done over the past century is not
necessarily the same thing. Although, I have to repeat that I have
given many examples of top physicists whose own habits contradict this
alleged "trend."
But let's for the moment accept this allegation of a trend as true. So
far, Carlip, you have not provided a good justification for this
trend; you have merely claimed its existence. Maybe physicists
shouldn't have given up on the term "physical law." Habit alone is not
a rational basis for justification. Off hand, I can think of two
reasons why physicists might not use the term "physical law" as much
any more: 1) They have consciously accepted some form of
dispensibility argument, like you have given previously, prior to the
term falling out of favor and thus they find the term "meaningless";
2) they have NOT accepted some form of dispensibility argument, but
they don't employ the term as much because they don't realize how
important it is. They've become timid in its use out of ignorance and
out of social engineering. They conform to what the physicist next to
them does. The less it gets used in print, the less they feel
confortable to use it themselves, the less they include it in their
own articles. The "rationalization" for this state of affairs is then
made after the damage is done.
OK, I'm going to give a hypothetical example to illustrate the need
for the term "physical law." Say that the some time ago a group of
engineers was given the task of designing the GPS system. They worked
out all the calculations without using corrections for GR. A physicist
gets wind of this and tells them that they need to take into
consideration GR effects to achieve the kind of accuracy they want.
They ask the physicist for justification of this claim. What do you
suppose they want to hear from the physicist:
He/she replies: "I base it on:
a) 'rules of thumb' hint at it,
b) educated guessing indicates it might be so,
c) the accepted laws of physics demand it."
So, based on the assumption that the last response was given, the
engineers take the proposal of the physicist to the grant awarders and
ask for money to hire a physicist to make these adjustments for needed
accuracy. What do you suppose the money people want to hear from the
engineers as the reason for this added expenditure?
"We're basing it on
a) some "rules of thumb" in physics hint at it,
b) educated guessing by a few physicists indicates it might be so,
c) the accepted laws of physics demand it."
If you don't get my point by now, Carlip, you never will. The
authority of physics to make accurate predictions of the physical
realm, which is respected by the Western World, rests in its cache of
vetted physical laws. You don't go out on the limb of physical
prediction without them by your side. Furthermore, any decent
physicist with a knowledge of GR should be as good as any other for
this purpose, because the laws of physics are not respecters of
persons. It is in the laws of physics, not in theories, models, or
formal points of view, that physicists have the greatest commonality
of knowledge that is both trustworthy and practical for prediction.
The laws of physics are least affected by changes in convention or
formal points of view held by the majority. Physical models may come
and go; theories may come and go. But the laws of physics, properly
stated on their accurate domain of applicability, are here for a long,
long time. They comprise the most important class of "invariants" that
physics has.
Patrick
greywolf42
news:844a1b64.04060...@posting.google.com...
> "greywolf42" <min...@marssim-ss.com> wrote in message
news:<10c40j8...@corp.supernews.com>...
> > Patrick Reany <re...@asu.edu> wrote in message
> > news:844a1b64.04060...@posting.google.com...
{snip higher levels}
> > > So, greywolf42, you will now bless us all with your insight into this
> > > term "physical law"?
> >
> > Patrick, you know the answer. I've given it to you at least a dozen
> > times.
> >
> > The term physical law simply describes a consensus of wishful thinking
> > by ivory tower plains apes. It is a social convention, having nothing
> > whatsoever to do with science, physics, or the universe. However you
> > want to define those latter.
>
> Let's recap:
>
> Carlip gave us the "dispensibility" argument. Hobba gave us the
> "don't-get-too-technical" argument. Bilge gave us the "mystical"
> argument. I'm still working on Kolker's argument. Now, greywolf42
> gives us the "semantic-illusion-that-fooled-everyone" argument.
Patrick, get a life! No one is claiming that the term is a semantic
illusion. You are going WAY beyond effort-after-meaning here.
> The claim you made above implies that nothing ever called a "physical
> law" in physics from 1600 to today actually had/has anything to do
> with physics. Ludicrous.
The strawman characiture. What I simply said is that the term has no
existence in the scientific method. I didn't even mention 'physics' ...
which is another social term.
> In any case, you didn't answer my question: If physicists do NOT have
> a collection of "physical laws" as a common ground of predictive
> physical knowledge, on what basis do they claim to have a common
> physical knowledge useful for prediction?
That isn't the question that you asked me, Tom.
Physicists -- being a social guild of academicians -- claim common knowledge
because it helps their social standing. This also has nothing to do with
the scientific method.
> What is it that the
> scientific method produces as predictive knowledge?
There is no such thing as 'predictive knowledge' in the scientific method,
either.
Patrick Reany
Fine, but you didn't directly address my question.
Patrick
Robert J. Kolker
Patrick Reany wrote:
>
> Fine, but you didn't directly address my question.
You think physical laws reveal some Truth about Reality. I think they
produce correct predictions. You are implicitly assuming that a
physicist must have come into contact with the innermost workings of
Reality, when in fact, he made some good guesses.
Bob Kolker
Patrick Reany
> Patrick Reany wrote:
> >
> > Fine, but you didn't directly address my question.
>
> You think physical laws reveal some Truth about Reality.
How the hell did you get that out of anything I said?
> I think they
> produce correct predictions. You are implicitly assuming that a
> physicist must have come into contact with the innermost workings of
> Reality, when in fact, he made some good guesses.
>
> Bob Kolker
Patrick
Patrick Reany
You are a liar. Go back and read what the hell you actually did write.
You NEVER mentioned the "scientific method" (which you should define
for us).
This is what you ACTUALLY wrote:
The term physical law simply describes a consensus of
wishful thinking by ivory tower plains apes. It is a
social convention, having nothing whatsoever to do with
science, physics, or the universe. However you want to
define those latter.
Notice the term "physics" in there?
You don't understand just how strong that statement really is. I asked
you to define "physical law" and your reply was not to define it (as
usual), but to claim that it has no meaning in physics -- regardless
of how one might care to define physics! But the term "physical law"
(or something equivalent to it) is in hundreds of physics textbooks
for the last 300 hundred years. So physics has some "meaningful"
concept of it. So, for you to be right that implies that the concept
is a "semantic illusion" that has deceived hundreds of the best
physicists, but not deceived you, of course.
If the notion of "physical law" is NOT an illusion then just define it
for us.
Patrick
car...@no-physics-spam.ucdavis.edu
[...]
> Now, what physicists have grown accustumed to doing over the past
> century and what they ought to have done over the past century is not
> necessarily the same thing.
Nonphysicists lecturing physicists on how they ought to use language,
on the other hand, have been so immensely helpful to progress that I
can't even begin to describe it.
> But let's for the moment accept this allegation of a trend as true. So
> far, Carlip, you have not provided a good justification for this
> trend; you have merely claimed its existence.
It doesn't need a justification.
[...]
> OK, I'm going to give a hypothetical example to illustrate the need
> for the term "physical law." Say that the some time ago a group of
> engineers was given the task of designing the GPS system. They worked
> out all the calculations without using corrections for GR. A physicist
> gets wind of this and tells them that they need to take into
> consideration GR effects to achieve the kind of accuracy they want.
> They ask the physicist for justification of this claim. What do you
> suppose they want to hear from the physicist:
> He/she replies: "I base it on:
> a) 'rules of thumb' hint at it,
> b) educated guessing indicates it might be so,
> c) the accepted laws of physics demand it."
None of the above. No self-respecting engineer would base a design
on any such pronouncement. If you're building a multi-million dollar
system, you need more than some physicist's assertion of a ``law'' to
make a major design decision.
The physicist should say: According to general relativity, you should
add a correction for gravitational time dilation. This aspect of the
theory is very well-tested: here are some references to the relevant
experiments, and here's a short review paper. If you're not convinced,
you should at least build in a mechanism for including the correction
if you find that the theory is correct.
(This is, in fact, what happened with the first GPS satellite: it was
launched without a time dilation correction turned on, but it was built
with an mechanism that could turn on the correction.)
[...]
> The authority of physics to make accurate predictions of the physical
> realm, which is respected by the Western World, rests in its cache of
> vetted physical laws.
No, it doesn't. It rests on a vast body of knowledge, held with varying
degrees of certainty. For historical reasons,some pieces of this knowledge
go under the name ``laws.'' These pieces are no more or less certain than
other pieces that are not called ``laws.''
Let me turn this around. You argue, I assume, that the engineers building
your hypothetical GPS system should put in a time dilation correction
because of some ``law.'' What, exactly, is the ``law'' you have in mind?
Is it the Einstein field equations? The computed time dilation from the
field equations for an arbitrary metric? The computed time dilation for
Earth orbits? The time dilation for some particular metric (which one?),
combined with the assertion that that metric is a good approximation for
the spacetime near the Earth? What piece, exactly, of the large body of
knowledge called ``general relativity'' is a ``law''?
Steve Carlip
Patrick Reany
> Physical Law: An almost unanimously agreed statement as to how some
> aspect of nature works.
That description is too clumsy. It is subject to misinterpretation
about what is meant by "how some aspect of nature works." Laws are not
explanations about "how." They are statements of "what happens" or
"what constraints are in effect" given certain circumstances, usually
in terms of direct measurables. Theories are explanations in the form
of deductive systems. F=ma, E=mc^2, PV=nRT, c=constant, and V=IR do
not tell us HOW things work, they tell us WHAT are the relevant
mathematical relationships that interrelate certain variables,
parameters, and/or so-called universal constants.
Laws are superficial to the extent that they deal in measurements, not
in deep reality. Thus, to use the term "nature" in a definition of law
is asking for confusion. Our variables are not "natural" in the sense
of being intrinsic to Nature. Instead, they're all invented by humans.
Laws describe our perceptions of reality through metrical variables.
Whether or not that description implies anything about deep reality is
a metaphysics question, not a physics question.
>
> At least that is one way to look at it. This whole discussion is a
> tempest in a tea pot.
Why? The PoR is about general laws. Noether's theorem is about
conservation laws. If you don't understand what laws are, how ya going
to understand the meaning of those two things? The laws tell us how to
predict events and relate some empirical variables. The laws are of
value independent of particular theories that may contain them. The
theories are not unique; the laws are unique to the extent that if
they are vetted hypotheses, then their justification is empirical, not
theoretical.
> What happens if an hypothesis is called a law, or
> a law is identified as an hypothesis? Nothing.
Wrong. Confusion and misconceptions occur, as obviously they have with
so many posters on this newsgroup, including yourself and some
physicists. A hypothesis is a simple speculation, be it of empirical
or modeling content. If it's of empirical content it could be called a
"law candidate."
> What you call it is NOT
> important. What is important is the value of the set of statements
> under consideration.
You're basically taking Hobba's viewpoint. Sure, leave it all for the
elitists to pretend they know.
>
> Anybody can call anything a law.
Yes, they can, but that won't guarantee that an arbitrary definition
of "law" is going to be consistent with how the term is used in
science.
> For practical purposes a law only
> becomes a law if there is general agreement that is a law.
That's a terribly awkward and circular way of stating it. A hypothesis
becomes a law by passing the validation process of the scientific
method. The scientific method is a method of producing "scientific
knowledge." One product of the scientific method is the production of
laws of science.
> A law
> consists of 2 basic ingredients, its underlying facts and its
> accompanying logic.
>
> In modern science development, callng something a law is out of fashion,
If so, then it has gone out of fashion without any rational
justification for doing so.
> rather it is called _principle_.
False. You have confused two distinct but related terms. A law is an
invariable relationship on values and/or events. A principle is a rule
that one has great confidence in. Such a rule could be a law, a
heurisic, or even a modeling constraint.
Patrick
Daniel Weston
agravating and sometimes just obnoxcious. This thread is an exmple of
at least one. He says, "What _is_ a physical law", when he should be
asking, "What _should_ a physical law be." He then procedes to tell us
what it is, in pronouncements most pontifical. Patrick, but for the
grace of God, would be the Pope.
If he were to ask, "What should the term physical law mean", he is
inviting us to engage in a collegial discussion. Instead he choses to
instruct us as if we were children. Mpost of the posters here are
anything but children, and he continually gnerates negative responses to
_his_ childish behavios.
Patrick, get thee to a monestary.
Robert J. Kolker
Daniel Weston wrote:
>
> Patrick, get thee to a monestary.
Preferably one requiring a vow of silence.
Bob Kolker
jmfb...@aol.com
news:<c9t92h$d6h$1...@woodrow.ucdavis.edu>...
>> In sci.physics Patrick Reany <re...@asu.edu> wrote:
>>
>> > In the logical sense, Carlip's choice is the
>> > most defensible, though very impractical. If science is not about
>> > scientific laws, established by the scientific method, which can be
>> > held in common between scientists of widely varing beliefs and formal
>> > points of view, then wherein does science declare a common base of
>> > knowledge amongst scientists?
>>
>> In the real world, very few working scientists use the term ``law,''
>> except in the few cases that a phrase incorporating the word has been
>> established historically. In particular, almost nothing that has
>> been discovered in the past century or so is called a ``law.'' And
>> yet science still functions, and scientists manage to work perfectly
>> well with our ``common base of knowledge.''
>>
>> Go figure...
>
>That's precisely what I'm trying to do -- to figure this mess out.
>
>>
>> Steve Carlip
>
>I am going to take the liberty to interpret your term "scientist" as
>"physicist" to keep the discussion within physics.
>
>Now, what physicists have grown accustumed to doing over the past
>century and what they ought to have done over the past century is not
>necessarily the same thing.
And this is your hidden agenda. You want laymen to do
the decisions of what scientists should "study". Science
is not a retail product...yet.
<snip>
jmfb...@aol.com
news:<29469-40C...@storefull-3136.bay.webtv.net>...
>> Physical Law: An almost unanimously agreed statement as to how some
>> aspect of nature works.
>
>That description is too clumsy. It is subject to misinterpretation
>about what is meant by "how some aspect of nature works." Laws are not
>explanations about "how." They are statements of "what happens" or
>"what constraints are in effect" given certain circumstances, usually
>in terms of direct measurables. Theories are explanations in the form
>of deductive systems. F=ma, E=mc^2, PV=nRT, c=constant, and V=IR do
>not tell us HOW things work, they tell us WHAT are the relevant
>mathematical relationships that interrelate certain variables,
>parameters, and/or so-called universal constants.
These equations are not useful in analyzing dynamic systems.
They only give a point on a graph when one value is known.
Note that a graph is 2D, not 3D nor 4D. Most of those equations
are not interesting unless they are used for dynamics.
>
>Laws are superficial to the extent that they deal in measurements, not
>in deep reality. Thus, to use the term "nature" in a definition of law
>is asking for confusion. Our variables are not "natural" in the sense
>of being intrinsic to Nature. Instead, they're all invented by humans.
>Laws describe our perceptions of reality through metrical variables.
>Whether or not that description implies anything about deep reality is
>a metaphysics question, not a physics question.
>
>>
>> At least that is one way to look at it. This whole discussion is a
>> tempest in a tea pot.
>
>Why? The PoR is about general laws. Noether's theorem is about
>conservation laws. If you don't understand what laws are, how ya going
>to understand the meaning of those two things?
By studying them in a science lab, not a law office.
> ..The laws tell us how to
>predict events and relate some empirical variables. The laws are of
>value independent of particular theories that may contain them. The
>theories are not unique; the laws are unique to the extent that if
>they are vetted hypotheses, then their justification is empirical, not
>theoretical.
Go reread what Steve Carlip told you three weeks' ago.
Patrick Reany
> In sci.physics Patrick Reany <re...@asu.edu> wrote:
>
> [...]
> > Now, what physicists have grown accustumed to doing over the past
> > century and what they ought to have done over the past century is not
> > necessarily the same thing.
>
> Nonphysicists lecturing physicists on how they ought to use language,
> on the other hand, have been so immensely helpful to progress that I
> can't even begin to describe it.
Apparently not as helpful as it should have been. There's more at
stake here, Carlip, than your personal misconceptions about science.
I'm not lecturing you on physics; I'm lecturing you on the philosophy
of physics. Your attitude revealed here is typical of the attitude
that has caused the problem in the first place. The laws of physics
have not gone away just because a generation of physicists have lost
sight of the importance of the concept of physical law. For no better
reason than a misconception, your generation of physicists has
undermined the majority of previous physics literature. Is it your
intention to make Einstein, Feynman, Bergmann, and John C. Taylor, etc
look as fools? Is it your intention to make all previous generations
of physicists look foolish too? You have the audacity to claim that
those physicists and I are the ones out of step, yet claim that your
re-invention of the philosophy of physics needs no justification! This
is the typical anti-intellectual BS given by some physicists on this
NG.
>
> > But let's for the moment accept this allegation of a trend as true. So
> > far, Carlip, you have not provided a good justification for this
> > trend; you have merely claimed its existence.
>
> It doesn't need a justification.
Yes, it does. Physics is a science, and in science you don't just do
things for no damn reason at all. You don't think that prior
physicists used the term "law of physics" capriciously to begin with,
do you? Is that what you want to teach science students? That prior
physicists capriciously adopted the term "physical law," and then
capriciously got rid of it?
Daniel Weston accusses me of being a pontificator, but I'm not. I have
some language proposals to make and defend for physics, and I spend a
great deal of my time to present clear and rational justifications for
those proposals. But you seem to think that justifications aren't
necessary for the adoption of language conventions in physics. So
who's the great pontificator now?
>
> [...]
> > OK, I'm going to give a hypothetical example to illustrate the need
> > for the term "physical law." Say that the some time ago a group of
> > engineers was given the task of designing the GPS system. They worked
> > out all the calculations without using corrections for GR. A physicist
> > gets wind of this and tells them that they need to take into
> > consideration GR effects to achieve the kind of accuracy they want.
> > They ask the physicist for justification of this claim. What do you
> > suppose they want to hear from the physicist:
>
> > He/she replies: "I base it on:
>
> > a) 'rules of thumb' hint at it,
> > b) educated guessing indicates it might be so,
> > c) the accepted laws of physics demand it."
>
> None of the above. No self-respecting engineer would base a design
> on any such pronouncement. If you're building a multi-million dollar
> system, you need more than some physicist's assertion of a ``law'' to
> make a major design decision.
Obviously, Carlip, you need more than one physicist's assertion to
finalize such a proposal, but you also need the laws of GR physics to
make invariable predictions of what corrections need to be made. If
you attempt here to present your view on "physical laws" as the single
view adopted by ALL physicists, you will lie. I have shown you
repeatedly that you do NOT speak for all physicists on this! But you
have conveniently ignored all that proof.
Let's introduce another physicist's view on this. From his book,
Physics, Its Laws, Ideas, and Methods, Alexander Kolin, 1950,
McGraw-Hill, p.3:
Chapter 1, What is a Science?
If you ask a physicist how fast a falling blue
glass marble, released from rest, will move 1 sec
after it release, he will give you the answer without
looking it up in a table or without performing a
measurement. How does he know it? He knows it from
the generalization that (neglecting air resistenace)
all objects (blue marbles, green marbles, as well as
grand pianos) fall at a speicific locality with the
same acceleration (known to him from experiments) and
from further generalization that the velocity after
falling one sec is numerically equal to the
acceleration.
Kolin gives other examples which I won't reproduce here ......
We can infer from these examples that a science
is a collection of generalizations. The aim of any
science is to establish a set of generalized
statements (laws) from which the answer to any
particular question could be obtained.
I think it's quite safe to posit that Kolin meant by "answer to any
particular question" the more detailed phrase "answer to any
particular question of behavioral content of the material realm."
(Kolin has presented a simplified characterization of a science, not a
definition of one.)
These "generalizations" Kolin refers to are the inductive laws which
satify our requirements for predictability and repeatability in
science. Without repeatability, science has no epistemology in the
scientific method. Without predictability, science cannot be used to
build all those cool gadgets that Kolker wants from it.
These "generalizations" are probabilistic, not certainties, when they
are applied to the real world. But they are what is needed to provide
for us a reasonable basis for belief in a given science as a means of
predicting the behavior of the material realm under its domain, and
that includes GR adjustments for the GPS system. Furthermore, Kolin
has made clear that the law may refer to an idealized mathematical
model (in this case the kinematics of the point mass particle), from
which one makes approximations to the "real" world by "active"
(god-like) correspondence rules.
>
> The physicist should say: According to general relativity, you should
> add a correction for gravitational time dilation. This aspect of the
> theory is very well-tested:
That "well-tested" aspect to GR is the vetting process by which one
declares a hypothesis into a law. Your reticence to use the term "law"
does not mean that it is not implicit in your "argument." So, a
restatement could be: According to laws of general relativity . . . .
If you don't know what they are, Carlip, John C. Taylor told you in
his book, Hidden Unity in Nature's Laws.
> here are some references to the relevant
> experiments, and here's a short review paper. If you're not convinced,
> you should at least build in a mechanism for including the correction
> if you find that the theory is correct.
If the guy retorts: "Have you physicists validated the EQUATIONS you
plan to use to make these adjustments?" And if you reply back, "Yes."
Then the guy is perfectly correct to say, "So, you're really talking
about the laws of GR." All this talk about some vague "knowledge" is
unconvincing. The term "law" is not merely a condescension for laymen;
it is a completely rigorous term in the philosophy of physics. It is,
in fact, more metaphysically believeable than is the concept of a
physical theory, which doesn't seem to bother you as a term in the
language of physics. I can at least imagine a correspondnece between
human physical laws and Nature's rules (or Nature's Laws, as Taylor
calls them), but I cannot imagine anything in Nature that would
correspond to human theories. Does Nature formulate deductions?
>
> (This is, in fact, what happened with the first GPS satellite: it was
> launched without a time dilation correction turned on, but it was built
> with an mechanism that could turn on the correction.)
>
> [...]
>
> > The authority of physics to make accurate predictions of the physical
> > realm, which is respected by the Western World, rests in its cache of
> > vetted physical laws.
>
> No, it doesn't. It rests on a vast body of knowledge, held with varying
> degrees of certainty.
I already addressed this issue of certainty above.
> For historical reasons,some pieces of this knowledge
> go under the name ``laws.'' These pieces are no more or less certain than
> other pieces that are not called ``laws.''
The reason physicists used the term "law" in the past is because they
were using a definition of what it meant to them. From what I can
tell, their definition is pretty much my definition, which I adopted
from N. Campbell, IICR. I infer this from the fact that I have as yet
to find a single case where what they called a law does not fit my
definition of a law!
1) I'm using my definition of "physical law," not yours, since you
apparently don't even have one. You haven't even bothered to provide a
definition of "physical laws" for those "historical laws" you refer
to. You use the equations of GR to make consistent corrections for GR
effects because those effects are invariably related by Einstein's GR
equations: the EFEs and the geodesic equation of motion in spacetime.
2) A rule which is proposed as a law candidate but is not yet
validated for reliability is called a "hypotheses."
>
> Let me turn this around. You argue, I assume, that the engineers building
> your hypothetical GPS system should put in a time dilation correction
> because of some ``law.'' What, exactly, is the ``law'' you have in mind?
> Is it the Einstein field equations? The computed time dilation from the
> field equations for an arbitrary metric?
What arbitrary metric? In Einstein's theory? The metric components are
solved from the EFEs, given the distribution of matter/energy.
> The computed time dilation for
> Earth orbits? The time dilation for some particular metric (which one?),
> combined with the assertion that that metric is a good approximation for
> the spacetime near the Earth? What piece, exactly, of the large body of
> knowledge called ``general relativity'' is a ``law''?
>
> Steve Carlip
Why do you pick on metric? Name one thing that we use in physics which
is provably inherent in Nature, rather than merely being a free
creation of the human mind. Given operational definitions of physical
variables, physical laws are NOT dependent on the metaphysics of those
free creations. Their ultimate justification is whether or not they
can be used to make accurate empirical predictions. But by "accurate"
I do NOT mean PERFECT.
Now to answer your question: Each equation of GR, together with the
set of conditions sufficient for each equation to be valid, which is
essential in GR to make those GR adjustments to the GPS system is a
"law of GR," by my definition. I'm not claiming that there is just one
law in GR by which these correcting computations are made. There are
as many as are needed to get the computations completed. What
difference does it make how many there are?
I explain:
First, in a physical theory, all quantities, or "values," be they
directly measurable or "paper and pencil" quantities (such as
potentials or wave functions), which contribute to the production of a
calculation that can be tested physically (i.e., predicts an empirical
value) are said to be "physical quantities" of the theory. From this
viewpoint, the gravitational potentials of the metric are "physical"
quantities, at least in the theoretical sense. This may (or may not)
seem strange by ontological standards, but I have said before,
physical laws, being statements about measurements, are NOT
metaphysical statements. I adopt the Duhem-Quine Thesis: A test of a
physical theory is a test of all "hypotheses" of the theory at once.
(Philosophers often use the term "hypothesis" differently than do
physicists.) The thesis can be restated as: A test of a physical
theory is a test of all postulates (axioms) of the theory at the same
time.
Now, just as Poisson's equation for the gravitational potential is a
law in classical gravitational theory that sets an invariable
relationship between gravitational potential and matter distribution
within the mathematical model of Newtonian physics, so that when the
potential is found the gravitional force can be calculated, and the
equation of motion of a point mass particle determined; so too are the
EFEs a law (or set of laws) that sets an invariable relationship
between matter/energy distribution and the metric components, so that
when they're found, the geodesic law of motion is determined. That the
Poisson equation determines the potential only up to an arbitrary
constant is irrelevant for the "lawness" aspect of Poisson's equation,
since the force which is determined from the potential is perfectly
definite. All that's important is that one can get a definite
prediction in the end of this chain of cooperating laws. If this
doesn't make sense, reread how I defined "physical laws and
quantities" above. You have not yet attacked my definitions on their
internal consistency. Are you ever going to? If you don't, then why do
you fault them.
The equation of motion in the form of a geodesic is a law that sets an
invariable relationship between the metric, solved for from the EFEs,
and the path through spacetime of a free point particle. This
viewpoint is totally consistent with that of physicist John C. Taylor
in his book, Hidden Unity in Nature's Laws, p.204.
As I have repeatedly said: this invariable relationship is in the form
of a set of conditions, which if met, invariably implies an associated
behavior or constraint on behavior of some system indicated in the
law. Now I'm using the term "behavior" in its more general theoretical
sense. For example, potentials and wave functions can have theoretical
"behaviors." In GR, knowledge of the conditions of the distribution of
matter/energy in a region of space implies 1) the "behavior" of the
metric in that region (derived from EFEs), and 2) the behavior of a
free point mass particle in that region (from the geodesic law of
motion). Laws can be statistical or not.
Often a law is given as only an equation, and this is a bit confusing,
and technically incorrect. The law is the equation and the set of
sufficent conditions under which the equation is valid. When one uses
the term "law" for V=IR, one really means that under certain
conditions we know that V=IR is a good approximation for meter reading
in an electrical circuit. Under those conditions, V=IR is invariably
to be inferred from those conditions.
Apparently, Feynman was not a party to your profound misconceptions
about physical laws; otherwise, the last sentence of his book, The
Character of Physical Law, would have read:
After all I presented to you throughout this book
on the character of physical law, I now have to
level with you, dear reader: There is no such thing
as a "physical law."
Science is a free invention of the human mind to help bring order out
of chaos. It uses many internal free inventions of the human mind. One
of those being the free invention of the concept of "physical law."
The justification of this concept does not lie within metaphysics but
is made instrumental by whether or not it is useful for constructing a
conceptual system of science which leads to reliable predictions of
the behavior of the material realm.
Patrick
Patrick Reany
> In article <844a1b64.04060...@posting.google.com>,
> re...@asu.edu (Patrick Reany) wrote:
> >dani...@webtv.net (Daniel Weston) wrote in message
> news:<29469-40C...@storefull-3136.bay.webtv.net>...
> >> Physical Law: An almost unanimously agreed statement as to how some
> >> aspect of nature works.
> >
> >That description is too clumsy. It is subject to misinterpretation
> >about what is meant by "how some aspect of nature works." Laws are not
> >explanations about "how." They are statements of "what happens" or
> >"what constraints are in effect" given certain circumstances, usually
> >in terms of direct measurables. Theories are explanations in the form
> >of deductive systems. F=ma, E=mc^2, PV=nRT, c=constant, and V=IR do
> >not tell us HOW things work, they tell us WHAT are the relevant
> >mathematical relationships that interrelate certain variables,
> >parameters, and/or so-called universal constants.
>
> These equations are not useful in analyzing dynamic systems.
I don't see the relationship of your claim to what I said, as usual.
Anyway. You're claiming that F=ma is "not useful in analyzing dynamic
systems"? Explain.
> They only give a point on a graph when one value is known.
> Note that a graph is 2D, not 3D nor 4D. Most of those equations
> are not interesting unless they are used for dynamics.
> >
> >Laws are superficial to the extent that they deal in measurements, not
> >in deep reality. Thus, to use the term "nature" in a definition of law
> >is asking for confusion. Our variables are not "natural" in the sense
> >of being intrinsic to Nature. Instead, they're all invented by humans.
> >Laws describe our perceptions of reality through metrical variables.
> >Whether or not that description implies anything about deep reality is
> >a metaphysics question, not a physics question.
> >
> >>
> >> At least that is one way to look at it. This whole discussion is a
> >> tempest in a tea pot.
> >
> >Why? The PoR is about general laws. Noether's theorem is about
> >conservation laws. If you don't understand what laws are, how ya going
> >to understand the meaning of those two things?
>
> By studying them in a science lab, not a law office.
Noether's theorem is a mathematical theorem, not an experiment. How
the West has failed in providing good science education.
Patrick
Gerald L. O'Barr
> jmfb...@aol.com wrote:
> In <40c45077$0$2928$61fe...@news.rcn.com>...
> > In <844a1b64.04060...@posting.google.com>,
> > re...@asu.edu (Patrick Reany) wrote:
> > >dani...@webtv.net (Daniel Weston) wrote in message
> news:<29469-40C...@storefull-3136.bay.webtv.net>...
> > >> Physical Law: An almost unanimously agreed statement as to how some
> > >> aspect of nature works.
> > >
> > >That description is too clumsy. It is subject to misinterpretation
> > >about what is meant by "how some aspect of nature works." Laws are not
> > >explanations about "how." They are statements of "what happens" or
> > >"what constraints are in effect" given certain circumstances, usually
> > >in terms of direct measurables. Theories are explanations in the form
> > >of deductive systems. F=ma, E=mc^2, PV=nRT, c=constant, and V=IR do
> > >not tell us HOW things work, they tell us WHAT are the relevant
> > >mathematical relationships that interrelate certain variables,
> > >parameters, and/or so-called universal constants.
Gerald L. O'Barr <glo...@yahoo.com> comments:
PV=nRT does not tell us how or why? Come on, Reany!
c=constant does not tell us how or why or anything except it
is a math constant used as a math constant in SR. And since SR
is only a math theory, then of course c=constant is nothing but
math, with no understanding of these whys and hows!
And F=ma does not tell us how or why. It also is only a math
relationship, with no knowledge as to why mass has inertia, etc.
But PV=nRT is a physical theory. And the theory tells us
exactly why and how PV=nRT. This is a physical theory just as
LET is a physical theory, and as physical theories, they are far
superior to all these so called just math theories!
How did you get so lost, Reany? I have been over this point
so many times I thought for sure you would never forget!
Thanks for reading.
Gerald L. O'Barr <glo...@yahoo.com>
greywolf42
news:844a1b64.04060...@posting.google.com...
> "greywolf42" <min...@marssim-ss.com> wrote in message
news:<10c6jo2...@corp.supernews.com>...
> > Patrick Reany <re...@asu.edu> wrote in message
> > news:844a1b64.04060...@posting.google.com...
{snip higher levels}
> > > Let's recap:
> > >
> > > Carlip gave us the "dispensibility" argument. Hobba gave us the
> > > "don't-get-too-technical" argument. Bilge gave us the "mystical"
> > > argument. I'm still working on Kolker's argument. Now, greywolf42
> > > gives us the "semantic-illusion-that-fooled-everyone" argument.
> >
> > Patrick, get a life! No one is claiming that the term is a semantic
> > illusion. You are going WAY beyond effort-after-meaning here.
> >
> > > The claim you made above implies that nothing ever called a "physical
> > > law" in physics from 1600 to today actually had/has anything to do
> > > with physics. Ludicrous.
> >
> > The strawman characiture. What I simply said is that the term has no
> > existence in the scientific method. I didn't even mention 'physics' ...
> > which is another social term.
>
> You are a liar. Go back and read what the hell you actually did write.
> You NEVER mentioned the "scientific method"
That's the point, Patrick. "Physical law" has no meaning or place in the
scientific method. Therefore, you won't find the words 'scientific method'
in an explanation of the term 'physical law.'
> (which you should define for us).
But I've already done that a number of times for you already. And you've
accepted that my definition is adequate. Therefore, you are well aware that
I am talking about the difference between the scientific method and social
grooming among lab coats.
> This is what you ACTUALLY wrote:
>
> The term physical law simply describes a consensus of
> wishful thinking by ivory tower plains apes. It is a
> social convention, having nothing whatsoever to do with
> science, physics, or the universe. However you want to
> define those latter.
>
> Notice the term "physics" in there?
Yes, I wrote that word. And I know you like to ravel word definitions. My
point being that it is irrelvant what *you* mean by the word.
> You don't understand just how strong that statement really is.
Of course I do. I'm pointing out that your tirade is childish, vacuous,
quibbles about word definitions. I'm trying to be at least minimally
polite.
> I asked
> you to define "physical law" and your reply was not to define it (as
> usual), but to claim that it has no meaning in physics -- regardless
> of how one might care to define physics!
The usual strawman. I said that the term you used was simply a social
convention that had no connection to the physical world. My apologies for
not writing tightly enough to eliminate any ability for you to wiggle.
> But the term "physical law"
> (or something equivalent to it) is in hundreds of physics textbooks
> for the last 300 hundred years. So physics has some "meaningful"
> concept of it. So, for you to be right that implies that the concept
> is a "semantic illusion" that has deceived hundreds of the best
> physicists, but not deceived you, of course.
I don't care about the opinion of priests.
> If the notion of "physical law" is NOT an illusion then just define it
> for us.
But it is an illusion of the priesthood, Patrick. And I already defined it.
jmfb...@aol.com
re...@asu.edu (Patrick Reany) wrote:
>jmfb...@aol.com wrote in message
news:<40c45077$0$2928$61fe...@news.rcn.com>...
>> In article <844a1b64.04060...@posting.google.com>,
>> re...@asu.edu (Patrick Reany) wrote:
>> >dani...@webtv.net (Daniel Weston) wrote in message
>> news:<29469-40C...@storefull-3136.bay.webtv.net>...
>> >> Physical Law: An almost unanimously agreed statement as to how some
>> >> aspect of nature works.
>> >
>> >That description is too clumsy. It is subject to misinterpretation
>> >about what is meant by "how some aspect of nature works." Laws are not
>> >explanations about "how." They are statements of "what happens" or
>> >"what constraints are in effect" given certain circumstances, usually
>> >in terms of direct measurables. Theories are explanations in the form
>> >of deductive systems. F=ma, E=mc^2, PV=nRT, c=constant, and V=IR do
>> >not tell us HOW things work, they tell us WHAT are the relevant
>> >mathematical relationships that interrelate certain variables,
>> >parameters, and/or so-called universal constants.
>>
>> These equations are not useful in analyzing dynamic systems.
>
>I don't see the relationship of your claim to what I said, as usual.
>Anyway. You're claiming that F=ma is "not useful in analyzing dynamic
>systems"? Explain.
They are special cases.
Graph it. You get a straight line with an x-intercept at [0,0].
Most interesting functions are curvy and wavy and require
a knowledge of calculus.
>
>> They only give a point on a graph when one value is known.
>> Note that a graph is 2D, not 3D nor 4D. Most of those equations
>> are not interesting unless they are used for dynamics.
>> >
>> >Laws are superficial to the extent that they deal in measurements, not
>> >in deep reality. Thus, to use the term "nature" in a definition of law
>> >is asking for confusion. Our variables are not "natural" in the sense
>> >of being intrinsic to Nature. Instead, they're all invented by humans.
>> >Laws describe our perceptions of reality through metrical variables.
>> >Whether or not that description implies anything about deep reality is
>> >a metaphysics question, not a physics question.
>> >
>> >>
>> >> At least that is one way to look at it. This whole discussion is a
>> >> tempest in a tea pot.
>> >
>> >Why? The PoR is about general laws. Noether's theorem is about
>> >conservation laws. If you don't understand what laws are, how ya going
>> >to understand the meaning of those two things?
>>
>> By studying them in a science lab, not a law office.
>
>Noether's theorem is a mathematical theorem, not an experiment. How
>the West has failed in providing good science education.
The Fundamental Theorem of Calculus is also a mathematical theorm
and not an experiment. However, the theorem is used to examine
functions used to describe behaviour in experiments.
Patrick Reany
> re...@asu.edu (Patrick Reany) wrote in message news:<844a1b64.04060...@posting.google.com>...
> > jmfb...@aol.com wrote:
> > In <40c45077$0$2928$61fe...@news.rcn.com>...
> > > In <844a1b64.04060...@posting.google.com>,
> > > re...@asu.edu (Patrick Reany) wrote:
> > > >dani...@webtv.net (Daniel Weston) wrote in message
> news:<29469-40C...@storefull-3136.bay.webtv.net>...
> > > >> Physical Law: An almost unanimously agreed statement as to how some
> > > >> aspect of nature works.
> > > >
> > > >That description is too clumsy. It is subject to misinterpretation
> > > >about what is meant by "how some aspect of nature works." Laws are not
> > > >explanations about "how." They are statements of "what happens" or
> > > >"what constraints are in effect" given certain circumstances, usually
> > > >in terms of direct measurables. Theories are explanations in the form
> > > >of deductive systems. F=ma, E=mc^2, PV=nRT, c=constant, and V=IR do
> > > >not tell us HOW things work, they tell us WHAT are the relevant
> > > >mathematical relationships that interrelate certain variables,
> > > >parameters, and/or so-called universal constants.
>
> <deletes by O'Barr>
> Gerald L. O'Barr <glo...@yahoo.com> comments:
> PV=nRT does not tell us how or why? Come on, Reany!
I don't see what your reply has to do with what I wrote, as usual.
> c=constant does not tell us how or why or anything except it
> is a math constant used as a math constant in SR. And since SR
> is only a math theory, then of course c=constant is nothing but
> math, with no understanding of these whys and hows!
> And F=ma does not tell us how or why. It also is only a math
> relationship, with no knowledge as to why mass has inertia, etc.
You have a mechanical explanantion for why mass has inertia? So, tell
us then.
> But PV=nRT is a physical theory. And the theory tells us
> exactly why and how PV=nRT.
Please don't make this kind of sin against the rationality of the
logical structure of physics, as so many others here LOVE to do.
PV=nRT is not a theory at all. A theory is an explanation in the form
of a deductive system. A law is an invariable relationship on values
and/or events. PV=nRT is a "law inferred constraint," or LIC. PV=nRT
is a constraint on the mutual behavior of P, V, and T. The most common
model of a law in science is this:
A common law form: (|-){SC_1,SC_2,....,SC_n} -> (|-)(LIC)
where SC means "sufficiency condition" and the symbol "|-" means
assertion and it distributes over all the SCs in the set. In other
words, the LIC follows when all the sufficiency conditions are "true."
The sufficiency conditions tell us all the conditions that are
sufficient, taken together, to infer the LIC, such as where, what,
who, when, how many, how big, how heavy, what made out of, what
temperature range, what pressure, etc. However, the sufficiency
conditions may imply more than one LIC at a time.
It's important to note that unless the LIC requires only one
sufficiency condition, that the LIC is NOT to be inferred on the basis
of the law form above unless all of its co-conditions are also true.
Also, note that if we use the law form
(|-){SC_1,SC_2,....,SC_n} -> (|-)(LIC)
then the truth of the LIC does not necessarily imply the truth of all
the sufficiency conditions. But under such cases in which this is
true, i.e.,
(|-)(LIC) -> (|-){SC_1,SC_2,....,SC_n}
then the law form becomes
(|-){C_1,C_2,....,C_n} <-> (|-)(LIC)
where our sufficiency conditions have become necessary conditions. So
far we have seen two forms of invariable relationships between
conditions and LICs: "->" and "<->".
Hobba's insistance that the ONLY acceptable law form is
(|-){} -> (|-)(LIC)
is why he has such a psychological hang-up to Ohm's Law, which has the
LIC: V=IR. To Hobba, if there exists some substance in some form under
some conditions for which V=IR does not apply then it can't be part of
a "law." I'm not at all interested in which substances V=IR does not
apply to, such as Oobleck, mithril, cotton candy, or certain diodes;
all I care about is that there are some substances, in some forms,
under some conditions, in which V=IR does apply to an acceptable
degree of approximation.
I can think of no physical law of direct empirical content that has
the form
(|-){} -> (|-)(LIC)
One cannot say in Newtonian mechanics that
(|-){} -> (|-)(F=ma)
because it's not true in a noninertial frame.
One cannot say in SR that
(|-){} -> (|-)(c=constant)
because it's not true in a noninertial frame.
One cannot say in GR that
(|-){} -> (|-)(geodesic motion rules for free "particles")
because it not necessarily true in the microscopic realm.
-------------------------------------------
The theory that PV=nRT comes from is the kinetic theory of gases.
PV=nRT is a claim to the behavior of an idealized gas, which requires
certain conditions on the nature of the gas before the inferred
constraint PV=nRT is required. Some of the sufficiency conditions to
infer PV=nRT as a constraint on P, V, and T invariably associated by
forward implication (->) are
- molecules numerous
- molecules elastic in collisions
- molecules point-like size
- molecular thermal motion is random
- molecules are indistinguishable
- etc
The full ideal gas law is the full set of sufficiency conditions and
the claim that they together imply the LIC: PV=nRT.
The LIC PV=nRT is true of the ideal gas model, and at best is probably
only approximately "true" of any real gas.
> This is a physical theory just as
> LET is a physical theory, and as physical theories, they are far
> superior to all these so called just math theories!
I find it ironic, O'Barr, that you look to all explanations, including
of electrodynamics, in terms of mechanics, yet there are those who
look to explain mass -- a primitive in mechanics -- in terms of
electrodynamics.
> How did you get so lost, Reany? I have been over this point
> so many times I thought for sure you would never forget!
>
I got lost originally, like everyone else, by trusting my knowledge of
the logical structure of science to my formal science education. I
have since corrected that deficiency of education.
Patrick
Gerald L. O'Barr
re...@asu.edu (Patrick Reany) wrote:
>
<deletes by O'Barr>
Reany wrote:
>The theory that PV=nRT comes from is the kinetic
>theory of gases. PV=nRT is a claim to the behavior
>of an idealized gas, which requires certain
>conditions on the nature of the gas before the
>inferred constraint PV=nRT is required. Some of the
>sufficiency conditions to infer PV=nRT as a
>constraint on P, V, and T invariably associated by
>forward implication (->) are
>
>- molecules numerous
>- molecules elastic in collisions
>- molecules point-like size
>- molecular thermal motion is random
>- molecules are indistinguishable
>- etc
>
>The full ideal gas law is the full set of
>sufficiency conditions and the claim that they
>together imply the LIC: PV=nRT.
>The LIC PV=nRT is true of the ideal gas model, and
>at best is probably only approximately "true" of any
>real gas.
Gerald L. O'Barr <glo...@yahoo.com> comments:
I was not asking for all these details. The
original point, which seems to have been lost, lost
because you changed posting string to which this was
attached, and did not directly addressed the issue,
and did not include all of the original statements,
and added tons of additional comments that was not
even the subject at hand. So what should I do? Just
give up?
What the problem was, was that you listed several
simple math equations, and then you said that they
only gave us the results, they did not provide to us
the how's or why's. Well, some of these
relationships, such as F = ma, does not tell us the
why's and how's. But PV = nRT does tell us the why's
and how's. And I pointed this out to you. But you
still will not admit to your error! Again, what
should I do, give up?
So even if it was not what was being discussed,
let me correct you in some of your details that you
have now added that have nothing to do with the
original problem. You said (for PV=nRT):
>- molecules numerous
>- molecules elastic in collisions
>- molecules point-like size
>- molecular thermal motion is random
>- molecules are indistinguishable
>- etc
Now might I point out, that one could use just one,
two or three, etc., molecules (depending on
orientations), and understand the situation fairly
well. The math values would then become the net or
average effects after a large amount of time has been
experienced. The molecules do not have to be point-
like. This theory is used, in fact, to calculate
such things as the mean free path, and does so very
well. And this could not be done for point-like
particles. Also, this theory is able to use spins,
and can calculate heat content based upon such
spinning molecules. Again, this would not be
possible with point-like molecules. And mixes of
different gases can be considered. So almost all of
your assumptions here are incorrect.
O'Barr wrote: . . .
>> This is a physical theory just as
>> LET is a physical theory, and as physical
>>theories, they are far superior to all these so
>>called just math theories!
Reany wrote:
>I find it ironic, O'Barr, that you look to all
>explanations, including of electrodynamics, in terms
>of mechanics, yet there are those who look to
>explain mass -- a primitive in mechanics -- in terms
>of electrodynamics.
O'Barr comments:
I see nothing wrong with this. I pointed out, in
the previous series of posts that you have jumped
away from, that F = ma is just a math relationship,
and we do not really know what creates these inertial
effects. In my at theory, the inertial effects are
also just assumed, but the at theory, as it becomes
developed, reaches a point where the mass that we
see, on our gross level, could be the energy (force
through a distance) required for a particle to become
rearranged so that there is a balance between drag
and momentum exchange with the ether. This would
mimic inertial forces most perfectly, even with the
abilities to indicate an increase in mass with
velocity, even providing a difference between the
longitudinal and transverse mass effects.
Thanks for reading.
Patrick Reany
Yes, you were asking for it. You confused an LIC with a theory. How
bad has been science education for any edcuated person to make such a
mistake.
> The
> original point, which seems to have been lost, lost
> because you changed posting string to which this was
> attached, and did not directly addressed the issue,
> and did not include all of the original statements,
> and added tons of additional comments that was not
> even the subject at hand. So what should I do? Just
> give up?
I think that your message got lost in that prolixed sentence of yours.
I think should just give up. We probably don't have much new to say to
each other. And, since you're confortable living with misconceptions
about the difference between laws and theories, there seems to be no
point to continue.
> What the problem was, was that you listed several
> simple math equations, and then you said that they
> only gave us the results, they did not provide to us
> the how's or why's. Well, some of these
> relationships, such as F = ma, does not tell us the
> why's and how's. But PV = nRT does tell us the why's
> and how's. And I pointed this out to you. But you
> still will not admit to your error! Again, what
> should I do, give up?
As far as I'm concerned, if I can't see or directly sense it, I can't
claim it really exists. On the other hand, I have no problem inventing
or using others's inventions of models of ficticious things as
instruments of theory building to make testable predictions. PV=nRT is
a fiction built out the fiction of an ideal gas. Yet it has some
domain of applicability. Bravo for it! That's what theoretical physics
is all about: Fictions that work.
Not according to the computations I followed for it. You see, this is
precisely why I went into that long discussion of LICs, which
obviously you either didn't read or didn't grasp if you did read it. I
specifically said that an LIC is NOT necessarily ONLY "true" on the
assertion of just one set of conditions. You probably still don't get
it. Just the same, it isn't my point to argue the merits of the ideal
gas theory -- that misses the point.
Patrick
Daniel Weston
can't see or directly sense it, I can't claim it really exists." This
is vintage Patrick Reany. He does not trust his brain to give him valid
information derived from inference, deduction, induction, analysis,
synthesis, and a few other thinking techniques dating back to Aristotle.
In the Anglo-Saxon and English Common Law and modern U.S. law, you can
hang a guy based on inference, deduction, induction, analysis,
synthesis, etc. In addition to Patrick saving Western Science, he
should give some thought to saving Western Law.
Or in the alternative, get himself to a monastery, where there is fresh
air, spring water, close supervision, and manual labor. Then again if I
had Patrick's brain, I might trust it to give me direct sensory input
only, and not trust it to do the fancy stuff. There is room for
Idealism in monasteries, but not in modern science.
Daniel Weston
reality, but is an expert on that which does not exist.
Patrick Reany
> In the above post Patrick Reany says: "As far as I'm concerned, if I
> can't see or directly sense it, I can't claim it really exists." This
> is vintage Patrick Reany. He does not trust his brain to give him valid
> information derived from inference, deduction, induction, analysis,
> synthesis, and a few other thinking techniques dating back to Aristotle.
>
My naive brain tells me that perspective is of the world; my non-naive
brain tells me otherwise. My naive brain tells me that color resides
in the things we see; my non-naive brain tells me otherwise. My naive
brain tells me that sugar is sweet, i.e., that sweetness is a property
of sugar; my non-naive brain tells me otherwise. The moron Daniel
hasn't even learned to distinguish between Galileo's primary and
secondary qualities. But even this isn't all Daniel's fault. It's the
fault of our absolutely lousy science educational system in the West
that refuses to make sure that this stuff gets taught to EVERY student
before he or she graduates from high school or equivalent. I didn't
learn it in my formal education either, but I learned it just the
same. The typical Western student graduates knowing a little bit of
science, but knowing nothing of the logical structure of science or
the many philosophies of science.
Daniel is incapable of distinguishing between metaphysics and
epistemology. But that's probably true of most posters, because
Western science education dropped the ball, sotospeak. Daniel can't
tell the difference between scientific realism and instrumentalism.
That's either because he's an idiot with a "doctorate" (so he tells
us) or on top of that, he's just one of the billions of poorly
educated people by the science establishment in the West, which should
teach the major philosophical views of science to science students,
not to indoctrinate them, but just to make them aware of the different
views. The choice of what they believe is their own. In fact, some
form of scientific realism becomes the default indoctrination if the
counter views are not taught explicitly.
The philosophy of instrumentalism in physics -- a counter to
scientific realism -- is simple. It has three main principles:
1) There is no strong epistemic justification to reify the
models used in even successful theories. Models are
treated as mere instruments, or tools, of thought to aid
in the invention of theories that work (pragmatism).
2) The metaphysics of successful models is important, but
it is not the purpose of physics to investigate it or
to promote the reification of any particular model.
Physics is not metaphysics. As a practical matter, we
tend to conventionalize in science models of ordinary
visible "things."
3) Theories are not to be judged as either true or false
in the sense of revealing deep reality, but rather are
judged as useful or not useful (pragmatism). Theories
that find a good match between prediction and measurement
are useful, and some might say "true" for that sole reason.
It is not even enough for the justification of the claim that some
model is "true" to prove that models (physical concepts) are uniquely
determined by the physical realm through empirical data, but even that
isn't true. History is replete with examples of how one generations'
physical models (phlogiston, ether, or caloric, or even Bohr's model
of the hydrogen atom) is the next generations' "folly." For the sake
of argument, say that it were obvious that in all humans one phenomena
associates to exactly one physical concept, that still doesn't
guarantee that that physical concept is true of deep reality. That
makes two lethal blows to scientific realism as far as I'm concerned,
but Daniel can't seem to grasp either one of them.
When should instrumentalism be taught in science education? Long
before the student gets to quantum mechanics, but even that would be
unusual today if the student encountered it there. Teach it and
scientific realism in all high school science courses as a brief
propaedeutic to the core material of the subject. Every science has to
employ models of "unseeable" things, so some philosophy of these
models is necessary for the students. They should be taught what
'theory,' 'law,' 'hypothesis,' and 'model' mean in science. They
should also be taught that the scientific method is a method of
producing vetted scientific knowledge. Total time spent doing all that
in a given subject: one hour per subject per semester -- typically the
first class of the semester.
John Dewey introduced instrumentalism and it has evolved somewhat for
specific use in science, particularly in physics. Dewey might have
been willing to say that a successful physical theory could be
regarded as "true" in its predictions, though not necessarily true in
its models.
Our personal beliefs about the truthfulness of models in physical
theories is just plain irrelevant (superfluous) to the success or
failure of the theory by empirical standards:
physical theory T + human belief = physical theory T
If you feel compelled to reify the models in physical theories, please
claim to do so within your personal natural philosophies, and not
burden physics with your irrelevant dogmas.
So, do I believe in microbes and atoms, neither of which can I see or
detect unaided by technology of some sort? Of course I do! I am NOT a
positivist. But I claim my beliefs about their "reality" to lie within
my personal natural philosophy. I am also NOT an ontological idealist,
as Daniel continually mistakenly claims, nor am I a solipsist. There's
a HUGH difference between claiming existence in the "name of science"
(an epistemic justification which scientific realists want to use) and
claiming existence in the "name of my personal natural philosophy,"
which competes equally with everyone else's personal natural
philosophy! The job of science is NOT to dogmatize the way the world
really is, but to reveal the way the world really behaves, which it
accomplishes throught the "revelation" of scientific laws.
I simply refuse to adduce as epistemic justification of my personal
reifications of models as "scientific truths," even though those
models are derived from manifestly scientific theories. What's so hard
to understand about that? Well, if you find it hard to understand what
I just said because the terms I used are unfamiliar to you, that is
also the fault of Western science education, which should have told
you all those terms! I'm just trying to fill in that part of science
education that the reader should have received from formal science
education in high school and college, but most probably did not.
Should every student in an undergraduate science major be required to
take a philosophy of science class? Absolutely yes! A three-hour
semester class.
----------------------------------------------
Some references on instrumentalism are
http://publish.uwo.ca/~dgault/phil20/realism.htm
http://www.swif.uniba.it/lei/foldop/foldoc.cgi?instrumentalism
http://www.hyperdictionary.com/dictionary/Instrumentalism
http://radicalacademy.com/amphilosophy7a.htm
Patrick
Rod Lassiter
>If you feel compelled to reify the models in physical theories, please
>claim to do so within your personal natural philosophies, and not
>burden physics with your irrelevant dogmas.
Physical theories try to form a picture of reality... We want the
observed facts to follow logically from our concept of reality.
Without the belief that it is possible to grasp the reality with our
theoretical constructions, without the belief in the inner harmony of
our world, there could be no science. This belief is and always will
remain the fundamental motive for all scientific creation.
Einstein and Infeld, "The Evolution of Physics"
> The typical Western student graduates knowing a little bit of
> science...
What other kind of science education is there besides "Western"? By
focusing your criticism on "Western scientific education" you imply
that there is some other (non-Western) tradition of scientific
education, and yet you never identify this other tradition. (Eastern?
Marxist?) Surely you're not claiming that instrumentalism is
non-Western, or even that Marxism is non-Western, so there doesn't
seem to be any sense at all in your use of that anachronistic term.
Honestly your persistent use of the term "Western" is (by far) the
most interesting thing about your posts. I am genuinely curious to
know why you think it is important to focus your criticism
specifically on *Western* scientific education, as opposed to....
what? It can only be some non-Western scientific education, but off
hand I can't imagine what non-Western scientific education you have in
mind. Is there even such a thing? Science itself (in the sense that
we use the term) is "Western", so the phrase "Western science" is
redundant. Do you advocate some non-Western tradition of science,
or of teaching Western science? All the ideas in your posts are
thoroughly Western, such as instrumentalism. In fact, instrumentalism
is much more "Western" than is, say, Platonic idealism/realism, which
traces its origins to Eastern sources. So, shouldn't you be ranting
about the failures of *Eastern* scientific education?
Gerald L. O'Barr
In <844a1b64.04061...@posting.google.com>
re...@asu.edu (Patrick Reany) wrote:
>In <e9b03d3c.04060...@posting.google.com>
> glo...@yahoo.com (Gerald L. O'Barr) wrote:
>>In
>><844a1b64.04060...@posting.google.com>
>> re...@asu.edu (Patrick Reany) wrote:
>>>
> <deletes by O'Barr>
Reany wrote:
> . . . PV=nRT is
>a fiction built out the fiction of an ideal gas.
>Yet it has some domain of applicability. Bravo for
>it! That's what theoretical physics is all about:
>Fictions that work.
Gerald L. O'Barr <glo...@yahoo.com> comments:
Yes, just like all things are uncertain, and there
is nothing that we really know! But Reany, as any
thinking person knows, everything can be carried to
excess! And you are taking these things to excess!
YES, PV=nRT could, in a way, be what you say. But
what you must admit is that there is fiction, and
there is fiction, and not all fiction is the same.
Not all fiction is equal fiction! And out of all the
possible fiction that there might be, PV=nRT is the
least of all fiction. It is one of the most rock
solid and sure theory that exists, being a physical
theory!
And no thinking individual would say what you say,
no matter what you might demand! And the goal for
science is not to find fiction, but to find truth!
Fiction that works might be fiction, but that which
truly works might not be fiction. After all, Reany,
how would you really know that it was friction or
not, if we really do not really know anything? You
are just a foolish philosopher, and should not be on
this net!
Therefore, you are caught in your own lie. If we
really do not know things, then you have no right to
say that everything is just fiction. You have
violated your own philosophy. That is exactly what
you deserve, since you do not hold up your philosophy
to verification. And because of this, your ideas are
of no worth!
<deletes by O'Barr>
O'Barr wrote:
>> . . . So almost all of
>> your assumptions here are incorrect.
Reany wrote:
>Not according to the computations I followed for it.
>You see, this is precisely why I went into that long
>discussion of LICs, which obviously you either
>didn't read or didn't grasp if you did read it.
O'Barr comments:
Obviously! And obviously you did not subject
your assumptions to any kind of a scientific test to
verify all these assumptions. And so, as I have been
pointing out to you, what you end up saying and
believing is therefore worthless!
Reany wrote:
> I specifically said that an LIC is NOT necessarily
>ONLY "true" on the assertion of just one set of
>conditions. You probably still don't get it.
O'Barr comments:
What I did get was that you are doing nothing to
confirm your positions, and thus you have nothing of
value to present on a scientific net!
Reany wrote:
>Just the same, it isn't my point to argue the merits
>of the ideal gas theory -- that misses the point.
O'Barr comments:
But with science, this is exactly what can be
done: We can argue the merits of PV=nRT, and make a
correct scientific assessment! And we thus know that
PV=nRT has had a multitude of independent
verifications, such that it can no longer be
reasonable doubted. Being a physical theory, the
physical base is even further verified by setting the
correct limits to the math.
And thus, I say again, that your assessment of
this relationship is therefore wrong (it is not
fiction), and you should understand that this
relationship, being a physical relationship, is
different from F=ma, or some of the other
relationships you showed that were only math. And if
you were a man, you would admit your errors!
Thanks for reading.
Gerald L. O'Barr <glo...@yahoo.com>
Reany, why don't you start to do something
important, like giving me the help I need?
You know me, and you know my positions fairly
well. And you could be of help, if you would.
Why not be right for a change? You would feel
good, and so would I!
Patrick Reany
> On 11 Jun 2004 09:15:41 -0700, re...@asu.edu (Patrick Reany) wrote:
> >If you feel compelled to reify the models in physical theories, please
> >claim to do so within your personal natural philosophies, and not
> >burden physics with your irrelevant dogmas.
>
> Physical theories try to form a picture of reality...
The phrase "picture of reality" is vague. To me, physical theories try
to explain a large set of physical behavior with few assumptions, and
behavior is always at the scale attainable by our measuring
instruments. Physical theories are NOT about discovering "deep
reality."
> We want the
> observed facts to follow logically from our concept of reality.
> Without the belief that it is possible to grasp the reality with our
> theoretical constructions, without the belief in the inner harmony of
> our world, there could be no science. This belief is and always will
> remain the fundamental motive for all scientific creation.
> Einstein and Infeld, "The Evolution of Physics"
A typical Einstein phrase from out of his personal natural philosophy.
But when he spoke as a physicist, pure and simple, he said this:
Physical concepts are free creations of the human mind,
and are not, however it may seem, uniquely determined by
the external world.
--- The Evolution of Physics, Einstein & Infeld,
Touchstone, 1938, p31.
The belief in inner harmony does not demand uniqueness of theories in
responce to empirical data. There is also the fact that Einstein
promoted logical economy -- the choice of the smallest set of axioms
that will get the job done -- as a basic principle of his formal point
of view:
The scientific way of forming concepts differs
from that which we use in our daily life, not basically,
but merely in the more precise definition of concepts
and conclusions; more painstaking and systematic choice
of experimental material; and greater logical economy.
By this last we mean the effort to reduce all concepts
and correlations to as few as possible logically independent
basic concepts and axioms.
[Found in: Ideas and Opinions, The Fundament of
Theoretical Physics, p. 324.]
But logical economy has no logical relationship to scientifc realism.
>
> > The typical Western student graduates knowing a little bit of
> > science...
>
> What other kind of science education is there besides "Western"?
I said "Western student" not "Western science." There may well be
other kinds of science education besides "Western" science education
but I don't care about them. Dealing with the West is a big enough
task for me.
> By
> focusing your criticism on "Western scientific education" you imply
> that there is some other (non-Western) tradition of scientific
> education, and yet you never identify this other tradition. (Eastern?
> Marxist?)
I imply no damn such thing. That is fallacious thinking. It apparently
never even occurred to you that I simply do not feel confident to
speak for cultures that I have no direct experience with. That's your
fallacy trip up.
Patrick
Rod Lassiter
>... To me... Physical theories are NOT about discovering "deep reality."
I know that's your belief. I was merely pointing out that the author
of the book you so often cite strongly disagreed with your point of
view.
Physical theories try to form a picture of reality. We want the
observed facts to follow logically from our concept of reality.
Without the belief that it is possible to grasp the reality with our
theoretical constructions, without the belief in the inner harmony of
our world, there could be no science. This belief is and always will
remain the fundamental motive for all scientific creation.
Einstein and Infeld, "The Evolution of Physics"
This is neither vague nor ambiguous in its direct contradiction of
the view that you espouse. It shows that you have fundamentally
misunderstood all the other quotations that you trot out repeatedly.
That our conceptions of the world are under-determined by our
experience is self-evident and not in dispute. That the creation of
scientific theories involves choices and creativity is also well known
and not in dispute. But these facts do not amount to a rejection
of realism, although they do undermine the sophomoric kind of
realism that is perhaps the only form of realism which someone
like you is able to conceive of. In any case, the irony here is that
Einstein is FAMOUS for his stubborn adherence to realism ("do you
really believe the moon isn't there when you aren't looking at it?")
In his decades of debate with Bohr, Einstein was the advocate of
realism in physics. For you to cite Einstein as an opponent of
realism is simply idiotic.
>But logical economy has no logical relationship to scientifc realism.
You are very wrong about this. Throughout the history of science the
belief in "logical economy" was often explicitly motivated by
theological ideas about the perfection of God, "who does nothing in
vain", and so on. The criteria of simplicity and economy are among
the best examples of the belief in scientific realism, because we have
no reason to think the universe is simple or behaves according to
economical rules - no reason at all, except for the metaphysical faith
in the inner harmony and simplicity of nature. Of course, there is an
element of "lamp post logic" here, i.e., we might as well search for
our car keys under the lamp post, because if they aren't there, we
won't be able to see them anyway. I can't say it any better than
this:
Without the belief that it is possible to grasp the reality
with our theoretical constructions, without the belief in
the inner harmony of our world, there could be no science.
>> What other kind of science education is there besides "Western"?
>
>I said "Western student" not "Western science."
Excuse me, but the subject of your post is "Once upon a time in
Western science education".
>There may well be other kinds of science education besides "Western"
>science education but I don't care about them.
There may well be? So you don't actually know of any other kind of
science education besides "western". Furthermore, you don't CARE if
there is any other. So this brings us back to the question: Why the
emphasis on "Western"? The point I'm trying to convey to you is that
your use of that word is inappropriate and meaningless. It's like
entitling a paper "The Failure of Scientic Education on Earth". It
is bound to raise the question in the reader's mind of why you
specifically refer to the Earth. It suggests that you are some kind
of alien creature from another planet, or that you're advocating the
adoption of Pluto's educational system here on Earth.
> Dealing with the West is a big enough task for me.
That sentence makes me smile for some reason.
>It apparently never even occurred to you that I simply do not feel
>confident to speak for cultures that I have no direct experience with.
>That's your fallacy trip up.
You surely can't claim direct experience of the entire Western
culture, or of the entirety of scientific education within the
confines of what you regard as "the West". If you're really
concerned to avoid talking about things of which you have no
"direct experience", then you ought to specify that you are only
talking about the high school and college classes that you
attended, and the text books that you have read. Those don't
span the entirety of Western culture. It's entirely possible (I would
even say likely) that you had a particularly poor education.
Patrick Reany
> On 12 Jun 2004 08:25:37 -0700, re...@asu.edu (Patrick Reany) wrote:
> >... To me... Physical theories are NOT about discovering "deep reality."
>
> I know that's your belief. I was merely pointing out that the author
> of the book you so often cite strongly disagreed with your point of
> view.
>
> Physical theories try to form a picture of reality. We want the
> observed facts to follow logically from our concept of reality.
> Without the belief that it is possible to grasp the reality with our
> theoretical constructions, without the belief in the inner harmony of
> our world, there could be no science. This belief is and always will
> remain the fundamental motive for all scientific creation.
> Einstein and Infeld, "The Evolution of Physics"
First, I have no commitment to ALWAYS agree with Einstein. I have
openly disagreed with some of his beliefs before. So what?
Second, if you insist that I am in contradiction to Einstein's
doctrines in the above quotation (which, BTW you should have included
the page number!), then prove it by provinding a definition of
"reality" that contradicts my instrumentalist views. I will offer this
definition of "reality" which Einstein meant: Reality in physics is
whatever is objective (intersubjective) in the science, and that is
only the vetted laws of physics. Therefore, what Einstein sought for
was the smallest set of physical laws by which all events of the
material realm could be predicted given certain initial/boundary
conditions. You can change the theories in vogue in physics, but the
laws of physics remain. Accomplish that, and Einstein would have been
happy with it. (That would include, of course, no Copenhagen QM in
it!)
Third, Einstein's search for a complete foundation to physics was his
personal search. He did not expect universal agreement on what the end
product of his search would be, nor did he care. His search was
personal.
Fourth, how can anyone believe that knowledge of deep reality can be
attained if physical concepts are free creations of the human mind,
and are NOT uniquely determined by the external world of sensations?
If anything, you're not proving me wrong, you're just proving Einstein
to be conflicted in his beliefs. I simply interpret Einstein to
consistacize all his beliefs as best as I can. This is in way of
providing him the benefit of the doubt.
Fifth, what do you suppose Einstein meant by "inner harmony of our
world"? I suppose he meant exactly this: That there are principles
which underlie even the most different appearing phenomena. Look at
what Einstein claimed as his prime example of inner harmony, the Pure
Principle of Relativity, which holds that for all conceivable
purposes, all inertial frames of reference are equivalent to all other
inertial frames of reference (this is much stronger constraint on
theory building than mere Lorentz covariance of the laws of
electrodynamics). It was this faith that led Einstein away from LET to
SR, because LET required an absolute velocity space that Newton's
mechanics did not need. To Einstein, to require an absolute velocity
in LET and not in Newton's mechanics is just "unharmonious."
>
> This is neither vague nor ambiguous in its direct contradiction of
> the view that you espouse. It shows that you have fundamentally
> misunderstood all the other quotations that you trot out repeatedly.
Fallacy, as usual. Keep your critisisms focused and you'll be less
likely to fall into fallacious arguements.
> That our conceptions of the world are under-determined by our
> experience is self-evident and not in dispute. That the creation of
> scientific theories involves choices and creativity is also well known
> and not in dispute. But these facts do not amount to a rejection
> of realism, although they do undermine the sophomoric kind of
> realism that is perhaps the only form of realism which someone
> like you is able to conceive of. In any case, the irony here is that
> Einstein is FAMOUS for his stubborn adherence to realism ("do you
> really believe the moon isn't there when you aren't looking at it?")
> In his decades of debate with Bohr, Einstein was the advocate of
> realism in physics. For you to cite Einstein as an opponent of
> realism is simply idiotic.
I maintain that your notion of realism and Einstein's notion of it are
two very different things!
>
> >But logical economy has no logical relationship to scientifc realism.
>
> You are very wrong about this. Throughout the history of science the
> belief in "logical economy" was often explicitly motivated by
> theological ideas about the perfection of God, "who does nothing in
> vain", and so on.
You are making an explicitly teleological, NOT logical, argument. It
is quite possible that the real world made by God is more complicated
than any theory invented by those looking for simplicity could ever
come up with. Those who count on simplicity may in fact have gone the
wrong, and may take science the wrong way with it. Believing that the
world runs on simple principles doesn't make it so. The world acts
independently of our wishes and prejudices. The belief in simplicity
is part of an unprovable formal point of view.
> The criteria of simplicity and economy are among
> the best examples of the belief in scientific realism, because we have
> no reason to think the universe is simple or behaves according to
> economical rules - no reason at all, except for the metaphysical faith
> in the inner harmony and simplicity of nature.
Completely illogical, as usual.
[snip]
>
> > Dealing with the West is a big enough task for me.
>
> That sentence makes me smile for some reason.
>
> >It apparently never even occurred to you that I simply do not feel
> >confident to speak for cultures that I have no direct experience with.
> >That's your fallacy trip up.
>
> You surely can't claim direct experience of the entire Western
> culture,
Of course I can't. But without the abilty to act on generalizations
there would be no science either.
> or of the entirety of scientific education within the
> confines of what you regard as "the West". If you're really
> concerned to avoid talking about things of which you have no
> "direct experience", then you ought to specify that you are only
> talking about the high school and college classes that you
> attended, and the text books that you have read. Those don't
> span the entirety of Western culture. It's entirely possible (I would
> even say likely) that you had a particularly poor education.
I did indeed, as I have admitted to repeatedly. But I did something
proactive get go beyond the crappy science education given to me by
the science establishment. Why haven't you?
Patrick
Patrick Reany
> YES, PV=nRT could, in a way, be what you say. But
> what you must admit is that there is fiction, and
> there is fiction, and not all fiction is the same.
> Not all fiction is equal fiction! And out of all the
> possible fiction that there might be, PV=nRT is the
> least of all fiction. It is one of the most rock
> solid and sure theory that exists, being a physical
> theory!
> And no thinking individual would say what you say,
> no matter what you might demand! And the goal for
> science is not to find fiction, but to find truth!
As far as I'm concerned, it takes truth to declare truth. Science does
not start off with truth and thus can never claim to arrive at truth.
> Fiction that works might be fiction, but that which
> truly works might not be fiction. After all, Reany,
> how would you really know that it was friction or
> not, if we really do not really know anything? You
> are just a foolish philosopher, and should not be on
> this net!
It is the formal point of view of this foolish philosopher that
science is whatever it can claim it can prove it can accomplish, and
what it can prove is that it can find the laws of physics. It is the
practice of this foolish philosopher to follow the instrumentalist
dogma that all physical concepts in physics have the formal status as
"fictions." It is the job of physics to find those fictions that are
useful for the invention of theories that work. If an instrumentalist
could prove that a physical concept is or isn't a fiction, then he or
she wouldn't need to be an instrumentalist! Instrumentalists think
that it's just more honest and less arrogant to quit bragging about
finding "deep reality" through science.
[snip]
>
>
> Thanks for reading.
> Gerald L. O'Barr <glo...@yahoo.com>
>
>
> Reany, why don't you start to do something
> important, like giving me the help I need?
> You know me, and you know my positions fairly
> well. And you could be of help, if you would.
> Why not be right for a change? You would feel
> good, and so would I!
What Einstein said for himself, I say for myself as well:
"It is open to every man to choose the direction of
his striving" (The Common Language of Science,
Ideas and Opinions, Three Rivers Press, p. 337).
Patrick
Bilge
>> >... To me... Physical theories are NOT about discovering "deep reality."
>>
>> I know that's your belief. I was merely pointing out that the author
>> of the book you so often cite strongly disagreed with your point of
>> view.
>>
>> Physical theories try to form a picture of reality. We want the
>> observed facts to follow logically from our concept of reality.
>> Without the belief that it is possible to grasp the reality with our
>> theoretical constructions, without the belief in the inner harmony of
>> our world, there could be no science. This belief is and always will
>> remain the fundamental motive for all scientific creation.
>> Einstein and Infeld, "The Evolution of Physics"
>
>First, I have no commitment to ALWAYS agree with Einstein. I have
>openly disagreed with some of his beliefs before. So what?
breach of contract, don't say you weren't warned.
>Second, if you insist that I am in contradiction to Einstein's
>doctrines in the above quotation (which, BTW you should have included
>the page number!), then prove it by provinding a definition of
Define ``page number''.
[...]
>Fourth, how can anyone believe that knowledge of deep reality can be
>attained if physical concepts are free creations of the human mind,
>and are NOT uniquely determined by the external world of sensations?
Why do think physical concepts can't be uniquely determined? For
example, when you say ``page number'' how do I know you mean the same
thing that other people mean by ``page nymber'' if ``page number is a free
creation of the human mind and isn't a uniquely defined physical concept
which has any reality to the actual physical organization of a book? Is it
the page containing the number `2' or is the second page, which might be
numbered iv, or perhaps even the back of the title page which doesn't have
a number? This reality stuff is really confusing.
[*blah blah blah, snipped*]
Gerald L. O'Barr
>glo...@yahoo.com (Gerald L. O'Barr) wrote:
>>In <844a1b64.04061...@posting.google.com>
>>re...@asu.edu (Patrick Reany) wrote:
>>>
Gerald L. O'Barr <glo...@yahoo.com> wrote: . . .
>> YES, PV=nRT could, in a way, be what you say. But
>> what you must admit is that there is fiction, and
>> there is fiction, and not all fiction is the same.
>> Not all fiction is equal fiction! And out of all
>> the possible fiction that there might be, PV=nRT
>> is the least of all fiction. It is one of the
>> most rock solid and sure theory that exists, being
>> a physical theory!
>> And no thinking individual would say what you
>> say, no matter what you might demand! And the
>> goal for science is not to find fiction, but to
>> find truth!
Reany wrote:
>As far as I'm concerned, it takes truth to declare
>truth. Science does not start off with truth and
>thus can never claim to arrive at truth.
O'Barr comments:
What is this? Is this more philosophy? More
philosophy that has never been verified? What theory
is all this nonsense based upon? What series of
testing was done to verify your assumptions? With
how many 'nines' were you able to confirm all this?
Reany, you might be right, but you will never be
right just by saying it is right! You must provide
the evidence in order to present your claim, if you
are going to be scientific.
In science, there are assumptions made, that our
reality is based upon fixed, knowable, and repeatable
laws. And thus testing can be done to confirm any
assumption. These basic assumptions are verified
every time science is successful in going one step
deeper, in achieving another success in our ability
to control the reality around us. So we have
evidence in our position. We have tons of evidence.
Where is your evidence? It just does not exist!
O'Barr wrote:
>> Fiction that works might be fiction, but that
>>which truly works might not be fiction. After all,
>>Reany, how would you really know that it was
>>friction or not, if we really do not really know
>>anything? You are just a foolish philosopher, and
>>should not be on this net!
Reany wrote:
>It is the formal point of view of this foolish
>philosopher that science is whatever it can claim it
>can prove it can accomplish, and what it can prove
>is that it can find the laws of physics. It is the
>practice of this foolish philosopher to follow the
>instrumentalist dogma that all physical concepts in
>physics have the formal status as "fictions." It is
>the job of physics to find those fictions that are
>useful for the invention of theories that work. If
>an instrumentalist could prove that a physical
>concept is or isn't a fiction, then he or she
>wouldn't need to be an instrumentalist!
>Instrumentalists think that it's just more honest
>and less arrogant to quit bragging about finding
>"deep reality" through science.
O'Barr comments:
Very well said. But just as you are being careful
about what science can do, why are you not being
careful about the weaknesses of your 'dogma'? It
seems to me that you would rather always be foolish,
rather than to just sometimes be wrong.
In other words, you have chosen a very weak
position, just to gain a very small reward. After
all, if you just never bothered to do science at all,
that would also insure that you would never make a
mistake. Wouldn't that be achieving the same goal?
[snip]
>>
>>
>> Thanks for reading.
>> Gerald L. O'Barr <glo...@yahoo.com>
>>
>>
>> Reany, why don't you start to do something
>> important, like giving me the help I need?
>> You know me, and you know my positions fairly
>> well. And you could be of help, if you would.
>> Why not be right for a change? You would feel
>> good, and so would I!
Reany wrote:
>What Einstein said for himself, I say for myself as
>well:
>
> "It is open to every man to choose the direction
> of his striving" (The Common Language of Science,
> Ideas and Opinions, Three Rivers Press, p. 337).
Joshua (and O'Barr's) comments:
'........ But as for me and my house, .....'
Gerald
Gerald L. O'Barr
In <844a1b64.04061...@posting.google.com>
<deletes by O'Barr>
O'Barr story of the wall.
This is a very long story, but I am going to make
it as short as possible. There were two men, a
physicist and a mathematician. The physicist said
there was this wall, and he needed to know the length
of this wall. The mathematician convinced the
physicist that he was an expert mathematician, and
would measure the length of the wall for him.
After a few days, the physicist asked the
mathematician if he had measured the wall yet. The
mathematician said, 'Yes, I measured the length of
the wall. I measured it the very first day. But I
am a very exact and a very careful person, and so I
had its length measured by an independent person just
to be sure I was right. These two values were not
exactly the same. So now I believe I have to use an
average length, and I am left with a very large
uncertainty in the actual length. So I plan to do
more measurements.' The physicist said 'Fine, let me
know when you are satisfied with your efforts.'
After a whole week had passed, the physicist asked
the mathematician why he hadn't reported on his
results. The mathematician threw up his hands. He
said that he had the wall measured hundreds of times,
and according to his math, he will never get the
uncertainty to go to zero. The mathematician was now
convinced that he could not tell anyone the exact
length of the wall. In fact, the mathematician was
now of the belief that we could not even believe that
the wall itself existed. If the wall itself did not
really exist, that would explain why its length did
not exist!
Now as you can see, the physicist was not happy
over all this. The mathematician was now saying that
the existing of the wall itself was in doubt. Yet
the physicist knew that the mathematician could not
have even made the first measurement if the wall
didn't exist. So what did the physicist do? The
physicist just walked away, and the mathematician has
now taken over and continues to this day to believe
that nothing is really true, nothing really exists,
everything is just fiction.
I am sorry for you, Reany. Your position might be
understandable to other philosophers. Anyone,
especially philosophers, can make up fairy tales.
But wisdom and common sense says that you are running
away from reality, and you have no business being on
this net. This net is not for philosophers. And
starting now, this net is also not for SR experts,
who have also sold their souls to the wrong religion!
LET is superior to SR, and we now all know why!
Patrick Reany
I don't mind you insulting my position -- after all, newsgroup posters
deriving pleasure from insulting other posters is the main
entertainment of their lives. I do mind, however, that you
misrepresent my position. But, after all this time, if you still can't
get me, you never will. It's hopeless to try to disabuse you of your
ignorant beliefs, as you have a closed mind.
There is no greater fairy tale than the mass continuum, yet you do not
deride it, do you? The point mass particle is a chimera of infinity.
OK by you, right? The rigid body doesn't seem to bother you, although
it's a phantasm from day one. Fairy tales all. But you ignore all
that.
The truth is that there is no such thing as a wall with an exact
length! So, if you force your mathematician to look for something that
doesn't exist, he won't find it. Your mathematician found a real
object, to be sure, but not a "wall" as he understood it to mean! If
you define a wall as something whose length is determinate only up to
a certain degree of approximation, then he might have succeeded in
measuring that length. I'm sure you still don't get it, do you. Your
mathematician came to the correct conclusion: There is no real such
thing as the idealized "wall of fixed length," for if you can measure
it as precisely as is needed, the measurements will not come out
consistently to be a single number. Therefore, there is no such thing
as a "wall" so defined.
You just don't understand the distinction between a real thing and a
model of a real thing used in a theory. The model is a fiction, an
idealization. When you say:
the mathematician has now taken over and continues to
this day to believe that nothing is really true,
nothing really exists, everything is just fiction
it reveals that you have NOT been paying close attention to me at all,
dammit. After all these years, too. I NEVER claimed that real things
are fictions. I claimed that our anthropomorphic idealizations of them
which are invented in the form of physical concepts, and which are use
to represent real things in physical theories, are fictions.
Patrick
Patrick Reany
O'Barr, you are really amazing. You had a very SIMPLE challenge to
complete to PROVE me wrong. And that was to just produce the truths
that science starts off with, but you didn't do so. How do we know
that any form of human effort can produce truth of reality? BTW, the
use of induction to arrive at laws does not give us truth. On top of
that, our laws are couched in terms of anthropomorphic variables,
whose connection to truthful reality is unknown and probably forever
unknowable. When did Nature ever come down to the halls of science and
say, "Hey you guys, I've been watching what variables you use and how
you put them together to forms laws, and I just wanted to let you know
that you're exactly right on! And those physical models you've
invented to represent the physical world -- they are to die for. Yes,
indeed, you've successfully reverse-engineered Deep Reality!
Congratulations."
Morally speaking, mistakes are tolerable; arrogance is not!
>
> [snip]
>
> >>
> >>
> >> Thanks for reading.
> >> Gerald L. O'Barr <glo...@yahoo.com>
> >>
> >>
> >> Reany, why don't you start to do something
> >> important, like giving me the help I need?
> >> You know me, and you know my positions fairly
> >> well. And you could be of help, if you would.
> >> Why not be right for a change? You would feel
> >> good, and so would I!
>
> Reany wrote:
> >What Einstein said for himself, I say for myself as
> >well:
> >
> > "It is open to every man to choose the direction
> > of his striving" (The Common Language of Science,
> > Ideas and Opinions, Three Rivers Press, p. 337).
>
> Joshua (and O'Barr's) comments:
> '........ But as for me and my house, .....'
>
>
> Gerald
Patrick
Daniel Weston
accurately stated some aspect of reality. But note the obverse of that
coin, something that Patrick ignores. And that is, that we can never be
sure that some of what we have defined as part of reality, is not in
fact absolutely correct.
Therefore the statement or inference that all of realty is unknowable in
an absolute sense, is false.
Daniel Weston
is incapable of distinguishing between metaphysics and epistemology."
of me failing to distinguish between metaphysics and epistemology, is
about the same as Tom Roberts failing to distinguish between algebra and
geometry.
Patrick, tell us when, or wrt what issue, I showed any incapacity of
distinguishing between metaphysics and epistemology.
p.s. Patrick has such a muddled headed understanding of metaphysics and
epistemology, that I doubt that he will even bother to answer this
challenge.
Patrick Reany
I am accused quite often of "talking philosophy" on this newsgroup,
yet I at least try to keep the discussion within the boundaries of the
philosophy of science. This is a perfect example of my opponent
"talking philosophy" rather than me. This is not too surprising,
however, as my opponents are wont to adopt fallacious arguments left
and right.
How is it that my discussion of my personal standards of knowledge
about the physical realm which I connected to my claims of what ought
to be the standard of knowledge used in science (along instrumentalist
lines), has been generalized by the nitwit Weston to a standard of
knowledge for all purposes enforced on everyone. I have never made
such a proposal!
Weston would have you adopt as a dogma of knowledge a class of truth
which is "admittedly uncertain yet unprovably absolutely true anyway."
Where's that going to get science? He hasn't even offered a criteria
to distinguish truths that are in this class from truths that are not.
And even if he did, what good is this distinction to science?
Weston seems to need to clarify what it is he really means when he
says he "knows" something. He seems to have some funny ideas about
this. Science is not the place to have funny ideas about truth. All
science needs as a standard of truth to make knowledge claims is the
minimum criteria of "truth" that will get the job done. (The job being
the production of scientific laws.) The standard should be clear and
agreeable to millions of people called scientists. The ultimate output
of "truth" in science are the laws of science -- those invariable
relationships on values and/or events which are 1) empirically
determined (nomological) and/or 2) conceptually determined by free
invention within a theoretical context (prescriptive), such as the
wave function of QM.
There is no purpose in contemplating the possible existence of
"absolute truth" obscured so that we can't recognize it as such,
especially in science. If we don't have empirical criteria to decide
when truth is or isn't "absolute," it's pointless (because it's
scientifically meaningless) to try to bring the concept into science
(a form of verificationism). The fact that a concept might have
meaning to an individual is no justification by itself for bringing
that concept into science. There are two reasons for this: First,
science is minimalistic because it needs to be founded on the common
acceptance of dogmas and principles which are acceptable to millions
of people of various mutually conflicting beliefs. Science works
because it has found a way to find that small but effective set of
shared beliefs within the intersection of those thousands of beliefs
about what is real and what is true. Scientists accept this foundation
because they reserve for themselves the right to hold beliefs which
are in addition to, or even contrary to, the doctrines of science.
Second, every concept added to science has to carry its own weight,
sotospeak. No concept or dogma that adds nothing to the creation of
the laws of science has any place in science.
Weston is free to formulate for his personal epistemology any personal
standard of "absolute truth" that suits his fancy. But what seems to
satisfy his delusions of truth should not be enforced on science. Now,
let's get one thing clear. Weston is not a jerk just because he has
his own "delusions of truth." We all have our own "delusions of
truth." Weston is a jerk because he makes fallacious arguments. My
point is that we should keep science free of our collective "delusions
of truth." It seems to me that one motive to have science ratify our
personal "delusions of truth" is that we would then no longer have to
take personal responsibility for them. That's cowardly. Let's keep
science out of the Politics of Truth.
My main point is to argue that SCIENCE should adopt this standard of
knowledge: The scientific method provides us with a reasonable basis
to believe as a form of foreknowledge that the laws of science work
faithfully. I do not, however, even claim that all that is worth
knowing is embodied in the laws of science. Science is in the
prediction game. It pretends that its laws of empirical content are
necessary truths, but we humans "know" better, which is why I claim
that we hold to our beliefs in the laws of science as "reasonable,"
not as absolute.
It seems to me that we can assign two distinct meanings to the
adjective "absolute" in this context:
A law is "absolute" means that
1) although the law is manifestly in terms of anthropomorphic
variables whose relationship to "deep reality" is unknowable, the law
itself, as a constaint on those variables, is a necessary truth for
all time; or
2) not only is the law a necessary truth for all time, its variables
are metaphysical truths of deep reality (pure dogma out of scientific
realism).
Epistemology is a tradiational rational inquiry that recognizes that
there is a potential infinite number of criteria to declare truth.
What it studies is the logical structure of those justifications for
truth. It is able to work best on justifications which are "rational"
in some sense. It uses standard techniques of analysis in philosophy:
It looks at the
1) the concinnity, consistency, clarity, necessity,
simplicity, and verifibility of systems of criteria
for making knowledge claims, and
2) how well the actual claims conform to the stated
criteria.
In short, epistemology is the justification of knowledge claims.
Patrick
Patrick Reany
Patrick Reany
Gerald L. O'Barr
In <844a1b64.04061...@posting.google.com>
re...@asu.edu (Patrick Reany) wrote:
>In <e9b03d3c.04061...@posting.google.com>
>glo...@yahoo.com (Gerald L. O'Barr) wrote:
>>
<deletes by O'Barr>
Reany wrote:
> O'Barr, you are really amazing. You had a very
>SIMPLE challenge to complete to PROVE me wrong. And
>that was to just produce the truths that science
>starts off with, but you didn't do so. How do we
>know that any form of human effort can produce truth
>of reality?
Gerald L. O'Barr <glo...@yahoo.com> comments:
For most of us, success is a valid indicator of
our success. And we really do have an extensive
record of successes. Truth can be easily
established, beyond all reasonable doubt, when you
have multiplicity of support for any one point. This
multiplicity of support includes all kinds of
correlations, both on the physical level, and on the
math level, on the limits, on the connections with
other theories, and with the results of specific
tests. And there really have been many points of
reality that have been established beyond any
reasonable doubt.
Anyone who has studied statistics knows that when
you have a theory that is based upon a physical base,
and the physical base is verified, and the math that
comes from that physical base is verified, and when
other theories are derived from that base that are
also verified, that you soon reach a point where to
disbelieve would be mathematically unacceptable.
Reany wrote:
>BTW, the use of induction to arrive at laws does not
>give us truth. On top of that, our laws are couched
>in terms of anthropomorphic variables, whose
>connection to truthful reality is unknown and
>probably forever unknowable.
O'Barr comments:
The use of induction to arrive at laws does not
give us truth? Is it guaranteed not to give us the
truth, or nothing correct? To take what you say,
word for word, would be insane! What theory are you
using to prove all this? How many times has it been
tested? You see, Reany, what you might have said,
was that you might know of one or two times when an
induction did not lead to the truth. But for you to
say what you say, in a general way, is nonsense!
Possibly you are thinking that there might be one
chance out of a million that what we think we know
might not be right?
What I see you doing, is taking some way out
possibility, and building it up to be some impossible
monster, when in reality things might really be
exactly what we think they are. The evidence is
strongly the way I am saying, and there is very
little support for your way of thinking. Can't you
be more honest in all this?
Reany wrote:
> ... When did Nature ever
>come down to the halls of science and say, "Hey you
>guys, I've been watching what variables you use and
>how you put them together to forms laws, and I just
>wanted to let you know that you're exactly right on!
>And those physical models you've invented to
>represent the physical world -- they are to die for.
>Yes, indeed, you've successfully reverse-engineered
>Deep Reality! Congratulations."
O'Barr comments:
Well, nature of course never comes to us, nor does
nature ever talks to us. But nature cannot prevent
us form probing her at any and every point that might
exists. And she cannot run away. And we are able to
force her to react exactly the same way every time.
This gives us power, great power, and with such
powers we can succeed. And we have succeeded. And
we see no limit yet in doing this over and over.
Only success can be seen for the future!
<deletes by O'Barr>
Reany wrote:
>Morally speaking, mistakes are tolerable; arrogance
>is not!
O'Barr comments:
However correct you might be with this specific
thought, be sure to understand that having hope is
not arrogance. Confidence is not arrogance.
Assurance that is based upon testing and knowledge is
not arrogance. Arrogance is assuming that something
is known, based upon pride, based upon things upon
which one should not use as a base for knowing. But
there is nothing wrong with assuming that one knows
something, if there has been a proper series of tests
to confirm this knowledge, and an effort made to
understand and relate this knowledge to other already
known facts. You need to be more flexible in what
you see in others. Not everyone is misusing the
information they have.
Gerald L. O'Barr
re...@asu.edu (Patrick Reany) wrote:
>In <e9b03d3c.0406...@posting.google.com>> . . . there is no such thing as a wall with an
> exact length!
Gerald L. O'Barr <glo...@yahoo.com> comments:
And now I must cry a thousand tears! You do not
seem to understand the things that were presented in
the last post. And it was such a perfect post! What
would be better to say, Reany, is that we know for
sure that there are walls, and we know for sure that
each wall must have an exact length at any one
instant of time, but we have not yet learned how to
make a perfect measurement of these walls. This is
just as perfect, and just as able to be said, as what
you say. We need to be more careful in what we say,
since we do not really know that what you want to say
is correct.
O'Barr comments:
What we have here is really a two-way street.
Obviously there really are real objects. And
obviously we have models to represent these real
objects. The models are only models, and being
models, they are normally simpler than the real
objects they represent. There are both advantages
and disadvantages to this. Being simpler, math
calculations can be used with models, and results
obtained, that might not be easily done with the real
object. The disadvantages are, the results might not
be adequate for all purposes.
But, as said, there is a two way street here.
Reany is accusing me of taking a model, the taking of
an x, y, z model, and requiring or expecting reality
to be this model. But this same mistake is also made
by SR experts. There are many who take their math
models, and assume that reality is the math contained
in their models. As an example, if their model
contains a certain geometry, then they assume realty
is this same geometry. If their math can be put into
a 4-D form, then they conclude that reality is 4-D.
They make no effort to separate their modeling from
the reality that the model is representing.
Therefore, Reany, you are right. What I hope
will happen, is that you will also see that the SR
experts have the same problem as you thought you saw
in me. And we also need to understand that not all
models are equal. Some models are closer to a
representation of reality than others. You can have
a math approach that involves an infinite sum. This
might produce a correct mimic of some real thing, but
you know that nothing real consists of an infinite
sum. So the type of modeling that is done can be
just as important as the accuracy of the modeling.
And when we begin to consider these kinds of things,
then we are ready to compare SR with LET.
This is so important, that I want to say it again.
As physicists, we must clearly and exactingly keep
separate what we know about the model being used, and
the reality that that model is representing. And we
must know that some models are better than others.
If all we have is a math model, then we know that
such a model is not reliable, not always helpful, in
helping us to understand the reality being modeled.
But where we have a physical model, upon which to
build, we know this often makes things easier.
However, we also know that physical models are almost
always a simplification of the reality being
represented. And thus we must always exercise great
care. But every effort must be made to make the best
guess we can of the actual reality, because this
understanding is critical in being able to determine
the best approach to the next level. It is
important, and critical, that we scientifically
discuss this point, as to what the actual reality is,
as it is modeled by the best theories we presently
have.
Daniel Weston
distinguishing between metaphysics and epistemology.
Patrick Reany
>
> In <844a1b64.04061...@posting.google.com>
> re...@asu.edu (Patrick Reany) wrote:
> >In <e9b03d3c.0406...@posting.google.com>
> >glo...@yahoo.com (Gerald L. O'Barr) wrote:
> >>
>
> Reany wrote:
> > . . . there is no such thing as a wall with an
> > exact length!
>
> Gerald L. O'Barr <glo...@yahoo.com> comments:
> And now I must cry a thousand tears! You do not
> seem to understand the things that were presented in
> the last post. And it was such a perfect post! What
> would be better to say, Reany, is that we know for
> sure that there are walls, and we know for sure that
> each wall must have an exact length at any one
> instant of time,
In the first place, nobody makes a measurment in an instant of time.
In the second place, the whole point you want to make is undone
unless, not only is the length measureable precisely in any given
instant, but also that the length is invariant over time. Your
thought experiment was not so perfect as you seem to think it is.
I can invoke both QM and classical thermodynamics to claim that the
dimensions of the wall vary in time.
> but we have not yet learned how to
> make a perfect measurement of these walls. This is
> just as perfect, and just as able to be said, as what
> you say. We need to be more careful in what we say,
> since we do not really know that what you want to say
> is correct.
You are obsessed by the pursuit of perfection.
I agree.
> And
> obviously we have models to represent these real
> objects.
I agree.
> The models are only models, and being
> models, they are normally simpler than the real
> objects they represent.
I agree.
> There are both advantages
> and disadvantages to this. Being simpler, math
> calculations can be used with models, and results
> obtained, that might not be easily done with the real
> object. The disadvantages are, the results might not
> be adequate for all purposes.
I agree.
> But, as said, there is a two way street here.
> Reany is accusing me of taking a model, the taking of
> an x, y, z model, and requiring or expecting reality
> to be this model. But this same mistake is also made
> by SR experts. There are many who take their math
> models, and assume that reality is the math contained
> in their models.
I agree.
> As an example, if their model
> contains a certain geometry, then they assume realty
> is this same geometry. If their math can be put into
> a 4-D form, then they conclude that reality is 4-D.
> They make no effort to separate their modeling from
> the reality that the model is representing.
I agree.
> Therefore, Reany, you are right. What I hope
> will happen, is that you will also see that the SR
> experts have the same problem as you thought you saw
> in me. And we also need to understand that not all
> models are equal. Some models are closer to a
> representation of reality than others.
How do you define mathematically "closeness to reality" on models?
I'll get you started: Let CR be the "closeness to reality" measure
defined on all physical models, and let M and M' be any two physical
models, then CR(M) <= CR(M') if and only if .......?
> You can have
> a math approach that involves an infinite sum. This
> might produce a correct mimic of some real thing, but
> you know that nothing real consists of an infinite
> sum. So the type of modeling that is done can be
> just as important as the accuracy of the modeling.
> And when we begin to consider these kinds of things,
> then we are ready to compare SR with LET.
>
> This is so important, that I want to say it again.
> As physicists, we must clearly and exactingly keep
> separate what we know about the model being used, and
> the reality that that model is representing.
In the past you admitted that any model that in not mechanical is at
best a "math model" to you, and it is not a "realistic" model. But,
there is no proof that mechanical models are necessarily "realistic"
either. Isn't that just your personal dogma which you can't prove?
> And we
> must know that some models are better than others.
By what standard?
> If all we have is a math model, then we know that
> such a model is not reliable, not always helpful, in
> helping us to understand the reality being modeled.
To you, to "understand the reality" is uniquely in terms of mechanical
models, but that is a pure dogma.
> But where we have a physical model, upon which to
> build, we know this often makes things easier.
Easier does not equal more real.
> However, we also know that physical models are almost
> always a simplification of the reality being
> represented.
What do you mean by "reality"?
Patrick
Patrick Reany
Weston said:
In the above post Patrick Reany says: "As far as
I'm concerned, if I can't see or directly sense it,
I can't claim it really exists." This is vintage
Patrick Reany. He does not trust his brain to give
him valid information derived from inference,
deduction, induction, analysis, synthesis, and a few
other thinking techniques dating back to Aristotle.
Ignorant BS which I've already dealt with. You believe and even claim
to know something about metaphysical reality which supposedly your
"brain tells you," but you don't have an epistemology until you have a
specific standard of knowledge by which your knowledge claims are
decidable or not. Any moron can declare: "My brain, reacting to
sensory experiences, says it, that settles it as true!" And a moron
you'd have to be to accept that as an epistemology. Galileo disposed
of this "reasoning" as crap hundreds of years ago. I already told you
that. If we could trust our brains reacting to sensory experiences
ALONE there'd be virtually no such thing as misconceptions. Truth
according to the reptilian brain of Weston. The brain, unguided by
scientific theory, is very untrustworthy. One big difference between
my brain alone and my brain plus science is that science is the
product of many brains, so in a sense, I'm not alone in my attempt to
make sense of the world.
BTW, the music in the background as I write is Whitney Houston's song
"How Will I know?" She gets it!
Patrick
Patrick Reany
Weston said:
Daniel Weston
I confuse metaphysics and epistemology. He has given none.
He copied the post where this challenge was issued and immediately
thereafter copied another post that I had written, and then proceeded to
argue about the second post. This tactic fools no one.
Patrick, I again challenge you. Prove that I cannot tell the difference
between metaphysics and epistemology. If you cannot you are just a
cranky fool.
p.s. This whole business is ironic. It is Patrick that confuses
metaphysics and epistemology. He had them ass backwards in his home
post, and after several posts by me pointing that out, he finally and
grudgingly corrected them. Patrick is one confused pussy cat.
Gerald L. O'Barr
In <844a1b64.0406...@posting.google.com>
re...@asu.edu (Patrick Reany) wrote:
>In <e9b03d3c.04061...@posting.google.com>
> glo...@yahoo.com (Gerald L. O'Barr) wrote:
>> re...@asu.edu (Patrick Reany) wrote:
>>> . . .
O'Barr wrote: . . .
Reany wrote:
> I agree.
> I agree.
> I agree.
> I agree.
> I agree.
> I agree.
Gerald L. O'Barr <glo...@yahoo.com> comments:
I want you to know, Reany, that I appreciate all
these agreements. Even though you say you agree, I
am sure there are some small points where there could
be some disagreement. But on the whole, we do not
really differ. We do agree upon the facts. We do
disagree, however, on the attitude that we might take
with some of these facts.
But just looking at what you were so kind to say,
we are very much alike!
O'Barr wrote:
>> Therefore, Reany, you are right. What I hope
>> will happen, is that you will also see that the SR
>> experts have the same problem as you thought you
>> saw in me. And we also need to understand that
>> not all models are equal. Some models are closer
>> to a representation of reality than others.
Reany wrote:
>How do you define mathematically "closeness to
>reality" on models? I'll get you started: Let CR be
>the "closeness to reality" measure defined on all
>physical models, and let M and M' be any two
>physical models, then CR(M) <= CR(M') if and only if
>.......?
O'Barr comments:
Please do not get me started. I see no benefit
in 'solving' the above problem even if it were
possible. We do not have the theory of everything
yet. Therefore, we can not put flesh upon your above
request. But what we can do, and what we must do,
and what we usually do, is find or determine between
any two theories, which is the best! Which one
appears to be the most realistic, the most
reasonable, the most likely to help us to understand
the actual reality upon which we all agree exists!
Each situation takes a different turn. And we must
understand this. You cannot know ahead of time
exactly what set of facts are going to be the most
important. Live with it!
O'Barr wrote:
>> . . . the type of modeling that is done can be
>> just as important as the accuracy of the modeling.
>> And when we begin to consider these kinds of
>> things, then we are ready to compare SR with LET.
>
>> This is so important, that I want to say it again.
>> As physicists, we must clearly and exactingly keep
>> separate what we know about the model being used,
>> and the reality that that model is representing.
Reany wrote:
>In the past you admitted that any model that in not
>mechanical is at best a "math model" to you, and it
>is not a "realistic" model. But, there is no proof
>that mechanical models are necessarily "realistic"
>either. Isn't that just your personal dogma which
>you can't prove?
O'Barr comments:
Math is not an enemy. But any math that starts
with a physical base, or can be interpreted in a
physical way, has an advantage over a math that
cannot be put into a physical interpretation.
Physical interpretation leads to causes and effects.
It provides to us, in fact, a whole set of principles
and relationships that are found to be important, and
brings with it a greater certainly that there is
something fundamental to the approach being used.
O'Barr wrote:
>> And we must know that some models are better than
>>others.
Reany wrote:
>By what standard?
O'Barr comments:
Like a philosopher, I could list a few. But the
real problem, as has already been said in this post
and in others, it depends on each situation. Each
model has to be compared with its competition. It is
almost never a question as to if some theory reaching
up to some standard. We will take a theory that is
only half right, if that is the best we have! So the
decision is, which is the best theory, not which one
reaches some pre-ordained level! Don't you
understand this? To set a standard, before you know
the choices, is not wise. It is a waste of time!
In comparing theories, it is usually easy to tell
which theory is the most correct, the most realistic,
the most reasonable, the most likely of being what
reality is really doing. Only when religion enters
into things do these things become muddled, as it is
today with SR.
O'Barr wrote:
>> If all we have is a math model, then we know that
>> such a model is not reliable, not always helpful,
>> in helping us to understand the reality being
>> modeled.
Reany wrote:
>To you, to "understand the reality" is uniquely in
>terms of mechanical models, but that is a pure
>dogma.
O'Barr comments:
I think you have not gone over in your mind what
additional relationships are available to a physicist
when you have a physical model to go along with your
math. The physical model establishes control of your
math. It defines your math. It establishes limits
to your math. If it is the correct physical base, it
will do all these things. LET does this exactly with
SR, and this is all needed and cannot be walked away
from. And none of this mentions the power that comes
with the physical relationships themselves. They
also bring with them certain requirements and
expectations. And if all these things come into
evidence, then the strength of the theory become
overwhelming.
O'Barr wrote:
>> But where we have a physical model, upon which to
>> build, we know this often makes things easier.
Reany wrote:
>Easier does not equal more real.
O'Barr comments:
It depends on the model. And for LET, it sure
makes it more real. And it makes it more real in a
multitude of ways. And I have mentioned a few of the
more important ways. Would you like for me to start
listing them again?
O'Barr wrote:
>> However, we also know that physical models are
>> almost always a simplification of the reality
>> being represented.
Reany wrote:
> What do you mean by "reality"?
O'Barr comments:
Come on, Reany. This is now starting all over.
The very first statement made in this post was:
'Obviously there really are real objects.' And you
agreed with this. So 'reality' is simply the sum of
all these real objects.
Now I am sure, Reany, that you felt good when you
agreed with so many of my early statements. And you
will feel just as good to agree with every statement
made in this post. You would feel even better if you
would begin to support me in my efforts to improve SR
by adding LET to it (putting the flesh upon the
math.) This is going to happen. It has to happen.
And why not do it now, rather than wait until we are
forced to do it!
Thanks for reading.
xxein
xxein: ""brain tells you," but you don't have an epistemology until
you have a
specific standard of knowledge by which your knowledge claims are
decidable or not. Any moron can declare: "My brain, reacting to
sensory experiences, says it, that settles it as true!" And a moron
you'd have to be to accept that as an epistemology."
A prose: "I think that everybody that cannot understand things as I
understand them should be put to death. They seem to have no reason
to exist except to cause confusion in my brain. I have an
epistemology based on what I like in my brain and the people that put
that there should be revered.
"I refuse to think otherwise because I don't have to. I am quite
satisfied that we have the universe under control. Or soon will have
if we continue the way I want to. But we still have a lot to learn -
not that we learned wrong.
"It is you people, that deny our thoughts of how things are supposed
to be, who are the problem. You just won't let science progress. You
always seem to want to throw a monkey wrench into the works.
"We know practically nothing for sure and yet you want to screw that
up."
I think I summed up your toto.
Epistemology is a sand sculpture on the beach with little knowledge of
high tide.
Continue playing, little boy. Why don't you pile some sand to look
like an authorative figure? Or maybe a whole lot of sand to look like
Einstein? You've got 6 to 8 hours left to build an immortal
structure. And you're actually trying to do it!
Now, if we could only get everybody on Earth to view it --- oops, to
late. Maybe tomorrow, eh?
No regrets,
the universe